The Cat
I arrive home from the coffee shop around 12:30am tonight. The wind was blowing strong enough that I had to lean against it while walking from the shop to the house and back again. For some reason, the coffee shop doesn't have curbside recycling pick-up, so the recycling doesn't move from the shop unless one of the owners or I bring it home. Since I started working there, it's mostly me. The story is the same for washing the dirty towels. Tonight, I brought home an 18-inch stack of newspapers, a medium garbage bag of plastic bottles and cans, and a similar-sized bag of moldy-smelling towels. During one of my trips from the car to the shop, I found the cat in a yogurt box from the coffee shop.
The cat discovered us on Thursday. More specifically, the cat discovered Ben. In Ben's retelling, it followed him everywhere: exploring his toolbox, curling up in his truck cab, weaving between his feet as he walked, and literally crawling up him and perching on his shoulder as he examined the truck engine. He laughed as he told about it, adding that he laughed at it followed him too. It's always wonderful to see him so happy.
It has only one eye, he had said. It's not exactly missing; it's just glossed over with white.
Mom first saw the cat sometime on Saturday. She fed it then. "Only at the shop though," she asserted in her defense. "Plus, it's not a cat at all. It's a kitten." We've had many strays around here, but we've always been warned never to give them attention. In fact, we trained Maggie to chase them out of our yard. Toby also picked up the habit. So, above all, under no circumstance, have we ever to consider feeding a feline.
She put milk and dog food into a little Tupperware dish and microwave it until the hard dog food was a bit soft, making sure the milk wasn't too hot before serving it.
I'm allergic to cats. Adam's allergic to cats. Dad's allergic to cats. Ben announced today that he thinks he's allergic too. Although we considered taking in a stray to kill mice in the shop when we first moved here, Dad's allergic reactions to a cat that hid out in the shop for a week convinced him that the idea was out of the question. It would be even more so once we insulated the shop. He has been in the process of during that during the last two weeks.
During the day, I washed the outside windows, dumped frosted annuals out of the pots, and swept the deck and porch. Toby and Maggie spent the day out with me. The cat accompanied us. It hid more of the time on the front, driver-side tire of Adam's parked car. Toby would bark hysterically every time he found where it was at and every time he thought he had found where it was at. One misadventure result in him getting his tail stuck to his body in a tight curl of burrs. The cat had been thirty yards away the whole time.
Tonight, as the cat peered at me from the cardboard box with its bad eye wide open and its good eye half shut, I was greatly tempted to schedule a veterinarian appointment for it. I still am... a little... as financially and medically foolish at it might be. Instead, I went up to the house, found a pink-and-white-striped towel in the rag cupboard, and tucked it in for a warmer night in the shop.
The cat discovered us on Thursday. More specifically, the cat discovered Ben. In Ben's retelling, it followed him everywhere: exploring his toolbox, curling up in his truck cab, weaving between his feet as he walked, and literally crawling up him and perching on his shoulder as he examined the truck engine. He laughed as he told about it, adding that he laughed at it followed him too. It's always wonderful to see him so happy.
It has only one eye, he had said. It's not exactly missing; it's just glossed over with white.
Mom first saw the cat sometime on Saturday. She fed it then. "Only at the shop though," she asserted in her defense. "Plus, it's not a cat at all. It's a kitten." We've had many strays around here, but we've always been warned never to give them attention. In fact, we trained Maggie to chase them out of our yard. Toby also picked up the habit. So, above all, under no circumstance, have we ever to consider feeding a feline.
She put milk and dog food into a little Tupperware dish and microwave it until the hard dog food was a bit soft, making sure the milk wasn't too hot before serving it.
I'm allergic to cats. Adam's allergic to cats. Dad's allergic to cats. Ben announced today that he thinks he's allergic too. Although we considered taking in a stray to kill mice in the shop when we first moved here, Dad's allergic reactions to a cat that hid out in the shop for a week convinced him that the idea was out of the question. It would be even more so once we insulated the shop. He has been in the process of during that during the last two weeks.
During the day, I washed the outside windows, dumped frosted annuals out of the pots, and swept the deck and porch. Toby and Maggie spent the day out with me. The cat accompanied us. It hid more of the time on the front, driver-side tire of Adam's parked car. Toby would bark hysterically every time he found where it was at and every time he thought he had found where it was at. One misadventure result in him getting his tail stuck to his body in a tight curl of burrs. The cat had been thirty yards away the whole time.
Tonight, as the cat peered at me from the cardboard box with its bad eye wide open and its good eye half shut, I was greatly tempted to schedule a veterinarian appointment for it. I still am... a little... as financially and medically foolish at it might be. Instead, I went up to the house, found a pink-and-white-striped towel in the rag cupboard, and tucked it in for a warmer night in the shop.