*blushing* (correction post)
*laughing & blushing* Sorry for the cliff-hanger! LJ kept doing funny stuff with my post, & then work applied it’s ‘10am sharp’ block ~ so all I could do was see the comments come in with no ability to log on. Right, here’s the full story:
Yesterday was not a good day... :-(
Catching up with emails last Monday at work , I was greeted by this email from the cat shelter I’m currently focused on:
Hi,
Gemma (this the foster carer of one of the cats I visited) said that you were looking at lots of cats so I don't think it will be worth my while in visiting you if you are going to take a cat from somewhere else.
I was somewhat bewildered. Was it just me, or had I just been snubbed? Was I expected to show loyalty to one cattery alone? I felt a bit like I’d joined a dating site and received an email from them after two months stating, well, hey, if you haven’t picked a boyfriend from us in this time then you’re clearly not really interested & we’re deleting your account. Woooooo!?
But I attempted to respond with patience. And this - the first occasion - it uprighted itself: she responded reason for her email was that she had very little time to give so would I be ok to pick a cat first, & then she’ll come & do a home visit? Sure, I replied. At that point thinking (generously, as you do) that it was just a misunderstanding.
~ Since then I’ve done two home visits of cats - one in Pimlico, the other in Kentish town - before the kitten-emergency paused all progress. I’ve also battled through torrential rain to Battersea ( which turned out to be quite a distance from nearest tube & a two-security-gate-enforced bastion looking worryingly set as if about to take on a riot of animal haters?) to sign up with them. But that’s an aside: my focus has been with Paws for Life & to get a cat from them primarily.
I’ve also strained to keep an optimistic tone in all my emails to this woman, since I was possibly trying her patience a bit with wanting to visit the cats first (*feeling slightly wary myself: recalling well the email-battle I had with Mayhew 3 years ago in order to get Happy).
So this week she sent an email suggesting a number of cats. ‘Cool’, I thought, ‘but I’d be a bit more specific to get the right cat’, so I wrote back that I may have a child in the future or / and a second cat, so perhaps some of these cats would fall out naturally as not suitable for those scenarios?
Upon which I got the following response:
‘I think if you are thinking of having a baby in the near future then it would probably be best not to have a cat. I can't imagine that there would be many quite places on a narrow boat that a cat could hide in if it needed to get away from the noise of the baby. A lot of the rescue cats we get have been through a lot and I don't think that they would be able to cope.’
… when I got that air just went out of me & for once I did something I rarely do: I left the fight.
I wrote to her I withdrew my application. I just can't deal anymore with shelters treating my openess as an instant opportunity to turn me down. Yesterday it really felt that to get a cat from the shelters I’d be better off a/ lying and b/ keep my mouth shut on everything. So yesterday ended on a depressed note…
On good side at least, Stefy ( thank God for her!) has invited me to a pool, sauna, yoga session followed by dinner tonight. I’ve been looking forward to it all week & now... I really need it. :-/