Shock and Disaster

The word "disaster" is one that we've been hearing a lot from one of the presidential candidates. I didn't count, but one report said that it was used 14 times in the second presidential debate, and who knows for sure how many times he has said it since then. I've gotten so I cringe when I hear the word.  But I have to say, that "disaster" is the word I would use to describe what happened when the family came to meet Mo on Saturday.

I was all ready for them to come.  The dogs were all settled, everything was in its place. But when the family came in, to my shock, Mo got scared, and he ran off and hid in the only place he could find which was under the washing machine.  I couldn't even see him because he was tucked so far under it. I really tried to act like it wasn't a big deal, that this was no problem, and Mo was such a nice cat, and they were going to love him...If I could only get to him....  I chatted away and I kept the mood light, and joked about the whole situation as I casually asked Carl to "please come and move the washer and dryer and get Mo out from underneath".  When Carl was able to finally get to Mo (not an easy feat because there's not a lot of room in our laundry room), he got away from me again and with all the doors closed he ran to the only place he could find to hide which was under the couch. My attempts to inject humor into the whole situation was getting harder to do.  And I'll admit that my embarrassment in front of a couple I'd just met and their two children was also getting hard to conceal -- Also getting hard to say was that Mo was a really friendly and sociable cat.

When Carl finally managed to get him out from under the sofa, he handed him to me, and Mo again got away from me and hid once more under the sofa.  The third time, I wasn't going to let him escape and I tightly held onto him and put him into a small crate, but not before he scratched me several times.  By this time we were all at a loss for words, and the husband more out of politeness than anything, slowly opened the crate and made a half-hearted attempt to make friends with Mo. Looking back at it, I guess given what had happened and seeing the scratches on my hand and arm may have made them all a bit wary of doing that. But really by this time, we all had to be honest and admit defeat and agree that Mo was not the cat for them.

My mind was reeling from the whole thing, and in a vain attempt to salvage any of my dignity and make the family feel that maybe their more than one hour drive to our house wasn't a waste of time, I brought out Jake.  I thought that letting the kids meet him and put treats onto his nose for him to catch may help end the visit on a good note.  It's a good trick, but it did little to change the mood of everyone.

What we all really wanted was this whole event to be over, so I walked them out and came back inside to get Mo out from under the couch. What a total disaster...

I talked with the cat-director of the SPCA and she did a great job of helping me to not feel badly about what happened and to see the humor in the whole thing.  She's going to come over in a few days to see Mo, and we'll decide how to move forward with placing him into a new home then.

We did decide to go ahead and bring in the new addition, who was supposed to be Mo's replacement.  Her name is Lucille and she's about 4 months old.  She was found on the side of the road, after she'd been hit by a car. Lucille has had surgery to repair a severe break in her front leg by the same surgeon as Max. And like Max, she also needs total crate rest while it mends.  The plan is for us to keep her during the initial recovery time and move her to another foster home when she gets the "all clear" from the surgeon.

It may sound like a lot to handle, but Charlie is there to offer lots of help and support. Longtime readers of this blog will recall that for some reason he really, really loves kittens and the lovely little Lucille is no exception.

Charlie is very attentive to Lucille and he's always right there when I'm tending to her, letting me know that he's there to help.  And, just in case she does need something, the last 2 nights he's been been sleeping by her crate.  Tonight, he's also there making sure she's okay.  

Mo really didn't make a good impression on the family that hoped to adopt him.  But Charlie really does make a pretty good nurse.