Not a Good Sign

It was the day before Thanksgiving and all through the house not a creature was stirring, oh wait, wrong holiday, and no, no there was stirring:

Walle and Lucy were both staring at the same corner in the room, albeit from different angles, wide eyed with excitement. I knew this could only be something terrible. Something that extended beyond the depths of terrible. The last time I saw cats do that was when Chloe and Olivia ( her sister that died) stared at a previously unnoticed crack in my apt wall in NYC. Then I saw the antennae, then the giant water bug appeared.
So I KNEW, I KNEW, something terrible was occurring.
For whatever reason I did not allow my mind to wander. I thought there might be a big spider. So I carefully moved the furniture and THERE IT WAS THE BIGGEST POTATO BUG I'VE EVER SEEN AND OMG HELP ME.
I yelled to Jeff to come help and he said " They were right!" because of course not 10 minutes early Laurel had apparently claimed to have seen a scorpion and Griffin chimed in that he saw a scorpion and Jeff IGNORED them. Jeff trapped it with a dustpan and threw it outside and it made a dull thud when it landed because it was so large.

Lucy

Paddington bear arrived as a stowaway coming from "Deepest Darkest Peru", sent by his Aunt Lucy who has gone to live in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima.

That is how the tale of Paddington begins to unfold. Unfortunately for us, our Paddington went missing. Its been 14 days and our sweet, shy, polydactyl, all black snaggle toothed cat has not returned. We sent out an amber pet alert to 500 neighbors, we flyered the neighborhood, we set two humane traps, nightly, baited with Kentucky Fried chicken. Friends of Ferals recommends that technique because the stench of the chicken is so great. We called a woman who tracks animals using bloodhounds. She charges $1500 which is more than we can afford, but she also recommended baiting with Kentucky Fried Chicken. We have searched through our neighbors yard. We have a missing cat report filed at all the rescue places. We tried not to lose hope. But there are coyotes in the neighborhood and there are a lot of missing cats right now. Its been a very sad time for us.

Yesterday we went to the Humane Society. We were there for 4 hours. We've been stopping by periodically, checking the found and feral cat rooms. Yesterday was different. We went in search of a buddy to fill the void in our house.

Our house has been chaotic with 4 kids, 3 cats and a dog. But we are used to that chaos. The calm we felt with one fewer being...well it was unacceptable. It made us uncomfortable and sad. Paddington's lack of presence just felt like a hole, in our house, in our hearts.

So we visited the shelter. In some ways it felt bad, were we giving up? How could we give up? But that hurt we all felt well, it was just omnipresent and oppressive. We had to make that hurt dissipate.

We stayed at the shelter for 4 hours. I asked to have time with various cats. One was too mellow, one was too shy, one was too skittish, one was too hyper. None of them made me feel like the hurt could go away. Until we saw this one. All black but she did not have amber eyes like most all black cats. She had emerald eyes, like Paddington. She reached out and grabbed me. She rubbed against the cage and purred. When we had play time with her she jumped around, excited without being hyper. She purred and reached her paws at our faces, touching us, filling our hearts. This was Lucy and we all knew it. Lucy, the relation to Paddington, of sorts. The little being who has begun to heal our hearts.

This morning she peed on my shoe.

What Haunts Me about Halloween

Trick or Treating can be fraught with potential hazards. Too scary, too loud, too crowded. Some of the kids run ahead, some lag behind and someone gets misplaced.

This year I had to pause the trick or treating session to implement a new rule. You cannot say " Can I have an extra piece of candy for my stupid brother?"
" Its so silly to say that! I'm copying Charlie Brown movie!"
Yes, I know that, but the problem is that no one else knows that. We cannot ask for additional candy for your " stupid brother", regardless of whether or not he is off waiting for the Great Pumpkin somewhere.

Minor inappropriate Halloween video references aside, this was a particularly successful trick or treat session. All four kids were out for hours, well past dark. All four kids handled the varying degrees of ghoulish delights and keening sounds.

Best of all, no one had to go to the bathroom.

There was one year, one unforgettable year, when Griffin had to pee. We had wandered deep into the bustling kid friendly neighborhood and I did not know anyone who lived in the immediate vicinity. Fortunately I ran into someone who knew someone who lived nearby and she escorted us to their home. Yes, they would let my then 3 year old use their bathroom. I was so relieved. So was he. I frantically tried to get his costume off in time and he just made it. But then I saw some pee across the back of the toilet. Did he do that? I don't know. But I have to clean it because we are using the bathroom of these kind people. So I cleaned it up with wads of soapy toilet paper. But was it my child's pee?

Oh how this question still haunts me.