A Purr In The Park

Remember the claw-launch wake-up game Bugs used to deploy against me?  This behavior was the main one that had to go, if Bugs and I were going to remain on speaking terms.

By December 6th – that’d be 2010, by the way, over one year and much spilled blood after we had begun our conversation – he’d pretty much released the claw-launch wake-up game.

This morning he reverted.  But I immediately add:  Reverted only to the gesture.  Not to the thing itself.

In the relentless surveillance of me that is pre-breakfast life with Bugs, he finally caught me on tape getting out of bed.  Notice:  He waited until I chose to do that myself, without any “prompting” from him.

Only then did he claw-launch.

And then he skidded right up to my foot – but not into it.

I kvell with pride to report this.  Who says cats can’t change.

And for those of you who don’t speak Yiddish or at least Yinglish, look it up.  Bubbygram.com (“It wouldn’t kill you to call once in while,” “Everything in the Freezer is Labeled”).

I know I kvetch a lot (right after kvell) and thank you for staying with me even so.  But in light of this morning’s tremendous victory, I also came across something that really gave me paws – something that puts my Bugs-battles into perspective.

Meet feral cats Meatie, and Teeny of blessed memory, and their gutte neshumah (awright awreddy) Caroline Hagedorn.  Look at this excerpt from their story, “From Fear to Trust”:

“A full year after feeding him 2-3 times a day, Meatie allowed me to touch his head for the first time. . . . [but] I still fear him despite the fact I am now able to pick him up and carry him (sometimes) . . . . He has hurt me quite badly too many times, despite the fact that he only has one tooth in his head. He has a vicious paw strike capability, and those deep scratches hurt for days.”

Just above that is a picture of Meatie and Caroline that I would really like you to see.

Caroline also says this:  “I spent hours trying to diagnose Meatie’s ailments on the Internet . . . . I couldn’t get anyone to help me. . . . His eyes got so bad he could barely open them. Some kind people who work at a no-kill shelter hundreds of miles away answered my pleas for help and guidance and sent me an antibiotic powder to sprinkle on his food or put in his water. It turned him around.”

The no-kill shelter:  Helen O. Krause.

More milk of human kindness.  More evidence with which to banish the Internal Rejecting Object.

Talk about gutte neshumah.  Makes my Bug-battles look like a purr in the park.

P.S.:  Please note that every time we use the GoodSearch search engine instead of Google, we can order it to donate to the Helen O. Krause shelter.  I see that as of May 8, 2011, they’ve earned a whole $2.32.  Don’t know GoodSearch?  Check it out.

Let’s search for Helen O. Krause!  And many thanks to Petite Panther for the heads up, about this very interesting GoodSearch thing.  P.P. rocks the Web!