Nomads and Cat Poop

Done with Politics for awhile...

I'm writing this from bed. My wife is next to me and sick. My dog, who thinks she's people, is between us with her head on the pillow. She's waiting anxiously for me to go to sleep so she can end her night time vigil and drift off into the arms of sleep. She's inspiring me to write this, but I don't want to keep her up.

I've been much like a nomad for most of my life. I didn't plan on it; it just happened that way. I don't think it was ever intentional from my parents perspective either; it just happened that way. Not long after I was born, my parents began planning their move from the dangerous San Francisco Bay Area to the quiet sylvan setting of Edmonton, Kentucky. I have been told that I was supposed to start school in Kentucky, which explains the pictures of our house being built before I was in Kindergarten, but a series of events and epiphanies predicted a different future for me. The youth that followed led me from:

Ellerhorst Elementary K-4
Shannon Elemtary 4-5
Pinole Middle School 6
Pinole Junior High School 7
we moved to Kentucky at Christmas
Edmonton Elementary 7-8
Metcalfe County High School 9-12

Now I understand that a lot of people have moved around a lot more and this isn't some "woe is me" type deal, I'm just illustrating my life. After High School, I started College:

Centre College 1997-2001 and then lived and taught as a substitute teacher in Danville, Ky for the next school year.

After that, I moved to Louisiana (long story) for a year and then back to Bowling Green, Ky in order to finish Grad school, which I started at Southeastern Louisiana University.

The ebb and tide of these moves between schools, towns and states essentially left me with series of friendships that lasted for a few years and then disappeared completely. Sure, there are a few people from each time period I still talk to and some that are still my best friends, but by and large, the nomad aspect of my life has prevented me from keeping a lot of friends close to me.

That longing for the closeness of a friend's compassion or ever open ear has been best filled by my pets. Now here's the part where I should tell you some heroic story of an endlessly loyal and devoted dog or something like the preface to "Marley & Me". Of course, I don't have a story of growing up with a dog like this. I do, however, have a story.

I didn't really have pets until I got out of college. Sure, my family had pets--loads of them. Just, none of them were really mine. I can remember a steadily revolving cast of characters from the time I was born and continuing on to this day at my parents' dog rescue operation. We had little inside dogs, big inside dogs, outside dogs, inside cats, outside cats, a chicken, a goat, a couple of pot bellied pigs, we even had some possums that used to come eat cat food. My Dad was able to develop a friendship with the younger possums and pick them up. Of course his reward was a tooth-bearing hiss, but that's about as close as a man can get to a possum without getting rabies.

I was once given a dog. Now, I'm not the kind to turn down a gift, but back then, I'd always wanted a kitten. Plus, the puppy was intended for and rejected by my Grandmother. I got the second chance at her. I was thrilled, but the first night she tried to sleep in my bed, she must've had fleas and I got really itchy and complained. So, they took her away from me and she became my Mom's dog. Which was fine, she was a wonderful friend to me, but she wasn't mine.

I got my kitten wish when one wandered into my Dad's business. He brought her home and she was promptly backed over (on accident). A few months later, the same scenario developed and this one didn't meet an untimely death. However, she was pregnant and moody. The resulting kittens, I was told, would be mine. Of course she was a little bit feral and had them out in the wild. After weeks of searching, she must've had buyer's remorse and led me to them (two hissing monsters of pain) and said, "Have it at, boy, I'm outta here!" One stayed wild, the other met the fan belt of our car.

During college, I had the chance to have an illegal cat in my dorm room. The cat was pretty much a wild cat, not suited for indoor living. He stayed under the bed all year, only coming out to poop and annoy. On the way to take him back to my parents house, he jumped out the window (which I'd rolled down after he dumped in the backseat) and disappeared into the woods.

After college, I got two cats. Both as kittens. I had my wish. Well, as soon as I got my wish, these "naturals" at house training taught each other to use the corner instead of the litter box. At first, the used the box. Later, they started having occasional misses. They made the move from Danville to Louisiana to Bowling Green with me. When I moved back in with my parents for two months before getting a house, they were stuck in one room, only to be let out at night when the dogs were in bed with my parents. After I got my house, the shenanigans started. Pardon my language, but I called this, the "Kitty Bullshit Era" of my life. There were no other words...

It started with a miss here and a miss there. Eventually, they were pooping on the side of the litterbox. Soon, they were pooping next to the litterbox. It was comical to see their little scratch marks on the carpet where they'd tried to "cover up". It wasn't long before I would return home each day to poop on the carpet nowhere near the box. The cute little claw marks were gone as they were now blatantly pooping with reckless abandon on the floor. I became nervous and made sure to sleep with my mouth closed. I had to try to make them outside cats. They took to this well, but my neighborhood was very unwelcoming as the cats were blamed for a random assortment of problems. First, they were "making a dog bark" and soon after they were conjuring the Devil in the woods with Tituba, dancing naked and eating chicken blood. I had to find them new homes and label them as outside cats. Fortunately, I found a home for both of them together. I will never own another cat.

However, my kitten dreams had turned to nightmares, but a year or so before I moved to Louisiana, a very special dog came into my life. His story is the one I will tell, but that will have to wait until tomorrow as the snores in my ears tell me my dog has given up her vigil and gone to sleep.

Until then,

Seymour