Gigi Redux

In December I blogged in over dramatic terms about the degeneration of the human spirit in relation to my stolen cat Gigi.

I am pleased to report the boy has shown up alive and well, albieit a bit smelly. In fact three cats that vanished from our street, were later found at various times in the same part of the city about two miles away from home.

Finally the call came in and Gigs was back. My wife is apt to point out I put up no posters related to the disappearance of the boy; did not sort out the amber cat alert etc., did not pace the mean streets until the early hours etc. In my defense I spend a few cold hours in the cemetery and checking out a report by a listless teenager who took me down a muddy lane by the same cemetery where I feared I was about to be ambushed by a crowd of thugs.

But yeah generally I did very little. I am an existentialist and I would be lying if I didn't find myself believing some of the worst sayings of the naysayers who told me Gigs had probably ended up in Lo Mein down at House of Willy Wong.

Always disconcerting when a fortune cookie says "look for wisdom and your cat in Chop Suey."

My lack of urgency is curious when I consider I have always championed the cause of the boy and defended him when he has clawed furniture and been threatened with a return to the farm from whence he came. Maybe I just put my legs up and trusted to Karma.

But OK I'm no saint. And indeed some of the Saints were no saints if you know what I mean.

Butler's Lives tell us Saint Christina the Astonishing was unable to bear the smell of human beings and lived "by begging, dressed in rags, and in many ways behaved in a very terrifying manner."

It adds: "There is little in the recorded history of Christina ... to make us think she was other than a pathological case."

The disappearance and reappearance of Gigs has made me ponder more weighy things (momentarily). When we come back again are we ever the same? I can think of a lot of football players who returned to clubs to great acclaim, only to be a shadow of their former selves. We are told Jesus Christ returned again to earth but failed to do anything whizzy with loaves and fishes to please the crowd this time, and just reappeared to disappear.

Similarly in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, which (implausibly) is one of my favorite novels, Michael Henchard is reunited with the wife and daughter he sold while on a bender 18 years earlier, but things are never quite the same second time around for the man who has now risen to the lofty position of Mayor. I'm not convinced by my own rationale here because things may not have been so peachy first time around if you are going to auction off your wife and daughter.

In contrast Gigs is showing no sign that he has been held in a dungeon and abused by a kitty fiddler, I am relieved to say. He's still his same good natured self, although he's want to cause lacerations when annoyed. And he can be an arsy bunny.

Indeed the catnapping incident has improved his condition. No longer confined to a garage for long periods, he now has a free run of the house and is probably on course to get up to 25 pounds again.

This post had run out of speed because I am in Starbucks and distracted (naturally). I have just discovered the barista (yup still hate that word) who I have given funny looks to when he puts on that annoying fake Italian accent is indeed Italian. Oh well.