Cat Ladies

So, I am now living in Canada!

My cat made it too. My cat, who I now often refer to as Houdini, was the central missing character in a typical moving day crisis. Chico, his real name, found an unfindable hiding spot somewhere in my house, where he stayed for about 12 hours! In the meantime, I had assumed he had gotten out because all of the doors were open for hours. The crisis reached its peak during a nasty thunderstorm where I was left crying and thinking that I must be the worst pet owner ever after letting this happen to my poor "defenseless, never-been-outside-before" cat.

To make things worse, my neighbor came over to warn me about a vicious grey fox he had seen in the area. He was wielding a baseball bat to defend himself en route. Thank goodness I still had my internet connection because I promptly googled grey foxes and found that neither humans, nor cats were likely prey.

Chico finally showed himself, dirty and stressed (wait--was that him or me?) at around 11 pm.

The rest of the moving experience went smoothly. My worldly goods are now in storage waiting for a visa to set them free...

Chico was again a concern when I crossed the border. Even though I had crossed the Canadian border many times before with a cat, I figured that this would ironically be the time that it was not OK. So armed with his papers from a recent trip to the vet I went ahead, bumper to bumper as usual.

Just my luck, "la douanière" was a purple eye-shadow wearing, cat-loving woman! She proceeded to tell me at length about her five cats and their roles in her and each other's lives and eventually said "OK, have a nice day..." That was basically it! Chico's reluctant presence definitely made the last leg of the journey a pleasure.

Unfortunately Chico has done little more than hide behind the washing machine since, but he'll come around. Like me, he's getting used to the new noises of city living.