Learning to Listen

Some cats are pretty quiet, only making sounds when they are hungry, hurt, or angry. Jasmine, our dearly departed Abyssinian, had a very soft, hoarse meow sound which she made if she was hungry. The sound was so soft that sometimes she would open her mouth and nothing could be heard, though you knew she was trying. Another of our cats had a special sound she would make when she had caught something and was carrying it home to present it to us as a trophy. It was a rather muffled mew sound that escaped around the edges of whatever she might have in her mouth. That cat's name was Muss. We didn't name her, she was a hand-me-down cat from my sister-in-law. Muss had some quirks, oh yes, she had some quirks. One of them was that she liked to hunt, kill and bring home socks from our neighbor's clothesline. She would march proudly into the kitchen with her dead sock trophy in her mouth, all the while making the muffled mewing sound. She was very proud, and we were embarrassed. We would retrieve the poor dead socks and hang them over the fence between the backyards so that our neighbors could match them up with their missing mates. One year, we gave our neighbors a bag of clothes pins for Christmas. The number of their sock losses declined drastically once they started using them. I'm not sure that this explains where all the missing socks go, but it certainly explains a whole lot of the ones in Hollywood for several years.

Quint is the most talkative cat we've every had, and has the ability to produce quite a broad spectrum of sounds. He makes a sort of warbling chirp, very bird-like, that means "Hi, I'm here. What are you doing?" There's an annoyed sort of loud ROOWWWRRR that means "Hey!! Come here! There's something outside you should see!" Then there is the MEOW? with the question mark ending that says "Is it time to play?" Of course, there is the MEOW! with the exclamation point that means "Feed me now!" There is also the long plaintive Meeeoooowwww! which can mean "Okay, enough is enough, can you please play with me!" or just "Will someone please pay attention to me now?" It's his very own language and he combines the various sounds into what I would have to call sentences, short sentences, granted, but still definite intentional sentences which we try very hard to understand. He made one statement just a moment ago which I interpreted to mean, "Hey, Carol's trimming the plants outside the dining room window, could you ask her to come in and pet me?" To which I replied, "I know, I know, I waiting for her, too. We'll just have to be patient." I'm almost certain I got that one right. Some others we have to guess at.

Homecoming

In April of 2007, our Abyssinian cat, Jasmine, was diagnosed with Diabetes. By the time we became aware of her condition, the damage had been done and it was too late to save her. I was devastated by her loss. I feel it to this day. It took a long time for me to even consider adopting another cat. Carol, my wife, is a bit more resilient than I and, after a few months, she began exploring with me the possibility of acquiring a new kitten. About a year had passed since Jasmine's demise before I began to feel more amenable to the idea, though I was in no way enthusiastic about it. I do love my wife, though, and will do almost anything to make her happy. So, if she had her heart set on adopting a cat, I knew that I would eventually agree. It wasn't long thereafter that we decided it might be time to begin exploring the possibility. Thus were let loose the hands of fate. We didn't know it yet, but there was a kitten on it's way into our home and our hearts.

Carol let it be know among friends and associates at her workplace that we might be in the market for a cat or kitten. Once you put an idea like that out into the universe, there is really no stopping it. One of her friends had an aunt who had a friend who had a cat to give away. The problem with that one was that the cat was currently living in Riverside, which is pretty far away. I suggested that perhaps we should look a bit closer to home, while keeping the Riverside cat as an option. Carol kept talking to people and the Riverside cat found someone else to adopt him.

Meanwhile, Leticia, or, Letty, as she likes to be called, was still seeking a home for the poor homeless kitten living in the abandoned house next door. Now, Letty has a boyfriend named Evan. Evan's mother is named Valerie. And Valerie is one of my wife, Carol's co-workers. You probably see where this is going by now. Valerie is also part of our extended family. She and Carol occasionally meet for lunch or go for a walk over the noon hour. On one of those occasions, the subject of cats came up and, as a result, Carol received some pictures of a small kitten in her e-mail. Of course, Carol had to share the story of this kitten with me and I agreed to look at the pictures. A few snapshots of a small grey and white cat arrived in my in-box. He looked perfect to me, so we set up a meeting with Letty, Evan and the kitty to see if we all got along. Letty wanted to make sure the kitten was going to a good home. Carol and I wanted to see how he would react to us and our house.

Letty and Evan arrived at our home on a Saturday morning carrying the little grey and white kitten. Carol and I introduced ourselves to Letty, we had already met Evan, and, after all the greetings were exchanged, we all sat down around the dining room table. Letty set the kitten down on the floor and he immediately jumped up onto the bookshelf that sits under the dining room window. We had always put a towel on the top of that bookshelf for Jasmine to sit on when she jumped up there to look out the window. In preparation for the new kitten's visit we had, once again, put the towel on the bookshelf. And there he was, the new kitten, previously an unknown quantity, never having been in our house before, sitting on that towel in that window. He looked around a moment and lay down facing the dining room so that he could watch us all. That was the moment that we all knew that this particular kitten had found his new home, and that a new adventure had begun for he and I and Carol.