bye bye purrsia

I'm happy to report that Purrsia has been adopted by a lovely couple from Sherman Oaks. It was a mutual love story. Within five minutes of their arrival at my place, Purrsia was all over them, purring, rolling around, and generally doing her best to totally charm them. Meanwhile, they were charming HER. Ain't love grand? So she's off to her new home, where she will live inside, and be the much-spoiled First Cat.

Whew. I miss her.

Thanks, everyone, for your help in finding Purrsia her Home Sweet Home.

signing off,
Deborah

I Love Mondays, by Purrsia

Always look at Mondays upside-down. It helps.

It's smart to scope out the world before diving into it. Be prepared.

EXCUSE ME - I'm having my bath! Can't a cat get some privacy???

There is nothing like a cold drink of good old Los Angeles tap water, imho. YUM. Guzzle, guzzle.

Some days it's tough to decide: brush or play? Allow it to serve me or just eat it?

Oh Yeah. Right there. Ahhhhhhhhh.... that brush is the coolest invention since opposable thumbs (to open canned catfood, of course).

You CAN take on the Monsters and survive. Here's living proof. Look at that healing! And there's almost fur! But I don't think I'll go outside in the dark again. Been there. Done that. Wore the stupid conehead. Doncha want to take me home?! I need a place soon!

Life is Good

It's a beautiful day to be a cat! Just think, you could have this view everyday if you adopted this cat. It's almost too much to comprehend, I know, but try. Purrsia is a laid-back lady.

Purrsia: a Cat On a Mission

This is a blog with a purpose: to tell the story of Purrsia and find her a permanent home in the Los Angeles area.

Purrsia hasn't always had that name. At first, she was just "that cat" - the one, my landlord explained, that sort of came with the rental unit in his backyard. "All the previous tenants have fed her," he said charmingly as I moved in and That Cat meowed anxiously outside the door. "But don't let her in - fleas, you know."

3000 miles from home on a year-long fellowship at UCLA, lonely and a cat-lover from way back (photo to the left is me at age 6 with my first cat, Tiger, and her first litter of kittens; I had Tiger until I was 17 years old), it took all my willpower to say that I would NOT feed this stray, she would NOT get under my skin, and to believe that she would then move on to the next free lunch.

That lasted one week. At the end of the week That Cat was still meowing loudly and demandingly at the door at all times of day and night. She knew what her rights were. She guarded the postage stamp back yard, fought off the big gray and white cat, tolerated the big orange cat ("Big Balls," for lack of any identification) who adored her and sang so longingly, and most of all, stood up to the raccoons and possums threatening to take over. Squirrels feared her and kept to the upper reaches of the ancient bougainvillea all along two sides of the yard. Birds knew That Cat's stealth skills and did their chittering without coming too close.

That Cat even left a big mouse on my doorstep one morning as if to imply we had some kind of contract and I was being a loser by not honoring it.

So I gave in. I walked up to the CVS about five blocks away and purchased a little box of foil envelopes containing wet cat food. Silly me. That lasted about 5 seconds. So then I trekked up to the local Ralph's and bought a small bag of dry catfood.

Months later, I use Von's on-line ordering to have a big 15 pound bag delivered to my door so that we never run out.

Yes, I am whipped. Save your humor for someone who appreciates it.

When my adult children visited over the winter holidays, my daughter christened That Cat "Purrsia" in honor of a former cat we'd had to give to friends when we moved, but also in honor of the fact that my part of Westwood is filled with the beautiful melodic Persian language spoken by middle-eastern folks who live here. "Why can't she come in?" my daughter asked. In December, in L.A., it gets cold and wet - people lie and tell you it doesn't, but we're talking about a cat's welfare here.

"My landlord says no," I said, falling back on the only excuse I had. What I was really trying to avoid, of course, was committment. I am only here for a year; my partner at home is allergic to cats and our dogs think they are yummy little furball snacks. You and I, Purrsia, we have no future together. Let's keep it that way. These short-term affairs only lead to broken hearts all around.

The day after my kids flew back to their respective lives, I was piddling around in my little studio cleaning up and trying to find my way back into the book project I'd come here to work on. The early evening light was failing and I was about to crash on the sofa with a book when I heard a truly god-awful, heart-wrenching yowl of agony from just outside. It felt like the entire neighborhood shrieked to a halt.

I ran to the door, opened it, called "Kitty! kitty! are you okay?" but got no answer.

Next day, Purrsia limped into view for breakfast. I tried to see if she had an injury but she wouldn't let me touch her. But she clearly favored her back rear leg.

This went on for almost a week. In that time, I never saw blood, which is remarkable considering what was eventually revealed. Purrsia also seemed to perk up quite a bit after two days and started walking on her leg again, albeit tentatively.

I was raised by a woman who could not say no to a stray cat, dog, goat, cow, calf, duckling, chick, or any other variation of animal at the mercy of fickle humans. I frequently joke that my mother put several veterinarian's children through college at a time when we were living on Spam and macaroni and cheese and beans and rice. Let's just say, the role model I had for how to treat animals precluded any financial wisdom (of which I have very little, anyway).

The morning Purrsia growled at me when I served her breakfast was my wake-up call. that was when I couldn't ignore my instincts any longer: this animal was in real pain, and needed help. She couldn't do this on her own.

Damn!

I knew the drill. A cardboard box. A blankie inside it. Drop the cat in, strap the box closed with packing tape, and carry it with the growling yowling Purrsia inside the five blocks to "Value-Vet" which thank goodness was nearby.

It turned out I didn't need an appointment (I hadn't called first). Although the primary vet was on vacation, he'd left a perfectly capable replacement there. This man heard my tale of woe, lifted Purrsia out of her box and onto the stainless steel table, felt her leg gently, and diagnosed an abcess.

He said, "Let's see if we can drain it a little."

It was a fountain. A flood. And it stank. This was no mere abcess. This was Death and Destruction! Emergency towels were called for as the flood just kept on coming.

He'd do what he could, he said. Put her under, drain and clean it up, call me when she was ready.

The estimate was about $300.

That's what credit cards are for.

When I returned for Purrsia hours later at the end of the day, I found a little Frankensteincita. Twelve big stitches up her thigh, which had been shaved bare and looked like a poor skinning job. A big white straw, the drain, sticking out at the top and bottom of the wound, stitched into her flesh so she couldn't pull it out. So much flesh rotted that the vet said he wasn't sure the stitches would hold, he was hoping the skin would stretch and regenerate quickly enough to avoid having an open wound. "I saw bone. I saw muscle. I saw nerves," he said when I asked what her chances were. "It could go either way. Keep her inside and keep this cone on her head and give her this antibiotic."

I'd already crossed all the other forbidden rivers, why not this one too? I stopped at the pet store on the way home and bought kitty litter, a tray, and flea meds. Luckily it all fit in my huge backpack, as I was carrying Purrsia now in her spiffy new cardboard cat carrier.

It's only money.

Long story short, it is now mid-March, and Purrsia has survived it all. At first she simply slept and slept. I imagine she was resting up not just from the trauma but from her years of living on the streets and keeping her wits about her on an unreliable food supply and no safe place to really snooze. In other words, she was making up for lost time AND healing. I folded up a soft blanket on the sofa where she could see her yard, and she crawled up there and slept for days. We had a bit of a tiff over using the catbox; she desperately wanted to go outside, I said no, she peed on my lap. After that, however, she was resigned to the catbox and there have been no other rebellious statements. she just wanted someone to know how pissed off she was about all this pain and that frickin' cone that drove her insane and made her walk funny.

She let me give her the liquid antibiotics just fine. A week after the stitches went in, it seemed to me that two of them had popped. I took her back to the vet who said it was the lack of skin, nothing we could do but wait it out and put on some of this special drying cream.

Oh, Purrsia loved that, and it made a nice white crusty surface for her to itch.

I kept the cone on for weeks and weeks, but eventually she learned to slide it over her head. I told her she was on her own. To my relief and amazement, the open sore healed up just fine even though she licked it whenever she could get away with it (she knew I didn't want her to; all I had to do was hiss and she'd stop abruptly, look away and lick her front paws as if she had no idea what all the fuss was about).

Pretty soon Purrsia was eating like a pig. Regular meals and clean water, oh my! Life was good. She slept on my bed with me at night, and for awhile preferred to actually sleep ON MY HEAD. That didn't work for me. I let her know. She retreated to the bottom of the bed and, eventually, to the back of a big stuffed chair that has since become known as Purrsia's Perch. Out of deference to the landlord and my security deposit, I put a soft white blankie over the chair and wash it weekly.

Finally she got the stitches and the drain out - what a feeling of freedom!

- and then it was a question of whether or not the open wound left, about 1 1/2" by 1", would ever heal shut. It was brutal: I could see her muscles moving in the open area between skin and flesh. I had real doubts.

But little by little, that open expanse of flesh became smaller and smaller.

Now it's completely healed shut. Sometimes you just have to let a cat be a cat. Sometimes they actually know what they're doing.

Then she began to play. I had imagined that Purrsia was a fairly adult cat, old even. Her behavior was always slow, cautious, and I mistakenly labeled that elderly. No way! She began to chase pieces of paper, strings, and especially loved wrestling with the straps of my backpack for some reason.

I bought her a scratching board impregnated with catnip and she was in heaven. She's never scratched anywhere else.

I bought her some toy mice and she flips them around like the real deal.

When I had to go away for three days I bought her a little cat play-house, the kind made of nylon that spring open like a tent, for $5 at CVS. It has little ribbons hanging from the inside. I tied a mouse to one ribbon and poured out a huge bowl of food, and a punchbowl of water, and left.

When I returned the playhouse was all the way across the room and the mouse inside was faded and chewed, but still there. And Purrsia, of course, was fine.

But I leave L.A. at the end of June, and my landlord, although a kind man, does not want to keep the cat. I do not want to put her back out on the street. The raccoons and possums are still out there, and Purrsia would still fight them. Next time there probably won't be a tenant who will take her to the vet and shell out a total of about $500 for care.

So the purpose of this blog is to chronicle Purrsia's life and encourage or con someone to fall in love with her and give her a good home. I make no bones about my evil plan. I'm trolling. I'm pimping out my cat. I'll do whatever it takes. But let me tell you this: Purrsia is a darn fine cat in her own right. she is lovable and loving, attentive but not all over you. She naps a great deal of the time (I call them naps, it's probably some kind of Zen life-changing meditation), plays with her toys or reasonable facsimilies (a rolled up rejected page of my book is often her favorite), and likes to talk to you when you come home after being gone. She is neat, clean, smart, and learns FAST. She's had to. She's a street cat. But she must have been someone's baby, because she knows how to love.

Stay tuned.