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November 17, 1998 |
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under the credenza | |||||
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Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan |
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Alexis vanished seconds after I let her out of the cage at the nursing home. Zap. Gone. Where the heck did she go? Alien abduction? All the elders are asking "where's the other gray one?" and I'm wondering the same thing. With Chantal, the world's heaviest cat, in my arms it's kind of hard to crawl around on the floor looking for Alexis. Martha and Antonia each have one of the black kittens and they're making the rounds of the people while I'm standing there dumbly. I take Chantal around to a few people and then put her down. She heads straight for the credenza in the least accessible corner of the room. I can see her tail sticking out from underneath. I try to make a game of "let's find the cats" but since the elders can't crawl around on the floor looking for them, it fizzles. I crawl under a table and squirm as close to the credenza as I can get. I feel ridiculous flat on my belly under a table between two wheelchairs reaching underneath the furniture. I can get one hand on Chantal and stroke her but I can't reach her neck to scruff her. She turns around so I can only reach her butt. When she moves I can see Alexis in the farthest corner totally out of my reach. We've got a roomful of elders and only two cats available for petting. Then Cassie, one of the two black ones, gets stressed out and Antonia puts her back in her carrier. Now they're down to one and I'm still flat on my belly under the table with one arm stretched as far as I can reach under the credenza. Chantal won't budge. I can't get near Alexis. I give up and bang my head on the table getting up. Somehow this is not how I envisioned spending the afternoon! Finally, Martha takes a turn at coaxing Chantal out. As soon as she gets her out from under, I scoop her up and hold her in my arms. Chantal and I make the rounds endlessly - with at least 2/3 of the residents asking me how much she weighs (about 22 pounds). Some people ask to hold her in their laps and then find her too heavy. Meanwhile, Martha manages to coax Alexis out so we're up to three cats now. This seems to work well until Chantal gets a little edgy after being handled so much. She puts her ears back and crouches down on a table top. She lets out a huge sneeze - she's been sneezing a lot today - and gets snot all over her face, which she immediately licks off. Of course, people have to comment on that. Don't you wish you could do that? Think how much you'd save on Kleenex! Chantal gets really really edgy so I put her back in her carrier. The black ones, Cassie and Diva, are back in their carrier 'cause they're burnt out too. Martha has taken Alexis on a room visit to someone who said she wanted to see a cat but didn't want to come down to the activity room. I try to keep people interested by asking questions like how many cats have you had in your life or what's your favorite color cat. Most folk said they preferred black cats. A few said white or calico. Only one said yellow. I start running out of conversation topics. I'm asking people if they prefer cats over pigs and whether they've ever cleaned a fish (I forget how we got onto that but it made sense at the time). Finally, Martha returns with Alexis. The woman who had asked for a room visit apparently had asked for a cop not a cat. It's like 3:30 and I'm wiped out. So now the volunteers and the cats are all burned out. It's raining and cold when I drive Alexis and Chantal back to the shelter. I have to make two trips up the stairs because Chantal is so heavy I can't carry them both at once. I get wet through my jacket. I put away the cat carriers, wash my hands, pet Jaguar for awhile and head on home feeling strangely energized. | |||||
