The Cat Came Back

Well, she didn't so much "come back" as "I found her!"

I was sitting in my chair when I heard an unhappy meow from the ground 3 stories below my balcony. I decided it had to be Zaeka...

I grabbed a flashlight and a can of tuna and proceeded to lean in all of the open windows along the back of the basement dripping in tuna water. In the window directly below my downstairs neighbors, I heard a thumping in a pile of broken down boxes. I called her name, and heard the slighest meow.

After dripping some tuna water around the pile, I heard the creature working her way towards me...When she popped her head out I instantly knew it was her. It was Zaeka's adorable little head peeping out at me!

She was still pretty spooked, so I put the tuna in a place where she'd have to climb out a bit, then I literally grabbed her by the neck and manhandled her until I got her into the apartment. (Actually she recognized the door and immediately started bawling.)

When I put her down inside the door she meowed loudly at everything, as if saying hello to it after a long absence. Tail piqued, ears back, she slowly remembered the more comfortable, safe life she had lead with me.

For fear of a flea infenstation, I gave her a bath right after I fed her. That was where this photo was from. As you can tell, she was none to happy (and very cold afterwards), but now she's adjusting.

So, she's back. Yay.

Requiem for a Cat

Zaeka (my cat, my companion, my headache and my main object of conversation) has disappeared. She bolted from me out of fear on Sunday during our "Get Zaeka Adjusted to Outdoors" romp, and the last I saw her she popped through a broken window into my building's basement. Where could she have gone, you ask? God only knows.

The search for Zaeka began immediately...I put food at the two places she could have entered or exited the basement. A neighbor who has the key to the basement opened the gate to let me walk around for a while. I called for her and psssted for her and got no response. The next day at school I had a collegue make a little advertisement for me to put on the building's doors. And I played the waiting game.

The search has had it's lighthearted moments. Tuesday afternoon a little boy from fourth grade rang my doorbell after school and shouted they had found her by the place where I had last seen her. I followed him with flashlights and some food and found a crowd of fourth and fifth graders huddled around the door trying to block her in. But when I decended the stairs and crouched in the corner where they had seen her run, I found nothing.

When I went back outside, I found a pack of ferral cats who all look exactly like Zaeka...I assume it was one of them that the kids saw. I was sorry to disappoint them so.

Everytime I go out, I walk by that broken window and call in to her. I wander the back of the building where she could have escaped through another open window...I'm sure the neighbors think I'm crazy. But they all ask about her, if I've found her. One couldn't ask for more friendly people.

But as it looks like she might be really lost...and I mean GONE...I will send this out into the world as a bit of a reverie for her.

She was a cat named "Rabbit." She liked sunny spots and the small of my back when I laid in bed, her pink nylon cube mom and dad sent from the States, licking everything, climbing the curtains, pooping when I had just cleaned the litterbox, sleeping on my radiator in the winter, and chirping at flies and other intruders.

She sighed when she settled...a deep, contented sigh. She ate very slowly. She put her ears back to hunt me. She wasn't scared to bite. She wasn't scared to scratch. When she was really pissed, she even spat.

She was not a gentle cat, but she was spunky. She was pretty, and I'm very sure she knew it. Wherever she is, I hope she overcame her fear of outdoors and is having fun hunting for real.

Goodbye, Zaeka. I hope all is well.

More Sliven

Again, the view from the Sliven lift.

Isn't it lovely?

Here is the view coming down the lift in Sliven. My god it was cold.

One-Hundreth Post! HOOPLA!!

So my folks came to spend Christmas and New Years with me in Bulgarland. Aside from a few catastrophes, it was a good time. We schelped up and down the country, almost slid off of icy mountains, went na gosti to eat freshly-killed pigs, watched men in goathair dance around driving out bad spirits, slept with earplugs. Crazy.

While we were gone, I had my elderly neighbor stop in to feed and love on the cat a bit. I told her the catfood was in the fridge. I figured she'd run out, so I stocked up on some kremvish...

When I returned home, I saw three brown chunks of something sitting in her food dish. at first glance, I took them to be...feces. There was another blob on the floor, and with trepidation I approached it to discern what it actually was.

As I got closer, I caught wiff of mint. What the...?

Then it hit me. It was my Aunt Dori's fudge.

My Aunt Dori had sent along a tin of her chocolate-mint fudge with my folks for us to eat on Christmas. I had left the tin on the TOP of the fridge, and when the food ran out I guess Stoika thought it was cat food. FUDGE! CAT FOOD!

I got a good laugh about it, cut up some kremvish and watched Zaeka gobble down food she could actually eat.

The next morning I was woken by the sound of keys jingling in my door. I stumbled out of bed and opened the door to find Stoika trying to come in with a pan of banitsa (a Bulgarian pastry with cheese). She had made the banitsa for the cat, since there was no more food.

BANITSA! FUDGE! What do they FEED Bulgarian cats?!

Anyway, all's back to normal now. Zaeka's taken to sleeping on my back at night, and on the heater during the day. All's well with the world.

Aaaaand that was my feeble attempt to force myself to write. Happy 100th Blog. Check ya later.