Kitty Love

While checking out a bulletin board at the office of Sacred Heart Parish in Quezon City on Eid'l Adha (Feast of Sacrifice), a poster caught my eyes:

This cat's owner must have bouts of depression at the moment.

I have a ridiculously soft spot for felines. In fact, when I was still living with my rents, we used to have 16 pet cats inside the house. They stayed in the kitchen most of the time and pretty much behaved when they needed to. Every time one of them got out and failed to find his way home, I'd go crazy and ask my father to drive me around the hood just to find him. It happened thrice to be exact.

In 2004, papa converted half of our lot into apartments. It was then when my favorite kitty, Pichu, ran away after he decided our place had become too crowded with all the construction going on. The diurnal noise, faces of carpenters he hadn't seen before, and basically, the change of environment scared the beejezus out of him. I searched for him each night after work, even on weekends. Unfortunately, I never found him.

Fast forward to this day, you won't hear a single purr at this cat lover's crib. Nelson and I borrowed a male tabby from ma for a while. We needed him to help us get rid of the little mice. He was practically nameless, so I called him Tutti. Tutti was brilliant and liked going out. But because I wanted to keep myself from becoming emotionally attached, and it's not really healthy to let him stay inside the house since we have an infant, he now happily lives with one of our neighbors. Don't get me wrong, I still love cats. When Onei gets older, I'm gonna get myself a Siamese.

Cats, cats, cats! You can't trust a random stranger but you can always trust a stray cat. They're upright, innocent, and neat -- even the ones who dwell on the streets.