Moving Kitties

My father and mother moved their cats from their old house to the new house today. It was after a long, hot day, from an unventilated, hot house in the main street of Oak Flats, a town which was designed, believe it or not. While we sweltered and struggled, uncovering new piles of insurmountable impossibility and exposing to the light hoarding intentions from my mother that had had since I was born, the cats sunned themselves and relaxed, they coped. One of them, Schubert, is a cat some seventeen years old – and he is beautiful, a glorious fluffy cat with wonderfully smooth long hair, a well-shaped, noble face, and long, graceful legs. Schubert is, as best I can say it, the cat I most remember as being part of the family when I was there. I remember going with my parents to retrieve him from the RSPCA shelter. I remember seeing him nervously wriggle around the house, I remember moving him twice. I wasn’t sure how he would handle this move.

Garfield, the lesser and younger of these two cats, handled it less well. He was panting and fretting, and he clawed at things, desperate for some feeling of stability. I think cats are very prone to carsickness, perhaps due to their sensitivity? Anyway. Schubert sat in my mother’s lap, and simply, the whole drive to their new, stable, cool home, Schubert cried. He cried and he cried. It was never plainitive, it was never pained, it was just sad, every step of the way, every meow fading into the next meow. Meanwhile, I had a ball of orange fur on my shoulder and lap, trying to calm down and accommodate the heat, and the strange lurching feel of the car.

When we got them home, Schubert couldn’t walk properly. I couldn’t feel right about that, until I held him, comforted him. He took a few minutes; but eventually, he could stand again. Then he climbed up upon his footstool, that he had had in the old home, and stayed there.

The shirt that Garfield tore up is a shirt I received as a Christmas present from my Aunt, who is Finnish. It’s of reindeer, proudly proclaiming itself a Finnish shirt. It’s a shirt that reminds me of Elma and Eero.

I have had a really long, hard day.

1 Comment

  1. Love. So much love. And also hugs. You need support, you know where I am.

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