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Sometime in the wee hours before dawn, brought on by the vagaries of travel, I had a gastric incident. Waking abruptly in a dark and unfamiliar house, getting one's body, stiffened from prolonged airline seat confinement, up off the floor, finding the door in the dark without waking one's roommate, finding the bathroom door, and the light switch, and getting the door shut behind me without waking my hosts was accomplished, but not in time. I cleaned up the mess as well as I could, and then remembered that my suitcase, and clean underwear, was beyond Nilly's bed. There was no way to get to it in the dark without waking her. So I yanked down the tail of my very oversized sleeping t-shirt and went back to bed. In the morning, while Nilly was out of the room, I retrieved my bag and put it where I could access it without bothering her.
Dressed, I went off to the kitchen to see people, find coffee, learn plans. There was some sort of murmuring outside, and then Ginger and Deb came in the front door. Ginger came down the hall into the kitchen, looking rather hollow-eyed and pale, her hands dripping blood. Deb followed her shortly, after speaking with Nic. Ginger was staying with the downstairs neighbor, Jeannie, who has three cats of her own. One of whom, Sebastian, is a 12-year-old mellow sweetheart indoors. He was a pet-shop kitten, and has no dark sordid history. So it is a complete puzzle why, then, he wants so desperately to get outside whenever a door is open. But as Ginger had found out, he turns into a Tazmanian Devil Kitty once he reaches the outside; quite simply, he freaks, and will NOT be caught. She'd broken a veneer on a front tooth and was preoccupied as she left Jeannie's, and Sebastian had taken advantage and escaped. He'd run to the back of the house, she followed him as he ran back to Jeannie's door and thought she'd shoo him back inside. He went beserk. Deb and Nic went out to try and herd him back inside, after mentioning that he'd once put Jeannie in the hospital when she tried to catch him during a previous escape.
Deb had left antibacterial ointment and bandaids, which I applied on Ginger's wounds. A glance at her face showed the adrenaline was all but spent. I found filters, mug, coffee, and was figuring out how to work the burner on the gas stove when Deb came through and told me to turn it down so the ignition would stop snapping. I've only dealt with the sort of burners that don't have ignition, or the ancient ones you had to light with a match, so I doubt I'd have figured out what the snapping noise was. Coffee was eventually made and drunk, and Ginger began to look more herself. Sail came in, and NoiseDesign, who had slept on the sofa, began to stir, so I made more coffee (this was a one-mug Melitta filter, so it took little time to boil enough water to make a mug) while we explained the situation. Meanwhile, we could hear Deb alternately cajoling and scolding, Nic's voice from time to time, various ominous thumps and scraping sounds, and through it all, Sebastian kept up a steady scream of invective and profanity. It sounded like hell's own catamount beset by a cadre of lesser demons.
After nearly an hour and a half, the demise of two brooms and the use of the hose, Nic and Deb managed to get Sebastian up onto the landing of Jeannie's sunporch. Deb ran in Jeannie's front door to make sure the door to the rest of the house was closed and the other cats on this side of it, then ran back out to open the outside door and shoo Sebastian into solitary confinement to cool down. I think after a day or two, he and Ginger may have reached detente. But it was an exciting start to Friday!
There was an excursion to get nails done, which I passed on. I was pleased just to tidy up my suitcase and make sure I could find things, read a bit, and have another cup of coffee. People wandered in and out, and desultory conversations were fun. Katie, Nicole and Deena arrived a bit ahead of schedule, so I got to meet Katie and Deena before Nicole, Deb and I left to meet Nic for dinner and to feed the southcats—the feral colony that the Grabiens have taken as their responsibility. We walked to the bus stop, and rode the hilly San Francisco streets—my first real exposure to downtown, Deb pointing out landmarks, our three-way conversation ranging wide and far. We had focused on writing and writers—published and unpublished—by the time we reached the second bus. We grabbed lattes for the train ride, and sped off into a sunset sky and lowering dusk, chattering like the oldest of friends. It was almost dark by the time we met Nic, and decided where to have dinner. The conversation continued unabated. The chicken pot pie was yummy, and so enormous I couldn't finish it. Fortified, we were off to the weedy patch beneath an overpass, a street's width from a rail track, amid a welter of warehouses, where this colony of unsocialized feral cats exists, in defiance of man's and nature's laws.
Shy, hesitant, but drawn by custom and hunger, they emerged like shadows and flitted from scant cover to open ground, drawn like heat-seekers to the food Nic and Deb set out in reusable plastic dishes. Scarface and Lilac, the Buttons, the long-leggety Cami, a dilute calico tamed by the Grabiens' homeless friend, John, and the gorgeous classic sealpoint Siamese tom with slightly crossed blue eyes, the baby Siamese, and the others whose names I can't remember. The names are just the Grabiens' way of keeping track, the cats themselves don't acknowledge them. Seeing them so fearful and wary, I just wanted to scoop up all of them, and all the ones I didn't see, all the ones from Columbus to Delhi, from Delphi to Minsk, from Hamburg to Rouen, scoop them up and take them home and let them know someone loves them. Let them sleep indoors and safe from cars and raccoons and vicious people and mean dogs and larger cats, and always have clean water and a dry place to sleep and enough food.
But I know from socializing my own rescued feral how long it takes for them to find comfort in safety, and how short their lives fall of normal, no matter how kindly a situation they find themselves in. It would do them no service, and only confuse and upset them. No, what the Grabiens are doing is the best mere humans can do. So I had to watch the Buttons fade off into the night, slip beneath the chain-link fence gate of a nearby warehouse parking lot, and see Deb take a plate of food and slip it under the gate to leave for them, trusting they'd come out to eat when the humans were gone.
And then, when it was apparent that everyone who was in range had come, and fed, and they could do no more for their charges, the Grabiens packed up the plates, gathered the cans for recycling, and we started back toward the house. The road was bumpier than I know was comfortable for Nicole, and I wished the drive shorter to spare her pain. Maybe she'll think twice before jumping out of a perfectly good airplane again! But eventually we dropped her off at her hotel, and made our way to the house.
It was a good day. And a wonderful evening.
Dressed, I went off to the kitchen to see people, find coffee, learn plans. There was some sort of murmuring outside, and then Ginger and Deb came in the front door. Ginger came down the hall into the kitchen, looking rather hollow-eyed and pale, her hands dripping blood. Deb followed her shortly, after speaking with Nic. Ginger was staying with the downstairs neighbor, Jeannie, who has three cats of her own. One of whom, Sebastian, is a 12-year-old mellow sweetheart indoors. He was a pet-shop kitten, and has no dark sordid history. So it is a complete puzzle why, then, he wants so desperately to get outside whenever a door is open. But as Ginger had found out, he turns into a Tazmanian Devil Kitty once he reaches the outside; quite simply, he freaks, and will NOT be caught. She'd broken a veneer on a front tooth and was preoccupied as she left Jeannie's, and Sebastian had taken advantage and escaped. He'd run to the back of the house, she followed him as he ran back to Jeannie's door and thought she'd shoo him back inside. He went beserk. Deb and Nic went out to try and herd him back inside, after mentioning that he'd once put Jeannie in the hospital when she tried to catch him during a previous escape.
Deb had left antibacterial ointment and bandaids, which I applied on Ginger's wounds. A glance at her face showed the adrenaline was all but spent. I found filters, mug, coffee, and was figuring out how to work the burner on the gas stove when Deb came through and told me to turn it down so the ignition would stop snapping. I've only dealt with the sort of burners that don't have ignition, or the ancient ones you had to light with a match, so I doubt I'd have figured out what the snapping noise was. Coffee was eventually made and drunk, and Ginger began to look more herself. Sail came in, and NoiseDesign, who had slept on the sofa, began to stir, so I made more coffee (this was a one-mug Melitta filter, so it took little time to boil enough water to make a mug) while we explained the situation. Meanwhile, we could hear Deb alternately cajoling and scolding, Nic's voice from time to time, various ominous thumps and scraping sounds, and through it all, Sebastian kept up a steady scream of invective and profanity. It sounded like hell's own catamount beset by a cadre of lesser demons.
After nearly an hour and a half, the demise of two brooms and the use of the hose, Nic and Deb managed to get Sebastian up onto the landing of Jeannie's sunporch. Deb ran in Jeannie's front door to make sure the door to the rest of the house was closed and the other cats on this side of it, then ran back out to open the outside door and shoo Sebastian into solitary confinement to cool down. I think after a day or two, he and Ginger may have reached detente. But it was an exciting start to Friday!
There was an excursion to get nails done, which I passed on. I was pleased just to tidy up my suitcase and make sure I could find things, read a bit, and have another cup of coffee. People wandered in and out, and desultory conversations were fun. Katie, Nicole and Deena arrived a bit ahead of schedule, so I got to meet Katie and Deena before Nicole, Deb and I left to meet Nic for dinner and to feed the southcats—the feral colony that the Grabiens have taken as their responsibility. We walked to the bus stop, and rode the hilly San Francisco streets—my first real exposure to downtown, Deb pointing out landmarks, our three-way conversation ranging wide and far. We had focused on writing and writers—published and unpublished—by the time we reached the second bus. We grabbed lattes for the train ride, and sped off into a sunset sky and lowering dusk, chattering like the oldest of friends. It was almost dark by the time we met Nic, and decided where to have dinner. The conversation continued unabated. The chicken pot pie was yummy, and so enormous I couldn't finish it. Fortified, we were off to the weedy patch beneath an overpass, a street's width from a rail track, amid a welter of warehouses, where this colony of unsocialized feral cats exists, in defiance of man's and nature's laws.
Shy, hesitant, but drawn by custom and hunger, they emerged like shadows and flitted from scant cover to open ground, drawn like heat-seekers to the food Nic and Deb set out in reusable plastic dishes. Scarface and Lilac, the Buttons, the long-leggety Cami, a dilute calico tamed by the Grabiens' homeless friend, John, and the gorgeous classic sealpoint Siamese tom with slightly crossed blue eyes, the baby Siamese, and the others whose names I can't remember. The names are just the Grabiens' way of keeping track, the cats themselves don't acknowledge them. Seeing them so fearful and wary, I just wanted to scoop up all of them, and all the ones I didn't see, all the ones from Columbus to Delhi, from Delphi to Minsk, from Hamburg to Rouen, scoop them up and take them home and let them know someone loves them. Let them sleep indoors and safe from cars and raccoons and vicious people and mean dogs and larger cats, and always have clean water and a dry place to sleep and enough food.
But I know from socializing my own rescued feral how long it takes for them to find comfort in safety, and how short their lives fall of normal, no matter how kindly a situation they find themselves in. It would do them no service, and only confuse and upset them. No, what the Grabiens are doing is the best mere humans can do. So I had to watch the Buttons fade off into the night, slip beneath the chain-link fence gate of a nearby warehouse parking lot, and see Deb take a plate of food and slip it under the gate to leave for them, trusting they'd come out to eat when the humans were gone.
And then, when it was apparent that everyone who was in range had come, and fed, and they could do no more for their charges, the Grabiens packed up the plates, gathered the cans for recycling, and we started back toward the house. The road was bumpier than I know was comfortable for Nicole, and I wished the drive shorter to spare her pain. Maybe she'll think twice before jumping out of a perfectly good airplane again! But eventually we dropped her off at her hotel, and made our way to the house.
It was a good day. And a wonderful evening.