Critical Exponent

We had gotten to Mobile after nine, and we were a bit disappointed we did not get to see the river deltas in the daylight. It’s all good, we thought, since it will give us a leisure day of driving today getting to New Orleans. We checked into a hotel, found a greasy spoon for dinner, and then got a bit of a second wind, enough to go out and take some night pictures in the rain, tripod in hand.

Knox had gone ahead a block as I finished a shot I wanted to take. I caught up with him, when I heard it.

Meeow.

Meeow.

Meeow.

“What is that sound?” I wondered. I looked around.

Meeow.

Meeow.

I headed toward some shrubs lining a building.

Meeow.

Meeow.

There it was: a tiny, wet, cold kitten.

We took it out and looked around for its owner, or its mother. Nothing. The building looked to be offices and not residences. What could we do? It was shivering in my hands, crying disconsolately, its wet shafts of fur in clumps. We picked up some newspapers and wrapped it up to dry off. I held it in my arms as Knox went to the ATM and stopped at the placed we had eaten to order a bit of chicken breast so we could feed the poor creature. It seemed so sad, and the trembling was just heartbreaking. It wanted to jump away, though I found that by rocking it and walking back and forth it would hold still. “Silly cat,” I cooed. “You know you don’t like the rain. We’ll take you in tonight.” And that’s how it got its moniker, Silly.

Knox came with the food. We grabbed some extra newspapers and walked back the hotel, where we snuck it in. We dried it with the hair dryer and fed it (a little, we didn’t want it to get sick). It gobbled the food down in a less-than-genteel fashion. Now in much better spirits, it explored the room, charting the perimeter and trying to scale the furniture. We tried to leave it in the bathroom overnight, but it started meowing loudly again. Major separation anxiety. Knox lay down by the bathroom so it would stay there and go potty (that was our big fear: that it would soil the carpet or linens). That did not work, so we let it sleep on the bed with us. Feline 1, humans 0.

It woke us up early, frisky and hungry. I fed it some more, and we turned the light off as Knox took a bath. Finally, Silly went potty in a corner of the bathroom. All three of us went to bed then, and the kitty (and we!) slept peacefully for two hours more.

We debated whether to keep it or not. It sure would be romantic to start our Seattle life with a cat that we found on the road trip. But it would really alter the journey, it would be a big, long-term commitment, and, well, Knox is allergic to cats. We set off for the Humane Society and got lost. We asked directions at a service station, and, as an afterthought, asked whether any of the guys there could use a cat. One of them phoned his girlfriend and took us up on the offer.

Silly is now in a good home in Mobile. I’ll miss you, Silly.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Move to Seattle 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.