If you hate cats, don't even bother reading this post. When Nipper Knapp and I met, and I was all "I don't want our first date to be a date" and he was all "uhm, ok" and then he came to my house to pick me up, and saw my THREE cats, I'm sure in his mind he was all "I don't want this to be a date either". I was that single girl with a house full of cats. Two I had adopted together from the pound. They were fat sisters. The third, I had adopted from one of those cat adoptions they have on Larchmont. Her name was Pagoda, and I think she was a circus cat. She had a little bullseye on her side. She was skinny and had green eyes. She was pretty and when I brushed my teeth or stood for more than 30 seconds at the bathroom sink, she'd jump up on my shoulders and hang around my neck like an ermine stole.
When Nipper and I got married, and he moved in (because we were old fashioned like that), Pagoda promptly took to pooping on his pillow and peeing in his shoes. You know, making him feel welcome. I told him she had flair and that she'd get over it. She also took to leaping from our bed in the middle of the night onto the window screen and then clawing her way up it, in search of a bird, a bat, or some other phantom menace. I can't remember what the final straw was, but Pagoda had to go. Sobbing, I gave her to my ex-boyfriend, who promptly gave her away to some strangers. He was a really quality human being.
The fat sisters remained, and though they didn't have the same skill for the dramatic that Pagoda did, they did have the uncanny ability to kill my newly minted husband. He's allergic. So after a talk with the allergist who informed Nipper Knapp that they in fact were slowly killing him, and that most people get rid of spouses before pets, I told him I'd think about it. (I was a real peach) Then at dinner on New Years Eve, my father looked at me with disbelief and said "What are you talking about? They are CATS! He's your husband!", I cried, a lot, then I got rid of the cats. One went to live with Sadie, and one went to live with my mother. I felt bad breaking up the band, but they both ended up in happy homes where they are spoiled rotten, and they aren't murdering anyone.
That was 5 years ago. Two days ago, there was a knock at the door. Well, not really but something made us go out on the porch and there she was. She was sitting there like she had been waiting for us. Like she lived here. She let the kids pet her and hug her and basically made herself at home. I know they say that you don't choose cats, they choose you, but this was something else. Cleo decided her name is Fiona, which Jack pronounces Iona because f's are hard to say when you're two.
I took her to the vet this morning. She doesn't have a microchip, but she does have a hernia. Our guess is whoever owned this sweet cat couldn't afford the surgery. Fiona being a wise little thing smelled my marc jacobs wallet through the fence and came to introduce herself. She'll get the surgery this week, then we'll figure out what to do with her. She's welcome to live in our breezeway, but that makes me feel guilty. Mom? Sadie? She's kid tested, mother approved.
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