Prisoner

Okay, okay, Wiley, we see you, staring forlornly out of the basement window which, at ground level, looks out directly onto our driveway, offering you a perfect view of the chipmunks who like to run and hide behind our neighbor's air-conditioning condensing unit. Despite the embarrassing shroud of dirt on the window -- we can plainly see that YOU WANT TO GO OUTSIDE...as if your incessant meowing and pawing at the door wasn't enough.

I realize that the hardest challenge of parenting our cats (and likely any human children we have) I will face is allowing them age-appropriate independence despite my catastrophic worrying.  Lesson #1: opening the door for Wiley to explore.

Once we moved the cats to Atlanta, I decided that Wiley, previously King of the Wild Outdoors, would revert to being an indoor cat. It simply would not be safe to let him outside in the city. So many things are different here than they were at my mom's house -- primarily, the amount of grass between the house and the road. Chapin = a couple of football fields worth. Atlanta = a couple of footballs.

My biggest fear? That Wiley would be mangled by a car (worse-case, the Hummer that lives next door), right after eating our neighbor's new kitten alive, rendering me blind with grief AND blackballed by all of the neighbors from future Bingo nights.

(Honestly, I didn't figure I would be able to stop the kitten massacre; with that haircut, this young cat definitely has a beating coming to him.)

It took a lot of soul-searching, urging from my husband and a vet's opinion that "sorry, he may continue to spray outside of the litter box so long as you keep him inside" to finally let Wiley out, but we're doing it. Kitten steps, mind you... he's only allowed out during the day, with lots of supervision. So far, he's limited his exploring to the back yard, which is a relief to me, since it's basically fenced-in on three sides. It seems he is scared of the noise made by the neighbor's air-conditioning condensing unit, the same machine he loves to watch from his indoor prison, so that stops him from heading up the driveway towards the treacherous road.

Furthermore, he is scared of the neighbor's kitten, who is known to walk the neighborhood and even cross the street, egad! We always know when she saunters into our yard, because there goes Wiley's meowing and pawing again... only this time, it's to be let inside.

Country Cats Head to the Big City

Wiley and Miss Kitty never dreamed of bright lights and the big city.  Miss Kitty, in fact, was walking the streets of Kline, SC, (pop. 238) sometime in the mid-90s when she was rescued by my grandmother's friend, Miss Marguerite, who told Grandmama, "I have just the cat for you!" She is a beautiful, graceful little thing - weighing in at only about 6 L.B.s, but when she opens her mouth and says "raaaaawh" she reveals the truth that she is, indeed, a redneck. After my grandmother's move to a nursing home eight years ago, she moved to the slightly bigger town of Chapin, SC, where she became a recluse, choosing to live exclusively on the second floor of my mother's home for the majority of those eight years (until, that is, we brought my mom home on hospice in Feb. 2010). Because my mom could not go upstairs, Miss Kitty was forced to explore the wilds of the main floor in order to curl up with her. Although roaming the main floor of my mom's house sparked off Miss Kitty's adventurous streak, I'm sure she never dreamed she would then live out her senior years in Atlanta -- in the middle of the city, no less.


Wiley, our 17-lbs., 11-year old orange tabby, was originally my indoor, apartment cat. I like to refer to him as my teenage 'whoops' who then had to be raised by his grandparents. I got him in college after Amy, my first cat (also male; don't ask!) passed on. I really didn't want a new kitten but thought, "How hard could it be?" Wiley was a nutcase right from the start -- I remember calling my mom, crying hysterically, "I can't deal with this!" He loved to sink his needle sharp kitten teeth into my leg as I walked across the room. He loved to throw his entire body against my bedroom door as soon as the sun started to come up and subsequently stick his paw under as far as it would go, batting at the air as a way of threatening, "LET ME IN OR ELSE!" He loved racing into my room, jumping up on the bed, sticking his head under the blinds to look at the birds, which would cause him to start twitching and panting like a dog. He'd then zoom off to the living room and rush back in, only to repeat the routine over and over. He loved chewing up anything he could, including my roommate's computer cords and the drawstrings to my favorite Gap pants. He was the devil.

Since my first job after college was driving the Hershey's Kissmobile, Wiley went to live with my parents while I was on the road. He thrived, having his freedom on 3 acres of land, and I thrived, having him out of my hair! I never felt one iota of guilt that I'd schlepped him off on my parents...maybe I should have.

The day we left Chapin to move the cats to Atlanta was a hard day for me. It was like wrapping up Part I in the book that is my life and starting Part II -- with two unhappy cats in the backseat.

We were only nine minutes into the trip when Wiley, who was already panting and howling for his life, turned around and took a monster dump. I was on the phone with the vet at the time saying, "I'm not sure that tranquilizer you gave me is working... he's panting like a dog with a real crazy look in his eye and oh GOD! oh GOD! HE's ....NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WILEY NO!!!! (pause.) YEP. He just pooped all over his carrier."

Luckily we were able to pull over to a dear friend's house right off the highway, clean him up, and start on our trip again after attempting to soothe him. Miss Kitty was as high as a kite, thanks to the vet's pills, so she barely said a word during this part of the trip. Sometimes she'd let out a single meow as if to say, "Wiley, dude, you must chill."

Just when we thought Wiley was going to be fine, somewhere around hour 2 of what should have been a 3 1/2 hour trip, he began a circling again. Poop #2 was disposed of at a gas station somewhere in Thompson, Georgia. Thompson was also the location of a desperate phone call placed to a friend, reminding her of her repeated offer to help with "anything, anything at all."

"What I need is for you to be at my house by 7 p.m. sharp with a cat-friendly shampoo in hand. This cat has pooped himself twice now, and we're about to pass out from the fumes." I knew early on that we would not be able to escape the inevitable: giving Wiley a bath.

But the grand finale came when we finally got within spitting distance of home. We'd just merged onto I-75 North, and my husband was so excited to be close to home that he started bantering with the cats, who, on cue, would answer him with a meow.

"Who's ready to be home?!" he shouted, enthusiastically.

"MEOW!" they both cried.

"Who wants to be an Atlanta cat?"

"MEOW!"

"Who wants to get a bath when we arrive?"

"MEOW!"

(You get the picture.) However, instead of getting them pumped about being almost home, I think the back and forth only served to upset Wiley more, who turned three circles and peed all over his box.

Just as we exited the highway, he turned a few more circles and dropped poop #3.

And as we turned onto Woodward Way, he gave us the finale: he heaved and heaved for about a quarter mile, while we shouted "NO, WILEY, HOLD IT!" before puking all over himself.

I think the banter upset Miss Kitty, too, judging from her cat carrier.

Our first hours home, after many a week in Chapin, were spent like this:

It may not have been the warmest and fuzziest homecoming I've ever experienced, but it certainly was the wettest and furriest.

Chapter Two

It's June 1, which means my break from blogging is over and it's time to say hello. So, hello.

When my mom passed away a month ago, it meant major changes in our lives. Besides the obvious sad implications, it also meant I would no longer be driving back and forth to South Carolina each and every week. In other words, I would be able to spend more time with my husband, resuming what some would call a "normal" life but what we know is far from (or so we hope!).

The second major change: we said goodbye to a lifetime of sleeping in, of taking off on trips whenever we want to with absolutely no forethought whatsoever, of thinking about the two of us and JUST the two of us.  In other words, we became parents.

Not literally, of course, but these two are far from self-sufficient.

And while I love these cats we inherited more than anything, they are true pains in the butts, as I assure you future posts will prove.