It is one of the great tragedies of Katr's life that I am deathly allergic to cats. She LOVES cats and, as I may have mentioned here before but am not sure because Typepad's search function blows and I can't find the posts I'm thinking of, we have a pact: if Katr ever wants a divorce, all she has to do is bring home a cat and I'll know it's time to get out.
Every few years, when news breaks of a vaccine that can make cats hypoallergenic or an injection that makes humans not allergic to cats, I promise Katr that as soon as this technology stops giving 4 out of 5 rats the cancer, I will be the first in line.
In the meantime, most of my cat experiences take place with the various outdoor neighbourhood cats who are wiley enough to evade the neighbourhood coyotes. And most of my outdoor neighbourhood time also involves our dog.
Usually, when I walk the dog and see a cat on the sidewalk up ahead, I don't worry about it - generally, the cat sees us and ducks into a yard or behind a bush or similar, because they don't wanna get into it with my dog.
So I don't know what was going on with the cats in the neighbourhood this summer, but they seemed to have run out of fucks to give. They were OUT and ABOUT and if you were on THEIR SIDEWALK, they let you know about it. Sometimes they just stood their ground. Other times, they would take a few steps towards us like "TRY IT." Effie and I started crossing the street every time we saw a cat, just to avoid a catfrontation.
One morning, we crossed the street to avoid a cat, only to see another cat up ahead. But this cat was on some porch stairs, well away from the sidewalk, so I figured we were safe. As I walked by the house and looked again, the cat was gone. Huh. Then, about ten feet away from the stairs, we passed a bush and the cat SHOT OUT AT US and I swear, it made a noise like "HA!"
This isn't actual footage of the attack, but this is how it felt:
As most of you know, I would not describe myself as a "runner" but I fuckin' ran for a full block while screaming and dragging my terrified pooch behind me. And this cat's intimidation tactic worked; I haven't walked down the east side of Glen between 11th and 10th since.
This morning, Effie and I were out for our morning constitutional and saw a little cat running down the sidewalk across the street. Effie was riveted. The cat kept seeing us and pausing to go full cat back before resuming its trot. I seriously thought about altering our entire walk trajectory just to avoid it. But it disappeared after half a block, so I figured we were cool.
Later today, sans dog, I was walking home from the post office and saw the little cat again. And she was just as sweet as pie. She came right up to me and booffed my legs, before launching into vicious attack mode:
Awwwwww.
I told Katr about it when I got in and she was like "And you didn't bring it hoooooooome? [saddest face in all the land]" And then I made a "Well, I brought ONE pussy home" joke and ruined it.
In other news, this was the cutest thing on Twitter today and possibly ever.
Still not sure how this could be, but I found both an abandoned kitten and, independently, an abandoned puppy on Halloween. They are now bonded, and abandoned no more. pic.twitter.com/FoX8VfYBBf
— Shannon Minter (@shannonminter5) November 4, 2019
