By now you know I have a cat. Her name is Cleo. When I picked her out at the SPCA it was because she let me pet her. Nobody else wanted her because she was no longer a kitten and people like kittens. It turned out fine and she became my good house cat with open privileges to the outdoors … except at night when the coyotes are out eating stray cats.
Cleo is short for Cleopatra. I picked the name in honor of sweet Jeannette, my wife of 50 years, who left me two years ago. Cleopatra is the Egyptian queen whose picture is on the slot machine at Robinson Casino where, even in her wheel chair and oxygen bottles attached, my dear wife loved to play her favorite Egyptian slot machine. Cleo’s name is a small tribute to Jeannette.
Do cats cry? I know mine does. I got a good sample of her wailing and moaning last week. It began because I had to go away for a few days. Christina, my dear daughter, was taking me to family get-together in Los Angeles. Since I am the patriarch of the family and the oldest I would be in the catbird seat and everyone would be nice to me. I looked forward to the trip.
Everyone was notified and I was prepared for the trip … except for my cat, Cleo. I couldn’t leave her in the house alone even though she had her sand box, kitty kibbles and water. What if she ate up the food or fell into the toilet looking for more water while I was gone? I decided to leave Cleo with Dee at the cat hotel in Lakeport. Dee likes cats and I knew she would take care of Cleo while I was gone.
On the appointed day I stuffed Cleo into the plastic cat box and carried her to the Jeep for transport to Dee’s cat hotel. All the way to Lakeport Cleo howled and cried like she was suffering the tortures of the damned. Her yellow eyes, as big as two quarters, stared at me through the bars of the cage door, accusing me of unnamed cruelties and horrors … until I got to Dee’s place.
The minute I unloaded her into the large 4-foot cage, which looked out through a window and gave her a great view of the other cats, plus a cat yard outside in which to play, Cleo shut up. All involved and interested in her new quarters, she climbed in and out and over her play house, investigated her bed and smelled her bowl of kittybits. I was as forgotten as if I was a million miles away.
I left and went about my business.
Days later Christina and I came back. I paid Dee and we collected Cleo into the cat cage. Going home she cried again. After a while I think she knew the ride home was the same as the one coming to town but in an opposite direction. Her cries subsided into heartfelt sobs and moans and, at last, they died away into sniffles. Once my front door was unlocked, Christina opened the cage and Cleo disappeared into the other rooms of my house. I caught a glimpse of Cleo as she searched the recesses of every closet, went under every table, passed through every room to make absolutely certain she was really home.
Christina, my dear daughter, lives in Eureka. She left and I got busy. The postman had made sure I knew I was home because he had left me lots of bills to pay. While I was at my desk paying bills Cleo came to me asking to go out side … to make sure the outdoors here was her outdoors and not some strange new outdoors. I wasn’t going to let her out for a day or so to make sure she didn’t run off. However, at that moment a friend, John, banged on the glass of the sliding door of my bedroom from the front porch. He had been calling me for days, he said. My line had been busy, he claimed. He called the sheriff planning to break down the front door to retrieve my corpse or take me to Sutter hospital.
It turned out John had my phone number wrong and my neighbor Linda, out training her rescue dog, set the sheriff straight that I was only out of town. While we spoke Cleo ran outside. After a half hour she came back. She had been busy looking around the front, back and side yards to make sure the outdoors was really her outdoors and not some other cat’s outdoors.
She was happy at last. She was home.
