Adoption Stories

The Arrival of Kiwi (not the fruit or the bird, but the cat)
by Dave Awl

I am thrilled to announce that the open kitten position at my place has been filled, and I am now "staffed up" with two wonderful feline companions.

The backstory: Last summer, my faithful feline companion Dragon Lady passed away. She had been my best friend for nearly fifteen years, brought to me in a cardboard box as a feisty four-week old kitten during my early years in Chicago . The loss was devastating. It took me longer than I expected, nearly a year, before I was ready to contemplate bringing new feline friends into my life.

Then one morning in early May, a flyer appeared in the break room of the company where I was freelancing, with a picture of a beautiful blue kitten who needed a home right away. Almost without knowing what I was doing, I found myself dialing the number. The following week he arrived in my life – a good-natured, talkative acrobat and comedian in blue-grey fur. I named him Barabajagal, after a favorite Donovan song, and quickly gave him the user-friendly nickname "Mr. Blue" for the benefit of the many people in my life who couldn't pronounce or spell Barabajagal.

I knew he'd need a friend, of course. Dragon Lady had been a solitary cat –- by the time I tried to find her a companion she had become so deeply territorial that all attempts to introduce her to other cats failed dramatically. But I knew she'd been lonely sometimes, nonetheless. I was determined not to make the same mistake with Mr. Blue. So the week after he arrived, I began the search for a companion to keep him company during the long hours while I'm at work. Someone to play with once he's had enough of bossing around the two dozen or so fake mousies of various sizes, colors and designs that tremble under his paw.

I made and returned a few phone calls, and checked out some kittens online (and discovered that any kitten whose picture and description is posted online is probably no longer available by the time you see it).

Then came a couple of months of brutal heat and an even more brutal work schedule, the former sapping my energy to do, oh, anything, and the latter depriving me of time to go visit the various litters of adorable kittens that friends kept telling me about.

But it was becoming increasingly clear that fake mousies, organic catnip and even the beloved Crazy Circle were not enough to keep Mr. Blue occupied. His "novelty-seeking behavior" was escalating, if you know what kind of thing I mean by "novelty-seeking behavior," and "escalating," and I think you do. So much trash to knock over and strew around the apartment, so little time! The day he actually figured out how to answer an incoming phone call by hopping up on the desk and hitting the "Speaker" button next to the flashing light with his big blue paw -- well, that was more than enough of a clue that he needed more of a social life than he'd had the last couple of months. (I am NOT making that episode up. Not not not not not.)

So about two weeks ago, I took advantage of some unexpected time off work to get serious about casting Mr. Blue's scene partner. I decided to take my friend Tim's advice and just walk over to the Tree House Cat Adoption Center during Adoption Hours (Wednesday through Sunday, Noon-6pm) and see who I met. I hadn't realized Tree House was so close to me in Andersonville – just a nice ten-minute Sunday stroll.

Visiting Tree House is an amazing experience, and I highly recommend it. I once wrote a story for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind about a man who lived in a house with 365 cats (entitled "Young Person's Guide to Synchronicity" -- it's in my book What the Sea Means). Tree House would give him a run for his money, since the staff tell me that about 300 cats live there currently. After filling out some paperwork you're ushered into a room full of dozens of adoptable cats, and if you're like me, you lose your sense of time and only come to your senses several hours later, with a pile of four sleeping kittens nested in your lap and two others perched on your shoulders like piratical parrots.

I met so many great cats it was really hard to even think about deciding among them, especially knowing that I was potentially choosing a companion for the next two decades of my life. But experience has shown me that the right cat has a way of finding you, rather than the other way around. At Tree House that process is especially easy -- you just sit down and wait for your destiny cat to climb in your lap and beam you the unmistakable message that you have been claimed.

Which is just how it happened. On my second visit to Tree House I had just about made up my mind to adopt a sweet little tabby girl kitten, only to find when I got there that she had developed a cold and been removed from the adoption floor for observation and extra TLC. I thought about waiting the estimated ten days till she was available again, but I knew that I needed to take advantage of the time off of work to manage the introduction of a new kitten into what was now Mr. Blue's Mighty Empire. So I went back up to the adoption floor to think it over some more and play with some more kittens.

Some of you know that the one thing I was pretty sure about was that I wanted to adopt a female kitten. But of course gender doesn't really matter when the right cat for you crawls into your lap, cranks up the 90-decibel purr and looks at you with big orange "take me home" eyes. There were a lot of kittens who came and played with me for a while and then moved on. But there was one little guy who kept coming back to me like a boomerang -- every time he'd get up to eat or play or investigate something, three minutes later he'd come and climb back in my lap, as if he'd decided that I was home base. After an hour or so he'd made it very clear that he was claiming me as his human, and I confess I didn't try very hard to break his spell.

It only added to his appeal when the Tree House staff told me he was a "miracle baby" who no one had expected to survive. He'd been found wandering on a golf course in early April, only a few days old, with the umbilical cord still attached. He was sickly for a while, but somehow he beat the odds and made it to the adoption floor.

He's now almost six months old, weighs about 4.5 lbs, and has huge orange almond-shaped eyes, slightly bugged out so they make him look just a little like a Whitley Strieber alien when he looks at you head-on. And he's just the sweetest thing ever. Doesn't say much but that's okay – Mr. Blue is more than talkative enough to handle the feline conversational needs in the house.

Over the years as I visited the homes of friends I would occasionally meet a certain kind of friendly, sweet-tempered little cat who just radiated unconditional love and a good-natured charisma that made everyone who met him melt with adoration. As much as I loved Dragon Lady's take-no-prisoners ferocity, I always envied and coveted that cat. Now at long last I've brought him home.

His Tree House name was Pee-Wee (named after Pee-Wee Herman). I didn't want to limit him to always being a Pee-Wee -- he's still growing after all -- so I decided to just change the first consonant and name him Kiwi, after the fruit and the bird. Like the fruit, he's furry and exotic-looking on the outside, sweet on the inside. He has a certain odd resemblance to the bird, as well. (Also, Little Kiwi is the name of one of my favorite fictional characters.)

As for what happened When Mr. Blue Met Kiwi ... well, that's a story for another episode. Suffice for now to say that there was plenty of hissing and batting, and then chasing and tackling and wrestling, but although Mr. Blue is three times his size, Kiwi has a certain psychological advantage -- a fearlessness that comes of holding his own in a room full of thirty other cats. And he has gotten the message across to Mr. Blue that Kiwi is no fake mousie to be bossed around with impunity. There are times when Kiwi turns and windmills his tiny little paws at Mr. Blue, and Mr. Blue jumps back and does this hilarious "I know karate" thing with his paws and then just runs away fussing.

Friday Kiwi went back to Tree House for a vet check-up and Mr. Blue had a few hours to remember how lonely an empty apartment can be. I might just be projecting, but I got the distinct vibe that Mr. Blue was glad to see Kiwi when he came home. I think Mr. Blue has realized that Kiwi is here to stay, and whether he's willing to admit it yet or not, I think he's glad. There's still some batting and occasional hissing, but last night they were playing Crazy Circle together, and earlier this afternoon I caught them sprawled side by side on the kitchen floor ...

looking almost like future brothers.

 

For information about Dave Awl, check out his website.