New Cast Introductions (and Goodbyes) Part 3

D.J. Kitty, ostensibly the runt, has turned out to be the more intelligent of the two kittens. He’s definitely the more demanding one when it comes to his food supply and is given to meowing loudly from just out of reach at 4 a.m. when he decides it’s time for breakfast. He is also known for clawing the shit out of you if you don’t prepare his morning bowl of canned food as quickly as he desires. (This has led to many a morning when he only receives dry food and is lucky it isn’t thrown at him.) When not clawing us, his other favorite tactic is to locate the most fragile and/or valuable thing one of us (*cough*cough*cough*THEWIFE*COUGH*) has unwisely left on the table where we feed them, say a cell phone or stethoscope, and knocking it off to the hard floor below. We’ve therefore had to adjust our habits of where we put things upon coming home. When D.J.’s not being an absolute bitch, though, he’s a very loving cat. And he adores Moose, to the point that we sometimes catch them napping together.

Emmett, on the other hand, is the Matthew McConaughey of cats, meaning he looks very pretty and very stoned most of the time. He’s not terribly intelligent, but probably only has a dusting of the “re re,” so he’s not a total lost cause in the brains department. He’s much more prone to just quietly taking life as it comes. And while he's definitely interested in food—in fact, we had to switch to weight control cat food cause he was becoming quite the fatty for a while there— he's not so interested that he’d cause anyone physical harm to get hold of some, or even meow. In fact, I can't recall the last time I heard him meow.

It took us a while to bond with the cats, probably because they drove us nuts most of the time. With the brief exception of Milo Soulpatch, we've only had female cats and the ones we've had weren't known for just tearing the hell out of our house like these two ass clowns. Though they've settled down a bit now, there were a couple months there when they just flew through the house knocking shit over at all hours of the day and night. There was some mutual training that had to be done in this. They trained us to notice that whenever they were tearing through the house, knocking shit over or clawing at the flatscreen, it was there way of getting our attention because they WANTED to go out. And we had to train them that when they knock a bedside lamp onto our head in the middle of the night, we are apt to try and strangle them, or at least hurl a pillow at them. (And by "we" I mean me, as the wife never seems to be on the receiving end of their antics.) D.J. now limits his sleep interruptions to meowing in the night in the hope of being let out or being fed. (The little shit does not suffer for lack of food, by the way, he’s just a complete bitch.)

We recently returned from another family trip to Florida. We rented the same house from last year and met up with most of the same crew of the wife’s family from last year as well as a niece and nephew who weren’t able to come before. This year, we included my sister and my parents, since the house was plenty big enough for all of us. We took our dogs with us on the journey, but left the cats behind at the “kitty spa,” which is what we call vet-boarding. A great time was had by all.

We returned on a Sunday, so we knew we would have to wait until the following morning before we could pick the kitties up from the vet. It was kind of sobering to return home knowing the new cats were safe and sound at the “spa” and that we would still have Avie in our lives now if we’d only decided to board her last year.

As the wife and I settled into bed on the night of our return, we were startled by the sound of a cat meowing from outside. It sounded as though it was very near our bedroom window. Both of us had the exact same thought at the same time and rushed to the back door, silently hoping that our cat had chosen an ironic or at least very synchronous time to return. What a tremendous story that would be that Avie returned to us nearly a year to the day from her disappearance. We both called her name repeatedly, but she didn’t appear and we never saw the cat that made the sound. Probably just one of the neighborhood cats.

We still wonder about Avie and her whereabouts. And whenever we’re in Ruby's neighborhood, we always keep our eyes peeled just in case we see her. We like to think that she was adopted by a nice old lady and that at any given moment Avie is napping peacefully on her lap. It breaks our heart whenever we see any sort of stray cat, for fear that Avie is among their number now.

Today I stopped by the animal shelter to have a look around, for old times sake. No Avie to be found. Not even a cat that looked remotely like her. The shelter has long since taken down her wanted poster, though to their credit they left it up for many months longer than any of the other posters, probably due to my near daily presence.

I guess maybe it's time we officially said goodbye to her and stopped hoping for her return. I doubt either of us could manage to do it, though.