the adventures of a sweet cat

I believe animals are one of God's blessings in our lives. Here is the story of how Adeline the Cat, a true blessing to me, came to live with me.

One Friday afternoon last fall, I was sitting next to my piano student as she played her lesson for me at her home and a little tabby cat that I’d never seen there before hopped up into my lap and settled in. As I petted her (and she purred!), my student told me that she had wandered into their yard a few days earlier and appeared to be abandoned because she apparently had no desire to leave. She was very thin and so we started to conjecture that maybe someone had lost his/her job and could no longer afford to keep her and so let her loose, hoping she’d find a good home. Or maybe the owner was elderly and had to move to a nursing home and her kids just let the cat loose, not caring what happened to her…As it turned out, none of our guesses were correct. And, for that, we were all so very thankful!

This cat is unusual. The mother of my piano student told me she’d never seen anything like it. When she arrived in their yard and was confronted by their two large barking dogs, she just sat still, as if to say, “Is THIS all you’ve got to show me, you guys? You’re kidding, right?” She didn’t tense up, she didn’t hiss, she didn’t run away. From her reaction, we wondered if she’d lived with dogs. As the days progressed, she showed that she was clearly an indoor cat and the resident cat took great umbrage at this and became quite jealous. She would not be able to stay. That’s where I came in…

I’d been contemplating getting a cat for a little while. Never mind that I had never actually HAD a cat…I just thought it would be nice to have animal life in my house again. My dog Daisy had died several years before and I knew I couldn’t get another dog because my schedule is too hectic. I had no idea if I was a cat lover or not. (Apparently, the cat lover in me lay dormant for all these years because it turned out, YES, I LOVE cats…or at least this one!) All I knew for sure was I wanted a cat who would enjoy sitting on my lap, was pretty docile, who was declawed and who wouldn’t scoff at my long work hours or my piano playing AND would be good with the grandkids. I didn’t think I was asking for too much!

I took her home. The first thing she and I did was go through the entire house, top to bottom (literally…she jumped up about 7 feet and landed on top of a bookcase; scared me half to death—-who knew cats could jump like that!). She used the litter boxes I’d set up (one upstairs, one downstairs, as advised by my friend who has had probably 20 cats in her lifetime and is the ultimate cat lover). From the very beginning, it was as if she had lived here all her life.

The first week, I swore she acted more like a dog than a cat. She followed me everywhere. She slept with me, making sure at least one of her paws was somewhere on me. The first few nights, she and I “partied” at 3 AM. She licked and licked my face and groomed my hair and sat on me and ran around the bed and then around the house and then stood by her food dish, meowing for me to fill it up NOW. Of course, being the cat owner neophyte I was and not knowing any better, I gave her everything she so desired. After all, we were bonding and 3 AM is my usual time-to-be-up-in middle-of-the-night-for-a-while time so I was basically awake anyway.

After the first week, she became more cat-like. She was still always around me but now she let me sleep through the night, without the intensive grooming. (Apparently, I must have looked pretty good to her by then!) I was grateful for the peaceful night’s sleep. And, when I’d come home, she’d look at me, as if to say, “Oh, I see you’re home. Big deal! I’m staying put.”

Then, she went through a stage when I'd come through the door, she’d be nowhere to be found for at least an hour. I think she wanted me to know that, when she deigned to make an appearance in my presence, it would be on HER time schedule, not mine. She still slept with me but usually not the entire night and rarely needed to touch me as she slept. I believe she settled into ruling the roost at my house quite nicely!

Nowadays, I can hear her meowing at the door after I pull into the garage and get out of my car. She's learned to recognize the garage door opening. She meows ferociously after a 12 hour day of being alone, as if to chastise me soundly for not being there with her. For the next few minutes, she and I lie on the couch--I on the couch, she on me. She purrs and I pet her. I tell her I know her life is strictly meant for de-stressing mine and it's working quite nicely.

When I was searching for a name for her, I wanted a saint’s name. I settled on “Sweet Adeline”. Since I am a musician, I thought of the women’s barbershop organization, the Sweet Adelines, AND, in doing a bit of research, I discovered a nun from the 12th century named Blessed Adeline (she’d not been declared a saint yet…) who was an abbess of a Benedictine monastery. Now, the roots of my childhood go back to Duluth where I was educated by the Benedictine nuns there from kindergarten through college. It was perfect! I’d call her Addie, for short.

About a month after I'd gotten Addie, she had several vomiting episodes and not just a tiny bit due to an errant hairball. I knew she was sick when I’d just vacuumed and I noticed a long thin string of what looked like spaghetti next to her vomit. Worms! I called the vet who is in my neighborhood the next morning and got her in right away. Sure enough, it WAS worms and I was given medication to squirt in her mouth.

During the visit to the vet’s, the doctor wondered if Addie had a microchip in her to identify her owner. When she checked it out, she did! We were able to get a lot of information about the previous owner…like, dang it (just kidding!), her name and phone number. We HAD to call her…I’d been saying all along that if the owner could be found, I would gladly give her back because it was so clear that this was one well-loved cat. If I had been the owner, I would always wonder what had happened to her. So, I sat, waiting, while the phone call was made. No answer. Maybe she was dead! (Sorry, Lord…) A message was left. Now, I just had to wait it out. The doctor said that, if she didn’t respond for a week, we could assume Addie was mine. We found out that she was 10 years old and that her name was Gucci. I joked that no wonder she didn’t come when I called “ADDIE”. They said she’s a CAT; she probably wouldn’t come to the name Gucci either!

One of the heartwarming pieces to this story is when I went to the front desk to pay the bill at the vet’s. The receptionist told me there would be no charge. I asked how that could be and she said it’s not my responsibility. I said, well, it MIGHT be, if I get to keep her. She said just bring her in for regular checks and rabies shots. I told her I could do that and thanked her over and over.

I went home to squirt the worm medicine in Addie’s mouth. (I got most of it in!) I thought about having to give Addie up. It was going to be okay. Surprisingly, I wasn’t sad, although I really hoped I could keep her. She was such a wonderful cat! However, maybe she was in my life for a short time to show me how endearing cats can be and teach me about them so I would find another cat to love, too. It was God’s plan, one way or another!

The vet had given me all the information she’d learned about Addie. Name, owner’s name, address, phone number, that she’d been spayed and was 10 years old. I looked up on whitepages and mapquest about the owner. I discovered her first and middle names are Joanne Marie, the same as mine! I learned that she lived exactly 2 miles from where she’d ended up at my student’s home. If this cat could only talk! I had a feeling she’d had some interesting adventures in her journey to me.

That evening, I retrieved a message from Jo, the owner. She relayed how shocked she was that “Gucci” had been found. She said Gucci had been gone for 2 and a half months and she’d just gotten another cat a month ago. (I realized that Addie had been out on her own for a whole month before she was taken in. How in the world did she survive? She must be a better mouser than she wants me to know in her current situation! One good thing about it all was we’d both get our questions about Addie/Gucci answered by one another.) She thanked me for taking such good care of her. She said she didn’t know what she was going to do because her landlord wouldn’t allow her to have two cats. Well, I knew what she could do! I immediately called her back and left a message, pleading my case. I told her how grateful I was for Addie, explaining what I’d called her. I said I would love to keep her and she could have visiting rights any time she wanted.

I received a message the next morning, granting me permission to keep her and asking for a call back to tell her how Gucci ended up with me. That morning I realized that it was October 20th, the feast day of Blessed Adeline! I had a strong feeling that even Blessed Adeline was somehow in on this whole thing.

I would never have guessed this would be how it would turn out. What a blessing for both Joannes in Addie's life! Jo found out what happened to her and I got to keep the sweetest, most adorable, awesome, greatest cat in the world (well, at least SHE thinks so!). It certainly is an unlikely blessing, given all the circumstances of this story. And, guess what? It turns out she DOES answer to Gucci so now I call her Gucci Addie. An unusual cat, indeed, AND a great blessing to me!