The final cat blog, I promise (maybe)
Well it has all finally happened. Ness is here in New Zealand with me. After spending three months at “sleep away summer camp” with a few good Tia’s. After several vet visits and with a tearful eye, she was left with the pet transporter in her carrier ready for the biggest adventure of her life. And the most expensive adventure too.
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| Looking out the bedroom window to all her bird friends |
Her flight left late on Monday and arrived in Auckland early Wednesday. Then another flight from Auckland to Christchurch. The same route I took three months earlier. The night Ness was to fly into Auckland the Canterbury plains experienced some of the craziest weather ever. It was warm outside. Perfectly warm. But the wind. So much wind! Bins (aka trashcans) were flying down the street. I saw bikers struggle to bike against the wind. I swear I saw the telephone pole outside our room sway in the breeze. Needless to say I got nervous. I didn’t know which flights Ness was on so I couldn’t track anything and I wouldn’t be picking her up from the airport since Quarantine would be whisking her directly to her cell for 10 days.
On Wednesday mid-morning I finally got the call on a fussy cell connection saying that Ness was safely in Quarantine with no delayed flights. Somehow she managed to miss all that crazy wind by a couple of hours! Ah the relief. Ah the excitement of buying a lot of kitty stuff in a market I know nothing about. It is hard to buy stuff when you have no concept of brands. It leads to me just staring at shelves of products reading descriptions over and over. Thankfully there is a pet store close to where I work and they got to know me pretty well. A nice worker practically held my hand and showed me various kinds of cat food, litter boxes, litter, toys, treats, everything. He even indulged me with letting me play with a pup labradoodle named Charlie.
Guy and I knew that we wanted to visit Ness at least once while she was in Quarantine. I called and I called and I called trying to set up a time to come see Ness. No answer. No one was picking up. Guy tried to call to set up a time. No answer. Oddly enough Guy was more panicked than I was. Thankfully he and his colleagues put two and two together and realized Quarantine did not have power because of the storm. The wind had downed a lot of trees cutting off power to many people in the countryside. I called the cell phone number that called me when Ness arrived and lo and behold they still didn’t have power three days later but they had a generator to keep all the animals warm. Sweet relief!
We visited Quarantine on Saturday. Armed with a small bag of treats, a favorite toy, and a t-shirt that smelled like Guy and I, we found our kitty tucked up on a shelf in a small room that overlooked a beautiful garden area. Ness was able to sit in sunshine (if the sun bothered to come out at all), listen to strange birds chirp, smell strange trees, and make best friends with sheep who were a stones throw away from her room. But she chose sleep on a shelf, hidden behind a towel which was sheltering her from the scary new world around her. She looked bedraggled and in need of a good cuddle and a good sleep. I said hello to her and put my hand up for her to smell me. Almost instantly she was nuzzling my hand trying to get pet all over while I was trying to hide the flood of tears welling up behind my eyes. Guy and I sat down near her and she jumped down off her shelf to come be with us. No lap sits but plenty of pets, scratches, and sniffing. She was in heaven. Her humans were back. 45 minutes passed in a blink of an eye and we had to leave. I will never forget the look Ness gave me when we left the room. I peered through the small window in the door to see the saddest kitty eyes seeming to cry out to me “WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME AGAIN”??!?
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| How can you say "goodbye" to these eyes? |
One week later we made the long drive back to bring Ness home. She was packed up and ready when we got there and Guy drove Ness and I (who were both in the backseat) home. I can’t lie, it did feel a lot like how bringing home a newborn might feel. She meowed a LOT. I quieted her down as much as I could. She learned how to proper meow from her summer camp cat friend Tovah and was very chatty at the fact she was in her big carrier AGAIN in a moving vehicle. Guy and I talked about how we were going to deal with a scared cat. We tried to guess her hiding spots and how we might lure her out of them with promises of treats and lots of petting. I carried her carrier into the spare bedroom where her litter box, food and water were and opened the door of the carrier. This was the big moment. What would she do...... She sniffed things. A Lot. Multiple times. Guy and I watched her walk into every room and sniff every corner while we stayed in the spare bedroom. After about 20 minutes of sniffing Guy and I decided to give her space and let her explore in her own time so we went for a long walk. When we came back she was curled up on our bed. Like nothing had ever happened. We made dinner and sat to watch the news in the lounge. She came right on over and sat down on a chair and fell asleep. No scared cat! It probably helped everything in the house already smelled of us and she loves us and our smell, but after 45 minutes she was at peace with her new life. There was a lot of sniffing and sneezing of dust that first week but she settled in just fine. Better than I ever could have predicted. It was like the last four to five months never happened!
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| New besties |
Now we are a happy little family. Guy loves having Ness about. Often I find her curled up on his chest in bed getting a lot of pets. She still seems starved for affection and worries when we both get ready leave the apartment. She has always had a high amount of concern for me while I shower, so that hasn’t changed, but she can’t wrap her head around me reading in the bathtub. That is a huge worry for her but she respects my space and sits outside the door as my guard kitty.
I got her a food dispenser which the cat has to move a lever inside for the food to come out. She eats one kibble at a time. Her food/water is in the lounge, her litter box in the spare room, and her sleeping chair is in our room which all means she has to walk a lot. Her bare belly is losing weight and it makes me feel like a good cat Mom (I try not to think she lost weight because of high amounts of stress). She is a happy and healthy addition to our NZ home. I couldn’t be happier with what I have when I go home. A boyfriend who takes great care of me and a cat who dotes on my every move. I am one lucky girl. The only thing we don’t talk about in our apartment is how much this whole move cost. I could not of had her furry body keeping me company without the love and support of so many people in my life. Some people have asked me if I knew how much the whole move would have cost to have Ness in NZ, would I still do it? And my answer is Yes. Of course. She means the world to me and her loving comfort is the embodiment of the love I left back in the States. So when she is sleeping soundly in my I think of all my family and friends who made this dream possible.
Thank you for my cat. Thank you for helping my cat get to my lap, on the other side of the world. Guy thanks you too. So does Ness. Stay tuned for a family Christmas portrait.
