Cat tales

“A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays”

Author unknown, proverb attrib. to England

The sign on the door beckoned me in. “Every day is Cat Adoption Day!”

“Cats?”, I asked. The two women employees sweeping out the store’s grooming stations cheerily welcomed me and directed me to their charge, a black-and-white male cat in back of the little shop. A placard said there were two cats available for adoption, but “Jack” was solo in the kitty condo that evening.

This is the sort of window shopping I do when I am mentally exhausted from the days events – and I doubled back on the way home because of a favor I promised my missus the prior morning to take her jacket to the dry-cleaner. I had no more intended to walk into a pet store than I had to almost walk into the nail salon with the jacket (the drycleaner separated the two shops). I was tired and distracted. There would be no harm in having a look at the adoptable critters.

Quite honestly, every time I drop Dexter and Comet at the groomers, I marvel that the dog clients and the groomers’ cats are so ‘chill’ together. While I have written about the dogs I have shared my adult life with, I have not written all that often about the cats that have arrived over the years as foundlings and strays, or have acquired when I bought my home, or were placed in my care when my late mother got to ill to care for. While I do not claim to believe either in reincarnation nor a cat having nine lives, there have been other strays and cats taken in, with the same ‘tude or look – over the last forty years.

Of course, I know nothing of “Jack” except approximate age, but I do not expect this cat to have a similar timeline as the dog in “A Dog’s Purpose”. The first black n white cat was a mean little scoundrel, more feral than feline, that scarred my twelve-year old face one afternoon. I picked him up and Wham! I still see the line under my eye, when shaving, to this day. That ill-tempered cat came out on the losing end of a cat – or raccon – fight some months later. Some years later, my late mother took in Fergus, a black n white that always welcomed me when I visited. And a short while after that cat died, we purchased a home near San Diego – that came with Felix, a black n white male cat. Now that Felix has been gone about five years -he’s buried on the hill overlooking our yard – I am not opposed to a ninth life walking through the doggie door.