As The Menagerie Grows

I have met a few people who have had the attitude, "What's one more?", usually in reference to children, or beer.  I seem to have developed that attitude towards pets.  I'm not sure anymore if I am simply trying to provide a loving home and a responsible environment for the children or if I am, possibly, just defeated.

So, now, in addition to the previous established inhabitants of the Fruitvale Indoor Zoo, we have adopted a 3 year old Ragdoll Cat named Pinkie, which is short for Vienna Royale of course.  We have decided to call her Vienna because Pinkie reminded me of the cartoon Pinky and the Brain and that would be the children's preschool years that we are trying to put behind us.

My Mom received this cat from the donor about six weeks before I drove to Edmonton to get her (the cat, not my Mom; I'm not totally insane).  In that six weeks my Mom saw her a few times, never actually managed to touch her and only knew she was alive, in the house, because she was eating and shitting.

Could have been a rat, says me.

No, she's a different colour, says Mom.

Two days!  It took me two days to find and capture this feral beast, in her basement!  My Mom has stored a lot of stuff over the past 25 years.  The cat had that labyrinth mastered and ran me around it like a puppet.  Don't get me wrong; I was not down there for the whole 48 hours.  There were the breaks I took to swear, scream, drink and tell my Mom that I am going to burn down her house when she moves into the Old Folks' Home rather than pack it.

Why didn't I just leave the cat there?  Because then it would have won and that just can't happen.

Once I cornered her in the back of a storage closet, in the dark, I brought her upstairs to the bathroom where her litter box, food, water and kennel were waiting for her.  She was behaving; lulling me into a false sense of security so that I would lower my defenses and she would be able to kill me.  So, I closed the bathroom door with the two of us inside <Danger, Will Robinson, Danger> and I put her down on the floor to give her the opportunity to eat and, perhaps, use the facilities before we headed home.

She snarled and ran up the door, claws flying like the talons of Satan, across the counter launching knick knacks and Lancome freebies into the toilet, through the litter box knocking extra-absorbent particles into the super shag bath rug.  From the "open concept" linen closet across the room and into a cabinet beneath the sink where she coiled her body around the water pipes and stopped.

It would have been an incredibly entertaining site if I hadn't been cowering in the corner protecting my jugular.

She is I am now safely at home.  Vienna has settled in quite well with the rest of the free-loaders and my tetanus is now up to date.