Monday, May 30, 2011

Missing - 20 pound-ish, orange cat


Well that's bloody typical. The cat's gone missing and my wife's on the phone to me asking if I can make up some posters that we can put up round the development in case anyone's seen him. At least 20. I mean, there aren't even enough places to put 20.

Bloody typical, I say because my wife let him out, in the first place.

Now over the last x-years, Gigi has been a big old bone of contention, although you'd be hard put to find any bones as he packed on the pounds after being confined to the house, following the unfortunately incident when we let him out; he got into a staring match with the neighbor's dog and she retaliated by getting the chagrined dog to pee on our lawn in board daylight at tea time, nonetheless.

Then we had this ongoing dispute about him being declawed. My wife insisted this was necessary for the sake of the furniture, I insisted it was cruel, we dug trenches in the front room and lobbed verbal missiles for the best part of three months, with occasional re visitations of the argument.

I prevailed but the antique chairs from her grandmother got ripped to shreds.

Over the last few months my wife has been again raising the prospect of Gigs "going to live on a farm," a notion I have been lukewarm about, partly because I'm not sure how easy to it to simply "go and live on a farm." There counterpoint to this seems to be the consolation that we can get a bird that we could teach to swear.

(although I'd teach it to scream 'where's bloody Gigs?')

"Yeah, yeah," my daughter says, happy at the notion of a colorful bird replacing Gigs. I feel I am alone in fighting his corner,

Were it as easy as it sounds to go and live on a farm, I'd be tempted myself. I was more than tempted yesterday when the only way to control Jackson was to get him to sit on the pool table at the restaurant, a notion that gained me a month's quota of unpleasant looks, following some downright hostile ones when he started hurling the balls down onto the table, with an ear splitting crackle.

Unlike Jackson, Gigi has been somewhat neglected over recent years. He's certainly not underfed and I am constantly picked up on my litter box cleaning regime, which can slip without an occasional strategic boot up my backside.

But emotionally the poor big old boy is starved of love and only gets attention when he's shouted out to move off the stairs. And now he's out there in his fuzzy orange coat and it's 98 degrees and for all I know he's being tormented over his weight by raccoons.

In the spirit of making my wife feel better about the whole episode, I sent her a press release from the local police department about a spate of fox attacks, warning cats are particularly vulnerable to rabies and should not be outdoors during the current foxmeggedon.

I try not to mention rabies to our daughter as she gets rather uptight about the disease, in the same way as I did at her age when I saw a TV show about rabies in which a man was foaming at the month.

It left me in a state of fear for a week and was up there with the time my father told us the sun would burn out one day, the temperature of the earth would plummet and we'd all die. Of course, I started to believe that one day was that very week.

If Gigi does come back I wonder if he'll finally be appreciated. It's true he's overweight and has a somewhat annoying habit of biting people who stroke him but I know there are worse felines out there.

And I can't help feeling uneasy that there's been a systemic parenting failure somewhere along the line here.

14 comments:

  1. First I'm happy you won the depate about getting him declawed, it IS cruel they have to literally cut the knuckle off, and if not done correctly the nails begin to grow back and the whole process starts all over again.
    However, not such a good thing if the poor lad is on the lamb, and is used to being indoors, fed and watered regularly.
    We once lost a cat, I put up about fifteen flyers, one day a lady called and said she thought my cat had been living with them, and she had just seen the flyer on the pole at the end of their road.
    It had been six months, I didn't take the cat back, her children were too upset at the thought of him leaving, so he stayed.
    Good luck, he has a friend in you ;)
    ~Jo

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  2. A foxmeggedon sounds rather formidable. I hope your cat comes back. If it were me, I'd much rather have a cat than a bird, especially one that is going to be a constant reminder of the lost cat! haha!

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  3. Awww poor kitty. :( I hope he comes back safe and unharmed. When he does come back, I hope you all give him lots of love! ;)

    Your foxmeggedon sounds like a story I covered three years ago. Dozens of frightened residents showed up at a council meeting b/c there had been foxes spotted in neighborhoods. Hysterical old women were making the matter worse by scremaing during the council meeting "These foxes are going to snatch our babies and eat them!" I'm not kidding. God, I miss being a reporter.

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  4. This is an amusing post, David. I hope Gigi returns home. If not, please do get that bird and train it to ask "Where's bloody Gigs?" I want to read about that one.
    xoRobyn

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  5. Awww. So it's true. You'll only realize the value of the ones you have when they're gone. I hope you find Gigi safe and sound soon.

    -Maria

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  6. This has made me laugh! I really do hope you find Gigi and that all is well.

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  7. Gigi come back ,dad misses you .Hope she comes back soon.He is cute .I checked the slide show( i don't know what this widget is called) and i must say that i am highly impressed.


    Was not able to comment before though i have been reading all your post. I had to switch to Firefox to be able to comment on certain blogs where the comment box is right below the post.My old browser worked fine in the blogs with pop out comment box.

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  8. I hope Gigi makes it home safe and sound. I have to say though, this post cracked me up. Jackson on the pool table, foxmeggedon, and those tormenting raccoons-funny stuff.

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  9. Hopefully Gigs comes back home safe and sound. If he does, make sure he is not sent to live on a farm. That is code for selling an animal for scientific experimentation. And give him lots of cuddles. ...Now about the swearing bird, that sounds like a positively grand idea!

    The Ranter’s Box

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  10. thanks Brit - yep don't like declawing. This is true, Daisy, but he showed up actually. I know eh Jennifer, those highlights like fox attacks. I hope you can get back into reporting soon. Ha, that would be funny, Robyn

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  11. I know eh, Maria - good to hear from you, again. Thanks Marnie, appreciate it. Good to hear from you, Kavita. I know - have had commenting problems myself. Now that wiget is weirding me as it seems to bring up my namesake. Glad you sound it funny, Tim. For sure Empress, I would like a swearing bird.

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  12. no wonder ...i thought you look more younger now than you did few years back (with that moust.)
    Glad Gigi is back .

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  13. oh you are too funny - that's the famous guy with the same name who writes books. And he must be 20 years older than me. I'm going to have to do something about this wigit.

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On Blog PTSD

Now then. What the heck. It seems I had forgotten about my blog completely rather than just neglecting it this time. To return after so long...