Nothing Can Come Between A Girl And Her Black Cat, Unless You're The Black Cat

I’ve never been anyone’s first choice and if you have kept up with this blog, you should know that about me by now.  Maybe it’s my own fault, preferring to stick to the shadowed corners, rather than the blinding brightness of the spotlight.  But can I let you in on a little secret dear reader?  I’ve secretly always wanted to be the center of attention. I maintain a hard prickly exterior so that I protect myself from disappointment when I'm not chosen first or second or third or even fourth, maybe fifth or sixth if I'm competing against a group total of twelve.

I promise this post isn't about me, even though the introduction would speak to the contrary.  This blog is actually dedicated to my dear black cat Edgar. The cat that didn’t want me (I know shocking) to begin with, the cat that I transplanted four times, much to his chagrin and a resentment that has been building over the years, but hasn't boiled over, yet.

I found Edgar as a half starved kitten outside of a beauty salon.  I had just gone through a divorce and needed a friend.  So, there he was, licking his paws and placidly looking as content as a stray kitten possibly could. I bent down and made the kissy faces, the kissy sounds. He wasn't amused and instead stared me down as if to say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”  I guess it wasn’t meant to be, I thought at the time, for I have never been one to push myself onto anyone.  I proceeded to enter the salon, mentioning the kitten to my stylist.  She told me that he had been hanging around for the last few days.  “He’s not very friendly,” I stated.  And then I looked out the window. A little girl, probably no older than eight, was standing, arms held lovingly around the cat that wouldn't give me the time of a day only a moment ago. I guess he wasn't the feral, obtuse animal that I thought him to be.

They say that you never find a cat, but rather they will find you and that’s how it always should be.  I didn’t heed that advice of course for I took Edgar home with me and to the vet the next day (he had worms and proceeded to shard around my house all night until he got on some good medication).

He did eventually warm up to me, although we had our fair share of growing pains. I think his favorite place to live was this little farm house that I was renting. 

The place had a rotted out tree stump in the front yard. Edgar would sit on it each morning as if it was his throne and take his daily bowel movement.  He even made friends with a chipmunk and I had the privilege of seeing them play together more than a few times.  No, he wasn’t torturing the small animal; the chipmunk would jump up on the front porch and wait for him.  I felt like I was living a Sleeping Beauty like fairy tale.

This is Edgar, enjoying the sunshine in one of his favorite spots and where he and the chipmunk would meet for their playdates.

But then I had to move again, and then again several months after that, across states no less.  Edgar, as you can only imagine was not pleased with my moving decisions and showed me in more ways than one.

You are never supposed to introduce a cat to the outside world until they have been in the same location for at least three months, or at least that's what the internet says, but Edgar hated the indoors, and I hated to clean out his litter box, so I let him navigate the back yard thinking that we had moved so much and he has always come back to me in each and every new location, so I really thought this situation wouldn’t be any different.  I was wrong of course.  Edgar didn’t just disappear, he disappeared for two whole months and then to top it off, some unknown neighbor found his collar and put it in our mailbox. 

"He's dead,” I cried to my husband.  That is the only explanation for someone doing such a thing without a call or note of explanation. 

But he wasn’t dead; he actually was living his best life down the street and around the corner, in the gutter.  That's right, the gutter proved to be a better home than the hell hole I had moved him too, or at least that's what I thought he would have said if he knew English. It took a few tears, a few embarrassing drive by yelling his name at the top of my lungs sessions, and one mistaken identity cat capture, before I found him, lured him back to me with cans of tuna and G standing behind him with a pillow case at the ready. Edgar was perfectly fine, if you were wondering He had lost a few pounds, was pristinely clean and well groomed. Smelled a little bit like a bed of roses which confused me.

He's better now, at least I think so, for he has started coming around more often.  He likes to observe the neighborhood from his perch on top of our fence.

We are safer knowing that he is protecting us or gathering the neighborhood gossip, none of which he shares with me.

For all of his gruff exterior he has a heart of gold; he will appear whenever you need him and when the situation is the most dire.  (i.e. when G’s dog died several years ago, Edgar laid by his feet until what he felt was the appropriate amount of time, two point three minutes if you were wondering).   It's only taken him eleven years to finally become comfortable with me, with his family (one bougie Mexican cat, one lazy dog, and one surprised husband that has discovered he now has a farm to keep up with.)  But a part of me still believes, especially when his aggressive meows are directed at me and only me each morning, that he wants me to know that I did take him away from that little girl, who was his first choice, and his poop stump, which was his second.