Stray Cats and Astray Pasts

There is only one Sharjah Feline Friend on call this summer. We're actually an adjunct to Dubai Feline Friends as that's who first gets the calls seein' how we don't have a website yet. They pass the Sharjah calls on to me. Then it's to the cat mobile. We rarely euthanize--FIV or Fee-Leuk positive only. Otherwise, if we trap an abandoned, non-feral furry one, we foster then home. If it's a feral furry one, we trap/neuter/release.

So,my post-Laos summer has consisted mainly of four time consuming activities.

One is Body Attack. It balances out my unrelenting snack attacks.

Another is writing an article about language teachers and bolt holes which I'll submit either to an inflight magazine or a Larry Flint publication.

Another has been taking video lessons to learn how to play more melodic phrases using octaves ala Wes Montgomery, playing licks over free downloads of backing tracks.

(Me at the American University of Sharjah Semi-Annual Scholarship Fundraiser)

M'Mere fed her young on Wes Montgomery so that even when I swayed towards rock and roll, I always knew what a really good guitarist could do and as much as I idolized and idealized Keef Richards, I've also always been keenly aware that he couldn't play for shit compared to real players like W.M.

So, in between making another attempt to ascend my own Everest of guitar playing, that is to learn how to sound more like a jazz player using cool jazz octaves on the deep resonant front pick-up of my orange hollow body Gretsch knock-off, I've also been taking calls to turn off the amp and leave my home grown studio to go out and try to rescue not-so-cool cats in distress, schlepping my traps around town, crawling under cars, sneakily climbing up and down dark stairwells, waiting out my prey near stanky garbage bins then after a successful trap, coming home with numerous bites and scratches--all the while hoping that the ancient Egyptians were bang on about the sanctity of felines (thus securing my seat at the right paw of the almighty).

So, for all my efforts, here's an "ahhhhh".

Two weeks ago, I picked up a totally blind kitten who had nothing but a pink coating where his pupils should have been, took him to "Jim the Belgian Vet" and asked "Jim the Belgian Vet" to give me five days before giving this pity kitty the quietus juice.

I sent out despairing kitten-in-distress Emails to the Dubai Feline Friends mailing list, most of whom are still on "hols". I knew my Emails were like the same hopleless flares bursting over the Titanic. On the fifth morning, with no response, it looked like we had us a dead cat walking on the Green Mile the morning after the monster's ball.

Then, as the clock ticked towards the cat's last breaths and moments of darkened consciousness, I got a call from a good Christian Filipina who had seen the Emails, seen the photos and spent the weekend blubbering to her husband that she wanted to adopt the cat. "I hope I'm not too late, sir," she said. (Filipinos have an annoying propensity to punctuate every sentence with "sir" or "madoom").

I hurried her off the phone, called "Jim the Belgian Vet" and asked if the kitten was still among us in this sweet old world. Yup. "Jim the Belgian Vet" was in the middle of his morning surgeries and had scheduled to perform the mortal deed in an hour or so.

"Hold off! I found a home!" I, um, reprieved.


I wonder how much bad karma I've burned off on this one? Not as much as the woman who homed the cat--who is, as I've stated a good Christian and doesn't need to burn off any bad karma as she probably has a full house of good karma already. But for me, maybe now I have one less former college co-ed I hope to run into in order to make amends because I lied about not having a girlfriend.