I had promised The Cat that I would post his photo in my blog. Well, I guess he got tired of waiting for me because while I was at my computer he jumped up into my lap. Just a friendly little reminder! Thanks for the claws in my thighs, Buster. And all 20 pounds of you! He is not a small cat.
There's a story on how Buster came to live with us. About 2 and a half years ago when we moved all our stuff from California into our old house back in the Pacific Northwest I was putzing around the kitchen and feeling kind of blue. I couldn't help but think about my old kitty Pookie who had made the trip to California with us six years before. She was almost 12 years old then and had never really become an indoor cat, despite some efforts to convert her. She had a habit of sitting at the back sliding glass door just looking in. If I opened the door to let her in, she invariably ran off. She just liked to LOOK in, not BE in.
Anyway, she had just died about five months prior to our move back to the old house and I was really missing her a lot. Then all of a sudden, literally as I was thinking of her, I heard a very distinct meow at the sliding glass door. Well, I was positive I was going nuts and I wouldn't even part the drape to see what was out there. Then I heard it again, this time a little more insistent. So I looked and here was this huge yellow striped cat. I opened the door and he strolled in as if he owned the place. He rubbed up against my legs and oh, man, I fell for him right then.
I assumed that he was either a stray or that he had been left behind by our last tenant. I called the property management company that we had employed and asked them about the cat. They checked with the last tenant and called back to say that he definitely was not hers. So, even though he didn't appear to have missed any meals, I figured he was a stray. I named him Buster and he settled right in to making himself at home.
Well, about two months later, I was walking a friend's dog that I was taking care of one day and there was Buster looking out at me from the window of another house one street over from our house!
He continued to come and go, and the day before I had to leave to go overseas for what I thought would only be four months at the most (turned out to be over 2 years but that is another story) I could see that Buster's eye was bothering him and it appeared that there was blood inside. So I took him to that other house, found out that he definitely belonged to that household and his name was Tigger.
Well, I had to go home a year later to file my income tax return and guess who showed up the very first day I was home? Buster was pretty ticked off at me at first. He came inside but turned his back to me for several hours but decided he was over it eventually. Then I left again for a year and it was the same scenario all over again when I returned.
When we finally moved back for good he again settled in with us some but stayed more and more all the time. Many phone calls between us and the neighbors ensued and we took him home a number of times and they came and picked him up and this went on like this for months. Finally, he just would not stay at their house any longer. I think it was because they had acquired three large hunting dogs. Just a guess, but hey.
A couple of weeks ago the neighbor lady brought me the remainder of Buster's food and said they had gotten a new kitten and well, I guess Buster is kinda/sorta officially mine. And we're pretty happy about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment