My Ex

In July, 2010, my 50th Blip  was my farewell to Chloe, my tiny wiry five-pound muscular (and ever eccentric) Abyssinian. I was fiercely allergic to her. She had met another person she loved, who wanted her. Chris is a carpenter and had installed my murphy bed, and when they met, it was love at first sight. Chloe couldn't stop rubbing against him, purring, and nuzzling him. He said, "I LOVE this cat! I've never felt this way about any cat before. If you ever decide to re-home her...."

She has been living happily with Chris for the past two years. His old dog died, and he and Chloe are still mad about each other. He recently moved to an apartment building across the street from the one I live in, and when I met him on the street, he told me about the changes in his life and said I was welcome to visit her any time.

Having visions of a reunion like that of Christian the lion with his former people, I visited and waited to see what would happen. It was not a dramatic reunion. She kept her distance, was twitchy and nervous, paced and hid behind Chris. But now Chris has gone on a two-week vacation and I'm cat-sitting (and taking allergy pills), and although she spends much time searching for him, leaping up if she hears a sound in the hallway, and rubbing against his jacket, she has come around to being nuzzly with me again, though I can feel her need for boundaries. One of her eccentricities is that she has to have her daily runs: once in the morning and once in the evening, Chris lets her have the run of the building hallway, and she literally RUNS from one end to the other and back, as if running around a track, for about half an hour. All the neighbors know this and have adapted to a track-running tiny cat in the hallway twice a day.

This morning, as I was going in to visit, I had trouble with the key and another resident let me in. I explained that I'm cat-sitting and she said, "With Chloe?" I said yes. Chris's neighbor laughed, "She's crazy! She's the most neurotic cat I've ever run into. She's like an Olympic athlete, just as obsessive and driven. What a character!" In the same way that we often don't claim our ex-partners when they are a trifle embarrassing, I kept my mouth shut and smiled.

It is a pleasure to come home to my hypo-allergenic Siberian gentleman, Taiga: more than twice her weight, three times her age, and far more temperamentally suited to my lifestyle. He sleeps, he floats heavily from the bed to the couch twice a day or so. He is a great couch-potato lap-cat, unruffled by visitors, the grandchild, sirens, fireworks, and anything else, really. Like a cat-Buddha, he is the soul of equanimity. And so it is that some of us do, given life enough and time, find our true partners.