The past few days have been fraught with minor annoyances. The house is being sold, I can stay here until it's sold and then have to negotiate a new deal with the new landlord. The realtor has been about, showing the house, he calls and gives 3 or 4 hours notice to announce he's got a showing, then calls back later in the afternoon to announce another. "Enough is Enough" I say, I want to be helpful, I have the best landlord in the world, but I'll be damned if I'm going to arrange to be out of the house for 18 hours a day while he leads through tour groups....I explain it to him, he's apologetic, I suspect he's new to this and so try to be a bit understanding but really now....
And then there's the neighbors. They showed up on Monday, the whole posse, friends, relatives, I was alerted by the startled cat who ran into the house to hide. They're moving out. They tried the city, didn't like it, they're going to move back to the reserve. Judging by the hickies on his neck there's been some sort of reconciliation. It took them 4 hours but then they were done and gone.
I give them the utilities bill, roughly calculate the gas, they promise to pay, send me a cheque by the weekend, it's almost a thousand dollars and so I hope, but I know my priorities aren't their priorities...
They want the cat. I offer to buy it off of them, "No, we can't sell our cat", no mention of the fact that they were happy starving it, leaving it for 3 weeks without food or water locked in the cellar hall, they want their cat. It wouldn't be a family without the cat.
The cat is of a different mind. It's cautious as they're moving, won't go outside, hiding in the living room. Finally when they've finished packing they come for it, I offer to but it one more time but they wouldn't consider it, it's their cat, and he calls and beckons it while it hides in my room, reluctantly I pick it up and hand it to him. It's not so excited.
Carrying it to the truck the cat claws him and escapes. They look for it for about half an hour, wherever it's hiding it's not coming out, finally he approaches me and says that apparently the cat wants to stay with me.....and they leave.
I find the cat in the alley, my new roomate, have to find a name for her but I think I have one already, "Cat" I'll call it.