Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Washington Cross

This morning, I found this little guy on the freeway offramp where I exit every day for work.  He was sitting there in the middle of the road.  I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and approached him.  He crossed the road into some pretty thorny bushes between the ramp and the actual freeway, and I knew I had to extricate him, because he had little chance of surviving the day if I didn't.  I came out of the fray covered in scratches, stuck all over with little thorns, and pretty dirty.  And then I had a cat in my car.  As you can see, he's quite safety conscious and elected to ride in the infant restraint.

Although I could complain for hours about my job, one huge advantage of it is that I can pretty much change my schedule at will, so I went in and did a switcheroo to work this evening.  Then I took the cat to the vet, got my car washed and vacuumed to get rid of any fleas, and went to Petco to pick up some necessary items.

I should mention that I named the cat Washington about a minute after I got him into my car.  I found him on the Washington exit off the 10 freeway.  So I guess I had it in mind to adopt him right away.  He's on a trial basis now.  We'll see how he does.  He's hiding under Jeff's desk, and I expect he'll be there for a few days.

Sadly, when I went into work later, I exited at the same place and I thought hey, I wonder if Washington has any brothers and sisters.  And right after I thought that, I did see a little kitten quite exploded in the road, very near where I had found Washington this morning.  It didn't even occur to me to look around for more kittens earlier today, and I was kind of devastated to find out I'd separated them, and then one hadn't made it.  So now I know that Washington is not only hiding under Jeff's desk and taking some time to adjust; he's mourning the loss of a family member.  Maybe several.  Could have been a heck of a lot worse for him, and I'm sure he'll recover, but he's had a tough day.

One kind of fun thing today for a geek like me was that for some reason my vet thought I would be interested in seeing Washington's infestation of ear mites under a microscope.  Man, that guy has me pegged.  I totally loved that.

Washington was filthy and the ear mite thing was out of control, but he cleaned up pretty well.  I don't think he's actually a biter or a scratcher.  He was just terrified out of his mind this morning.  The fight had gone out of him when I picked him up from the vet.  They wrapped him in a little blanket, just like a swaddle, and all he could muster was a weak hiss by that time.

Zack got to pet him a little and was very good with the "gentle touching," although he did grab an ear.  There was no payback from Washington, so that's a great sign.  I offered him some food and sat and petted him while he ate; he was clearly starving.   So we'll see.  Any more scratching and he's out on his recently cleaned and de-mited ears.  But I'm optimistic.

3 comments:

Octopunk said...

The update is that he left the refuge under my desk for an even more secure hiding place, that is to say we have no idea where he is. Julie has no problem with this because she's used to cats hiding themselves, but I must admit I'm a little unsettled.

Julie said...

More update, Washington used his litter box. I love that about cats. I wish toddlers were as easy to train.

And sadly, I saw another sibling dead on the road today. A very pretty, white kitty. I looked around for any live ones, but I didn't get out of the car. They are most likely hiding if they are around. I barely got Wash out of that sticker bush. I doubt I could persuade any more to come with me unless I happened to catch them right out in the open. The timing was just right to save the first one's life.

What's up with people? Nobody brakes for kittens? It's a mean world.

DKC said...

Washington is seriously cute. I hope things work out and he gets to stay!