I had thought to wait for 3 or 4 months to let the feeling of loss fade, from losing Kassie, but the other cat, a "round head" Siamese named Bella, that had been "joined to the hip" with her since before I got her, seems to just be lost without her. Last week, I stopped by the local Humane Society and Petco, to see what they had to offer, but didn't see any cats or kittens that were intriguing, and then I remembered the web site through which I had found Kassie and Bella: http://www.petfinders.com After prowling through 10 pages of ads, I found a 2 year old cat, who had been living on the street, and, literally, sleeping beside the freeway, for a year before someone stopped and picked her up and took her to a shelter.
On Saturday, I made an 80 mile trip to see her and spend a little time with her, but as I sat with her, giving her pats and scratching her chin and talking with the ladies who had been fostering her, I was enveloped, once again, by kind of an "empty" feeling, and sadness, so, after 45 minutes, I left. On the way home, I examined my feelings, which told me that I was leaving behind a special little cat, but I felt that I had made the right decision, and didn't have to worry about her being "put down", since they are a no-kill shelter. Someone is going to wind up with a very nice little cat, who is going to provide years of love. But I also came to the conclusion that I didn't really want to wait for another 3 months to go by; watching Bella prowl through the house every morning, looking for Kassie, and the fact that I find myself straining for a glimpse of her, has pretty well convinced me that we need to find another housemate. So, back to Petfinders, and I found another cat in Seattle, a 4 year old Calico/Ragdoll mix, who is very appealing, and this shelter is obviously intent on finding her a good home!
I contacted them, and on Sunday I received a 3 page application from them, which had to be filled in and filed for approval before I can even see her. I found this to be reassuring, but it took me almost 1/2 hour to fill out the form. On Wednesday, they called to tell me that they had approved the application, and that I should come on up and meet "Willow", and Kate, the lady from the shelter.
Thursday morning, I drove up to Seattle and picked up my friend, Michelline, who was responsible for helping me find my last 3 cats, and we drove over to the shelter. It breaks my heart to see an animal that is so shy, and so scared. She seemed very sweet, but after spending almost 1/2 hour, watching her crouched back in a corner of the office, and not even being able to tempt her out of it with chicken treats, Mick & I left the office, and Kate, who was her “foster-mom”, snagged her and put her on her lap, and Mick and I went back in. She’d let me scratch her under her chin and between her ears, and she was purring, but I was pretty sure that she wasn’t the cat for me, and Mick got the same feeling, but I did set up an appointment for Kate to come down and check out the house for approval, just in case I changed my mind. Mick and I talked about it, and I took her home, and then stopped by Petco to look at another cat that I had seen on petfinders, but when I talked to the people, they told me that she was not real friendly toward other cats, so I didn’t even bother with trying to get acquainted with her.
Kate and another “care giver” showed up at 7, and I “passed the audition”, but by Friday morning, I had gone over a lot of stuff in my head, and remembered that, with each of my past cats, I had felt an immediate “connection” with them, and that there had been no doubts about whether or not they were the “right” cat. So, I wound up calling Kate and talking to her, and telling her how I felt, but also how impressed I was with their organization’s care for placing animals, and asked her to keep my application on file, so that if I find another animal on their web site, I wont have to go through all the hassle, again. She assured me that that wouldn’t be a problem. . . The search continues!
OK, for the musical "treat of the week", I'm providing 2 links to the same song called, "Buster Voodoo" by a couple of Mexican "kids" that I became aware of, about 4 or 5 years ago, who bill themselves as, "Rodrigo y Gabriela", and they are amazing! The first link has better sound, but is just some pics of them; the second is a live performance of theirs on the Craig Kilborn show, back in 2009:
http://tinyurl.com/bm6vd4v
http://tinyurl.com/d6b93cx
Summer is now underway, and I spent a few hours this last week, working around the deck and wood shed, assessing what upkeep I need to tackle this summer, and found that I cannot avoid having to rebuild part of the bulkhead behind the wood shed. . . groan(!). . . and that I need to tear down and replace a couple of beams, and part of the deck. That wasn't a surprise; that's just part of living on the water and I've been putting it off for a couple of years. But this is going to be labor intensive, so I've pretty well decided that I'm going to cut back on posting here, to every couple of weeks, until the summer work is done.
So, until next time. . .
