Some forty years ago I had a sweet and lovely white cat. I ran off to Paris and left her with a neighbor who loved her too. I never forgot either of them. Now they are back.
Michael, what a very nice reminiscence, transporting us with you from Echo Park to Paris and back to the present to the Hudson Valley, transported by a wonderful feline magic carpet.
I love this story. I like you even more now that I now you are a cat lover like my husband and myself.
I have had cats for most my life and done much kitty rescue and adoption work with rescue groups. Alice sounds like she left a cat shaped hole in your heart and will never be forgotten. How nice you reconnected with Christine and learned of Alice’s long happy and healthy life. You did the right thing by Alice and she ended up in great house. That’s what counts.
Cats absolutely have minds of their own. I had a black cat named Boo, who hated living with a neighbor who would smoke a lot and forget to feed him. At first I thought he was a stray too until I put a collar and a tag on him with my name, address and phone number. She then came to my door and was very hostile and told me to leave her cat alone and stop feeding him. Regardless he was frequently running into our door if opened and would leg rub and chortle until we fed him. He looked sickly once so we even brought him to the vet and got him vaccinated and antibiotics for an ear infection he developed.
We could see Boo needed care so we ignored the rude lady and kept letting him in during storms and feeding him. The neighbor reported us to animal control and the officer ended up telling us he was technically our cat because we showed him the vet records on the cat when he asked for them, but the neighbor couldn’t do that. So we then decided to keep Boo inside gradually more and more, which he slowly got used too.
I will never forget the day when this neighbor woman who used to own him drove up to my house after the animal control officer visited. She yelled at me saying I stole her cat Boo (who oddly is what she called him before we named him that too.) my response to her was funny and I never thought I would use this phrase. I told her, “all is fair in love and war.” She looked shocked and drove off fast and I never heard from her again. Ultimately Boo chose our house so we just went with it. We still miss this special cat years later. We had him from 1999 to 2012.
Now we have two Ginger cats we love who are very different in personality, both are rescues we adopted, Goldie and Butters. Plus we have an adorable Cavalier King Charles Spaniel as well.
Regardless, Boo is still deeply missed and we talk about his origin story from time to time as it was so interesting.
Thank you again for sharing about Alice. I love the title of this post too. Great story!
Thanks for the kind words and for sharing your own story! Christine is going to digitize some photos she has of Alice and when she gets to it—she is pretty busy these days—I will splice in the photo at the top.
Michael, what a very nice reminiscence, transporting us with you from Echo Park to Paris and back to the present to the Hudson Valley, transported by a wonderful feline magic carpet.
Thanks Eli, your kind words much appreciated! Hope to see you sometime this spring or summer.
I love this story. I like you even more now that I now you are a cat lover like my husband and myself.
I have had cats for most my life and done much kitty rescue and adoption work with rescue groups. Alice sounds like she left a cat shaped hole in your heart and will never be forgotten. How nice you reconnected with Christine and learned of Alice’s long happy and healthy life. You did the right thing by Alice and she ended up in great house. That’s what counts.
Cats absolutely have minds of their own. I had a black cat named Boo, who hated living with a neighbor who would smoke a lot and forget to feed him. At first I thought he was a stray too until I put a collar and a tag on him with my name, address and phone number. She then came to my door and was very hostile and told me to leave her cat alone and stop feeding him. Regardless he was frequently running into our door if opened and would leg rub and chortle until we fed him. He looked sickly once so we even brought him to the vet and got him vaccinated and antibiotics for an ear infection he developed.
We could see Boo needed care so we ignored the rude lady and kept letting him in during storms and feeding him. The neighbor reported us to animal control and the officer ended up telling us he was technically our cat because we showed him the vet records on the cat when he asked for them, but the neighbor couldn’t do that. So we then decided to keep Boo inside gradually more and more, which he slowly got used too.
I will never forget the day when this neighbor woman who used to own him drove up to my house after the animal control officer visited. She yelled at me saying I stole her cat Boo (who oddly is what she called him before we named him that too.) my response to her was funny and I never thought I would use this phrase. I told her, “all is fair in love and war.” She looked shocked and drove off fast and I never heard from her again. Ultimately Boo chose our house so we just went with it. We still miss this special cat years later. We had him from 1999 to 2012.
Now we have two Ginger cats we love who are very different in personality, both are rescues we adopted, Goldie and Butters. Plus we have an adorable Cavalier King Charles Spaniel as well.
Regardless, Boo is still deeply missed and we talk about his origin story from time to time as it was so interesting.
Thank you again for sharing about Alice. I love the title of this post too. Great story!
Thanks for the kind words and for sharing your own story! Christine is going to digitize some photos she has of Alice and when she gets to it—she is pretty busy these days—I will splice in the photo at the top.
I can’t wait to see the pictures of Alice. I am sure she was a beauty.