Simplicity had her annual shots today. This makes her an estimated three years old this month - based on our guess of "about a year old" on her first appearance on our back patio. Now that I see how she looks as a "grown" cat, however, I think she is probably a good deal younger. Can she have been only 6 months and have had a litter of kittens, when we gave her that first taste of the heavenly sliced ham? She was so tiny, then. It wasn't just the starvation thing going on.
This time, I didn't want to take her to the vet's in that cardboard box from Petsmart, so I finally got around to trying out the harness and tether I'd got for her several months ago.
It went okay. She hated it, but I don't know that she hated it any more than the box. She explored, rather frantically. She found that she had just enough leash to get around the back of the driver's seat and halfway up the fabric wall to my shoulder - but not enough to then claw her way into my lap, which is really just as well. She looked out the window. She decided the view was too alarming, and sprawled on the middle row of seating. I did pat the passenger seat beside me and convince her to come forward and leap up - but no, that was clearly not for her! Back behind me she went. Too much window in the front, I think.
Here's the thing: She trusts me. She was scared, and she was crying, but I'd talk to her and she'd quiet down. When I could stop and look back at her, she was always looking right at me. I think she sits there and stares at the side of my head, and just waits to see my eyes so she knows we're okay.
At the vet's (LOVELY doctor, whose name I've forgotten again - Critter Fixers in Bonaire) it was much the same as the last time. She was fine as long as my hand was on her shoulders. Then they took her into the back (this time, for ear mite drops, ewww!), and when she came back out, she looked like a tasmanian devil, all legs, all claws, all flying fur and teeth... and then I put my hand on her shoulders, and she was fine again.
The look she gives me, completely direct gaze, almost a searching gaze as she seems to actually look into my eyes for something... I've seen it once before. Amber: the kitten Mom got for me and Sarah when we lived on Alcina. Amber wouldn't go have her kittens without me. I was sitting on the toilet, and she ran out of her bed and lay down on the bathroom floor and started to have her first kitten. I had to pick her AND the stupid halfway-kitten up and run back to the bed under the desk. Amber trusted me. Simplicity, for some unknown reason, trusts me.
She has her territory. She is not going to like moving to Florida. But the key landmarks of her territory... appear to be us. So she should be okay.
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About Me
- bekbek
- Mid-adventure, you find me in the process of escaping the dubious charms of middle Georgia. My city -Toronto- seems astonishingly close in my new neighborhood near Dunedin, Florida, where the Blue Jays play their spring training games and a slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie can be had at the local diner. If I stand facing North, I imagine I can still just hear the squeal of a streetcar's wheels and smell crispy veal and tomato sauce at Bitondo's hhhmmmm... But here in my new home, there is salt water a few blocks away, there is sand and little tiny lizards and water that goes on and on and on, and there may even be a few veal sandwiches to be found if one tries to find them on any day but Monday. The round world beckons... but I am content, for now.
1 comment:
When my dog goes to the vet she actually spends the rest of the day shaking and hiding under furniture. When she had her tumor taken out, she didn't get back to normal for a couple of weeks even!
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