"their living is dependent on your caprice, rather than on
the right to receive a living wage."
That’s an exceptionally
essential question for a social worker to address, but today I want to write
about another topic because of its unique as well as extremely site attractive position
in the web . The word is kitten. What set the whole article off was bacon, but
we’re not going there. We’re going to kittens and how they attract massive
amounts of traffic on the internet. The writing can be atrocious, the videos
so-so, but I don’t think there has ever been a video of a kitty that failed to
catch the attention of the masses, millions of them. Watching and speaking of
these cute kitties has brought me to “bring it on down to me”. I am foster
caring a cat; a beautiful black tortoise shell cat, sometimes known as Calico
cats. I got Mia, the Kat, when she was about 2. She had been brought up with
many siblings and a few racially divergent animals such as dogs as her eating
habits show. At some point, as it
happens with children, somebody moved into the house, the cat owner’s grown son
and he started torturing the animals, which the woman got rid of, one by one
until I hope she is alone with her brother and he has no one to torture but her
and she’ll come to her senses. I suggested she get rid of the son…
A good friend of mine living up in that area, where poverty,
klu klux klan affiliation and retirees do not come together but live side by
side, under the shadow of the Eastern Catskills, took the cat in, to keep her
dog company, and ameliorate the cat’s condition in one broad cat like stoke.
Alas for the dog and the cat, little time did they spend
together as my friend, living conditions having improved for her, could not
keep the cat in the new environment. In a flash of heedless sympathy, I agreed
to foster care the cat, as I imagined somehow finding it a loving, compassionate,
and permanent home, quickly and efficiently.
The Cat, Mia, came with the unsparing and generous luxury my
friend is well known for. Mia, the Trauma Cat, journeyed the long four hours it
took us to get from the forested greens of the Mountains to the urban streets
of Brooklyn. Mia, The Trauma Kat was gently and carefully taken into the
apartment merely to disappear for over two weeks, putting in an appearance only
to eat and to use the litter box. We knew it was a traumatized cat, a young two
year old cat and that we only would slowly gain its trust. This was also a cat
that had been born and raised in the country and had no idea of what it could
be like to live in a city. Airplanes overhead, trucks underneath, ships blowing
their horn, people screaming, and in the summer the constant hummer of air
conditioners. This bumpkin cat came to Brooklyn, scared, traumatized and its
foster family not used to dealing with trauma in animals.
We almost refused to believe it exists. Two months later, we
know better and so does Mia, the Kat. She tolerates petting and runs for the victuals.
We started buying her expensive grain free, cat adequate fare, which she utterly
rejected. My friend had also included in the package a large amount of canned
food which by its smell and contents I was tempted to try! Mia the Kat, on the
other hand would not even touch it! But unbeknownst to me an open bag of MeowMix, had been thrown in the “cat care
package”. A few weeks later, with concerns
for an increasingly rotund cat which I
suspected was pregnant, the “father” was found. The MM* bag, hidden under a couch, with one
grand hole into the plastic bag and another into the food itself was full of punctures,
as the cat had found her bounty. She was feeding to her heart’s content! She
would clamor and meow to be petted while she ate a few of the organic and
expensive vittles, and would then sneak to the happy world of junk food.
She is still anxious, and any sound or sudden movements will
drive her under any spot she can find. I will not be able to keep her forever
as my lease is pretty clear on pets. She is beautiful and at night I pick her
up and bring her to the bottom of my bed from whence she promptly jumps and
runs to the hallway. But throughout the night I have learned better than to
move my legs onto the spot she has designed for herself. A clear meow awakens
me and my leg moves towards the center of the bed.
She’s not a normal cat and she demonstrates the hyper sensitivity
of a trauma victim. But gentle words, a supple bed and soothing hands as well
as a quiet dark hiding spot are starting to do the magic that trauma work is
supposed to do. Can I do it with people?
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