So, what did you think? How did you or didn't you enjoy last week's read?
This week will be a much less intense chapter. It's a true story, one from the more extraordinary moments in my life. It is the tale of how I, a die-hard dog lover, found myself with a five week old kitten purring on my desk as I post.
In late July of this year, I moved out from the fast paced city streets of Manhattan into a much more a-typical version of an old New York neighborhood. I was not sure about moving to Queens as it has such an odd reputation, but the charm of my neighborhood had been the selling point for my signing the lease. There is much more of a small town feel here, something that I grew up in, so I quickly became settled and even began to know my neighbors. (I lived in my last neighborhood for 3.5 years and didn't know anyone outside of my circle).
My building is next door to a Greek community center. During the warm days of August, my room would fill with the delightful smokey smell of Greek bbq as the men would grill for hours, rain or shine. They kept all of their drum grills and cooking equipment in a dingy looking shed in the backyard. The shed sat alone in a long yard, bordered by high-walled fences on all sides.
Every now and then I would see a beautiful ferrel calico emerge from the wild mess of vines that reached across the concrete yard. She would play amongst the leaves, roll around happily on the warm concrete and chase butterflies. As an animal lover, it was really nice to watch the cat play. As a child I had a pair of cats named Pepsi and Amy (I was five when I named the first), so it was a delightful unnexpected comfort to have a cat in the neighbor's backyard. Very rarely will I use this cliche, but it could not be more fitting; little did I know that the calico in the backyard would bring the ultimate unnexpected pleasantry to my life.
On a mid-September morning, I noticed that there was an awful lot of meowing coming from the yard, but it was not a cat - it was a kitten. Looking out the window, I could not see anything, but there was a kitten meowing nonstop. For the following week and a half, the kitten would meow in forty minute intervals...all day...all night. I told everyone at work about this ball of fluff who had emerged from the shed and would cry out to the heavens that she was scared, hungry and lonely, hoping for someone to rescue her. Being an humanitarian and animal lover, hearing her cry was killing me. You could hear the sadness in her meow - it was awful and it had become quite clear that the beautiful calico mom had abandoned her. On one Wednesday, the meowing was so bad, I decided that enough was enough. I had called the animal rescue people who told me that unless the kitten was minutes away from death, it was ferrel and that there was nothing to be done. Finding them to be of no help, I went next door and asked my neighbor if there was anything that we could do to save the kitten. Unfortunately, the lady who answered did not have access to the back - she was the second floor apartment. She had been throwing tuna cans down to the kitten in attempt to help keep her alive. She and her roommates had tried to configure all sorts of different methods for trying to save the kitten, everything from luring the cat into a bucket to hoist her 15 feet up to looking into rope ladders to throw out the window and climb down. I too had been trying to devise a method of rescuing the kitten; my friend who lives in London had sent me a drawing on his iPad of his strategic plan for saving the kitten, the picture of which is below. It involved a helicopter, to which, alas, I do not have access.
Another week went by and the kitten was still meowing. She had emerged from the shed and would venture only so far out from the opening to sing her pitiable tune of loneliness. It was so heartbreaking; she was so pathetic and small. I decided that enough was enough - I wasn't sleeping, all I could think about at work was trying to find away to get over the rickety fences to save the kitten. I had made up my mind; I spoke to the neighbor on Sunday night and told her that even though I am not allowed to have pets, I will find away to adopt that kitten.
Then came the rain. The wooden shed's door swelled shut due to the humidity and things were starting to look very grim for the kitten. She was trapped inside. The meowing was never more torturous to hear. I couldn't even imagine the hell that the baby-cat was experiencing.
On that Wednesday I came home after teaching class in the evening to find silence. Usually the cat meowed whenever the light in my room turned on, but on this evening, there was nothing. My heart dropped. I looked out the back and the rickety shed was dark. The door was still closed. I remember thinking to myself, "Great, some humanitarian I am - I can't even save a kitten." I waited about thirty minutes, still nothing, so I decided that the cat was gone. It was tough. I took a shower, had a cleansing cry, and then came back to my room. As a dramatic bid at finality, I closed the curtain over my window. Two steps away from my window, I heard my name shouted out from the back. Of course I went running back to the window to see my neighbor in the yard wearing yellow gloves up to her elbows. The door of the shed was wide open. "They're here! Come on! This is our chance!" she shouted. I hollered back that I'd be down in five minutes. It took me about two minutes to throw on a pair of jeans and tennis-shoes before running out of my room to the front. "It's liberating kitten time!" I shouted to my roommate as I bolted down the stairs.
Now, again, the only people who had access to the back yard were the members of the Greek Community Center and they were there holding a meeting. In I come, wet haired and looking quite awful after a long day at work to join my neighbor in rescuing a kitten. When I entered the long, brightly lit hall, fifteen Greek men of a range of ages turned to look at me. I smiled nervously and said, "I'm just going out back, excuse me."
"Be careful," one of them warned, "There's a tiger out there."
I laughed nervously and joined my neighbor, crouching in the back waiting for the cat. We had a deep bucket with a can of tuna in it. My neighbor informed me that the kitten had come over a couple of times, but every time the men in the center would make a loud noise and then she would run back. In the two and a half hours that I spent crouched down in that backyard, I can attest to that fact. The men kept coming out and asking us if we had caught the cat and that we were wasting our time trying to save the cat. We had to keep telling them that it was a baby. Regardless they thought we were crazy cat ladies, which all things considered...
At one point, one man came out and said to us, "Why don't you go in there?" To which we looked into the shed and then looked back at him - it was dark and there were large, sharp things in the shed; we were not about to go in. My neighbor replied, "We're not going in there, but you're welcome to."
So, he did. Then came three other men. Two of them went into the shed. Then came five other men and eventually one more straggler. One man held his smartphone as our only source of light into the shed, while three of his companions crawled, climbed and stretched through and within the shed. I have to say, for men with several Heinekens in them, they were quite furtive - I'm sure the cat learned a thing or two about grace and stealth that night. They moved out several of the drumb basin grills, a large ice-chest, shovels, and all sorts of odds and ends. I was terrified that the kitten was going to get squished during all of this. The men kept laughing that we were pulling their legs and were just out for some attention, which was becoming annoying. But then, it happened. The men inside the shed started yelling happily in Greek and then one tall man emerged bearing the cat by her scruff out in front of him, arm proudly extended. To any of you with children or if you were children post 1992, if you've seen the Lion King, think of Rafikki and Simba in the opening five minutes - the whole scene really was not that much different. The experience was certainly like something out of a movie. The nine men could not believe how small the kitten was when we gently put her into the bin that we had. With a small parade following us, we walked the kitten out of the Greek Community Center and to the entrance of my neighbor's apartment. She was going to hold on to her while I went out to the local market to get emergency kitten supplies. I had nothing prepared for this kitten. I was in and out of the market within 10 minutes, loaded with fleece blankets, cat food (they did not have kitten food) and a heart full of excitement. I had no idea what was going to follow, but I knew that I had a real chance to bring this cat back to health, for she was quite small. We thought that she was only a couple of days old.
I returned to the neighbor and was ready to take this precious little fur-ball into my apartment. Before she bid goodbye, the neighbor made me promise one thing, to name the kitten Tuna, as that was what she had been calling her and that had been the only source of food getting down to the kitten for the last two weeks. I made the vow and brought the little ferrel cat into my apartment, which feels much more like a home now.
In the following weeks I'll continue the story of Bella Tuna Todd - the explanation of her name will be the next chapter in her tale to follow. It's really remarkable how much warmth and life an animal can bring into one's home. If you have any furry-friend stories that you would like to share, leave a note in the comments - we've all some pretty fantastic stories to share - that's one of the things that makes life so miraculous, wouldn't you agree?
Your humble writer,
S. Faxon
This week will be a much less intense chapter. It's a true story, one from the more extraordinary moments in my life. It is the tale of how I, a die-hard dog lover, found myself with a five week old kitten purring on my desk as I post.
In late July of this year, I moved out from the fast paced city streets of Manhattan into a much more a-typical version of an old New York neighborhood. I was not sure about moving to Queens as it has such an odd reputation, but the charm of my neighborhood had been the selling point for my signing the lease. There is much more of a small town feel here, something that I grew up in, so I quickly became settled and even began to know my neighbors. (I lived in my last neighborhood for 3.5 years and didn't know anyone outside of my circle).
My building is next door to a Greek community center. During the warm days of August, my room would fill with the delightful smokey smell of Greek bbq as the men would grill for hours, rain or shine. They kept all of their drum grills and cooking equipment in a dingy looking shed in the backyard. The shed sat alone in a long yard, bordered by high-walled fences on all sides.
Every now and then I would see a beautiful ferrel calico emerge from the wild mess of vines that reached across the concrete yard. She would play amongst the leaves, roll around happily on the warm concrete and chase butterflies. As an animal lover, it was really nice to watch the cat play. As a child I had a pair of cats named Pepsi and Amy (I was five when I named the first), so it was a delightful unnexpected comfort to have a cat in the neighbor's backyard. Very rarely will I use this cliche, but it could not be more fitting; little did I know that the calico in the backyard would bring the ultimate unnexpected pleasantry to my life.
On a mid-September morning, I noticed that there was an awful lot of meowing coming from the yard, but it was not a cat - it was a kitten. Looking out the window, I could not see anything, but there was a kitten meowing nonstop. For the following week and a half, the kitten would meow in forty minute intervals...all day...all night. I told everyone at work about this ball of fluff who had emerged from the shed and would cry out to the heavens that she was scared, hungry and lonely, hoping for someone to rescue her. Being an humanitarian and animal lover, hearing her cry was killing me. You could hear the sadness in her meow - it was awful and it had become quite clear that the beautiful calico mom had abandoned her. On one Wednesday, the meowing was so bad, I decided that enough was enough. I had called the animal rescue people who told me that unless the kitten was minutes away from death, it was ferrel and that there was nothing to be done. Finding them to be of no help, I went next door and asked my neighbor if there was anything that we could do to save the kitten. Unfortunately, the lady who answered did not have access to the back - she was the second floor apartment. She had been throwing tuna cans down to the kitten in attempt to help keep her alive. She and her roommates had tried to configure all sorts of different methods for trying to save the kitten, everything from luring the cat into a bucket to hoist her 15 feet up to looking into rope ladders to throw out the window and climb down. I too had been trying to devise a method of rescuing the kitten; my friend who lives in London had sent me a drawing on his iPad of his strategic plan for saving the kitten, the picture of which is below. It involved a helicopter, to which, alas, I do not have access.
Another week went by and the kitten was still meowing. She had emerged from the shed and would venture only so far out from the opening to sing her pitiable tune of loneliness. It was so heartbreaking; she was so pathetic and small. I decided that enough was enough - I wasn't sleeping, all I could think about at work was trying to find away to get over the rickety fences to save the kitten. I had made up my mind; I spoke to the neighbor on Sunday night and told her that even though I am not allowed to have pets, I will find away to adopt that kitten.
Then came the rain. The wooden shed's door swelled shut due to the humidity and things were starting to look very grim for the kitten. She was trapped inside. The meowing was never more torturous to hear. I couldn't even imagine the hell that the baby-cat was experiencing.
On that Wednesday I came home after teaching class in the evening to find silence. Usually the cat meowed whenever the light in my room turned on, but on this evening, there was nothing. My heart dropped. I looked out the back and the rickety shed was dark. The door was still closed. I remember thinking to myself, "Great, some humanitarian I am - I can't even save a kitten." I waited about thirty minutes, still nothing, so I decided that the cat was gone. It was tough. I took a shower, had a cleansing cry, and then came back to my room. As a dramatic bid at finality, I closed the curtain over my window. Two steps away from my window, I heard my name shouted out from the back. Of course I went running back to the window to see my neighbor in the yard wearing yellow gloves up to her elbows. The door of the shed was wide open. "They're here! Come on! This is our chance!" she shouted. I hollered back that I'd be down in five minutes. It took me about two minutes to throw on a pair of jeans and tennis-shoes before running out of my room to the front. "It's liberating kitten time!" I shouted to my roommate as I bolted down the stairs.
Now, again, the only people who had access to the back yard were the members of the Greek Community Center and they were there holding a meeting. In I come, wet haired and looking quite awful after a long day at work to join my neighbor in rescuing a kitten. When I entered the long, brightly lit hall, fifteen Greek men of a range of ages turned to look at me. I smiled nervously and said, "I'm just going out back, excuse me."
"Be careful," one of them warned, "There's a tiger out there."
I laughed nervously and joined my neighbor, crouching in the back waiting for the cat. We had a deep bucket with a can of tuna in it. My neighbor informed me that the kitten had come over a couple of times, but every time the men in the center would make a loud noise and then she would run back. In the two and a half hours that I spent crouched down in that backyard, I can attest to that fact. The men kept coming out and asking us if we had caught the cat and that we were wasting our time trying to save the cat. We had to keep telling them that it was a baby. Regardless they thought we were crazy cat ladies, which all things considered...
At one point, one man came out and said to us, "Why don't you go in there?" To which we looked into the shed and then looked back at him - it was dark and there were large, sharp things in the shed; we were not about to go in. My neighbor replied, "We're not going in there, but you're welcome to."
So, he did. Then came three other men. Two of them went into the shed. Then came five other men and eventually one more straggler. One man held his smartphone as our only source of light into the shed, while three of his companions crawled, climbed and stretched through and within the shed. I have to say, for men with several Heinekens in them, they were quite furtive - I'm sure the cat learned a thing or two about grace and stealth that night. They moved out several of the drumb basin grills, a large ice-chest, shovels, and all sorts of odds and ends. I was terrified that the kitten was going to get squished during all of this. The men kept laughing that we were pulling their legs and were just out for some attention, which was becoming annoying. But then, it happened. The men inside the shed started yelling happily in Greek and then one tall man emerged bearing the cat by her scruff out in front of him, arm proudly extended. To any of you with children or if you were children post 1992, if you've seen the Lion King, think of Rafikki and Simba in the opening five minutes - the whole scene really was not that much different. The experience was certainly like something out of a movie. The nine men could not believe how small the kitten was when we gently put her into the bin that we had. With a small parade following us, we walked the kitten out of the Greek Community Center and to the entrance of my neighbor's apartment. She was going to hold on to her while I went out to the local market to get emergency kitten supplies. I had nothing prepared for this kitten. I was in and out of the market within 10 minutes, loaded with fleece blankets, cat food (they did not have kitten food) and a heart full of excitement. I had no idea what was going to follow, but I knew that I had a real chance to bring this cat back to health, for she was quite small. We thought that she was only a couple of days old.
I returned to the neighbor and was ready to take this precious little fur-ball into my apartment. Before she bid goodbye, the neighbor made me promise one thing, to name the kitten Tuna, as that was what she had been calling her and that had been the only source of food getting down to the kitten for the last two weeks. I made the vow and brought the little ferrel cat into my apartment, which feels much more like a home now.
In the following weeks I'll continue the story of Bella Tuna Todd - the explanation of her name will be the next chapter in her tale to follow. It's really remarkable how much warmth and life an animal can bring into one's home. If you have any furry-friend stories that you would like to share, leave a note in the comments - we've all some pretty fantastic stories to share - that's one of the things that makes life so miraculous, wouldn't you agree?
Your humble writer,
S. Faxon
That is a great story! What an adventure with a happy ending!
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