Keep Your Eye On The Balls

(April 26, 2004)

Joe: *grunt*

Me: "Oh yeah, sweetie, I should probably have warned you. One of Chloe's nicknames is Ballwalker. "

It's true. Hub gave this kitty that nickname (as well as "Little" and "Dodie" and "The Claw"). "Little" because she was the littlest of two cats when it was just her and Barney. "Dodie" because it's a cute way of saying "Chloe." "The Claw" because, due to her near-blindness, after Barney died and we ended up with THREE cats to replace Barney, we always let her keep her sharp, fast claws while the other cats got trimmed regularly. Give 'er an advantage over the others' ability to see. It worked, too.

"Ballwalker" because, well, if there's a man laying prone in bed or on a couch and it's at all possible to trample on his balls, Chloe will find said balls and proceed to do laps on them. In the mornings when she wants breakfast, she never even attempted to wake me up. But she'd stomp all over Hub until it was Get Up or Get Castrated.

The day after Joe found out the hard way, I told his sister and, for other reasons not necessarily important to this story, Jen leaned over to Chloe and whispered conspiratorially, "Will you come to MY house...?"

Heh.

So why are we hiding Chloe in a no-pet one-bedroom apartment in Allston? Long and amazing story, distilled for your pleasure:

Hub was moving and couldn't take the cats.

Joe's place doesn't allow cats.

I live with four cats already and couldn't take the cats. Plus I'm never home, plus there's no money for cat food and litter and medicine (should the need arise.)

So we had to find a good home for three cats.

Between flyers, emails forwarded and re-forwarded around to various friends' offices, message board posts and word of mouth, I bet a thousand people have been asked about being new parents for three cats. We found homes for Donovan and Casey, but Chloe was still unclaimed.

On the very last day before his permanent move (I will definitely write about the pure white-hot evil that was the sum total of that ass-backwards "last day," but the anger needs to subside first before the events can be treated at all with any humour) Hub delivered his orphan kitty into the capable hands of MSPCA in the hopes that she could be matched up with a suitable home. I was fiercely hoping for someone older and gentle, serene and peaceful like Chloe herself. She is eleven, and she can't see very well-- multi-cat households or households with lots of kids or parties or noise wouldn't be the best bet.

Then like a miracle, on Sunday Michelle called and said that Cynthia would take her. The only problem was, Hub had dropped off the planet for a few days and I didn't know where exactly he'd taken Chloe. On the day he called, he said, "Guess what! Someone adopted her five minutes ago!"

I was actually kind of happy, because, though it'd be great to have her in New York with someone I know, I wasn't crazy about the idea of having Chloe endure a five hour car ride, live in the city and deal with three other cats in a huge apartment...

...turned out that the person who'd adopted her "five minutes ago" was Michelle. She called around MSPCA and found the cat! I could not get over it, that woman continues to amaze me.

So, rescued from an uncertain future by Michelle, Chloe would be going to New York after all. In the meantime, she was kind of hiding under the bed in Michelle's spare room; I'm sure the nutjob barking dogs were a bit loud and scary for her, so she wasn't exactly thrilled...Neil and I got her on Friday and she's been hiding here at Joe's since.

In two days, unless someone in Massachusetts agrees to give her a home, she makes the journey to New York to live with Cynthia, three cats, two rats and two doves.

This is a really, really good and sweet and loving kitty.

I wish I could keep her. I can't believe I have to say goodbye to this kitty again.

Ballwalker.