Pets, Allergies, Ax Murderers and a Hurricane Called Ike

Pets:
The family in which I was raised never had indoor pets. My parents, having both grown up on Missouri farms, had always thought of animals as utilitarian. The cats hung out in the corn crib and barn and earned their keep by keeping the rodent population down; the dogs helped with herding animals and earned their table scraps providing an alarm system for visitors. They never came inside -- with 14 children in one household and 8 in the other, there was barely enough room for people.

While the animals of my childhood were not expected to perform any service except to be cute and playful, they were still expected to stay outdoors. It was not until I was already retired that I ever had an animal in the house. My son's dog stayed with me for a few months while he finished up school and he and his wife moved to a house. He was used to being indoors, therefore, I had to get used to having an animal share my space. And when Raleigh got to stay inside, it became a problem to explain to Aussie, the lab-mix adopted from a shelter by my daughter, why she had to stay outside. That's how I acquired not one, but two indoor pets. After Raleigh had gone to live with his rightful owners, I adopted a cat, whom I dubbed Minnie Paws. Minnie was the first pet in my entire life that I had chosen for myself. All other animals had been adopted because I thought the children needed a pet. Minnie was mine. For nine years we lived as two old spinsters alone in the house -- Aussie succumbed to old age a few years ago.

Allergies
I felt like I had been punched in the gut when my son informed me a week before I was to move to Texas to live near him and to spend time with my grandson that allergy tests had shown said grandson to be allergic to cats. After the shock wore off, I started looking for a home for Minnie. I hoped to place her before I moved so that I wouldn't have to put her through the trauma of a move and then have to give her up in a strange city where I didn't have as large a network of friends. It was not to be. Minnie and I drove down and settled in to our new Texas house. The first few times grandson came over, it seemed not to be a problem, but eventually we saw that he was miserable with itchy nose, watery eyes, and he began to stay at home rather than come to Grammy's house. The allergist was opposed to using medication to control the allergies. Decision time once again.

Ax-Murderers
Several years ago when I was in direct sales for a nationally known crafting company, I found an online forum of other consultants and began to get ideas for promotions, organization, and other business-related information. Even though many of the board members have since moved on to other or no direct-sales opportunities, we have formed a community of women worldwide who come together in cyberspace to share hopes, joys, sorrows, humor, dilemmas, and assorted other issues. When members of the group get together in real life (IRL) we sometimes get raised eyebrows from friends and family who are just sure that we are going out to meet ax-murderers. So, we have begun to refer to each other as our fellow ax-murderers.

It was only logical to me that I would go to this group with my sadness over having to give up my cat. I had already tried a local no-kill shelter, but they were full and didn't think they would be able to find a home for a 9-year old cat anyway. I posted all of this to the forum. The ideas started coming back: visit grandson at his house, have them give him medication when he was coming over, sympathy for having to take this step, admiration that I would do this for my grandson. Finally, a member who had lost her cat to an accident posted that she "might" be interested in adopting Minnie. She wanted more information, so I posted a picture and gave a full profile of the cat's personality. She wanted to think about it overnight, and the next day she had decided that she would adopt my cat. She lives in Texas, but Texas covers a lot of territory and her house is about 450 miles away.

Hurricane Ike
The day we had set for me to drive down to South Texas, Hurricane Ike was threatening the Texas coast and people were evacuating from Houston and Galveston to the very area I would have to drive through. Minnie's prospective new owners were not directly hit by the hurricane but lived in an area that had been evacuated. Since I was going to visit my daughter the next week, I had to postpone the cat transfer two weeks. As it turned out, that was providential, since another ax-murderer who lives in my area was available and willing to ride down with me. She had not been available on the original date.

So, two ax-murderers and a cat set off, after a visit to the vet for a sleeping pill to keep kitty happy, and drove for 7 hours to get to the meetup point. We exchanged greetings with Minnie's new owner, I gave her a bit of information along with the supplies I had brought, and she went back home with her kids and their new cat. After a quick supper at McDonalds, I pointed my car north and headed home. It was after midnight when I fell into bed.

I've heard from the new owner via our online board that Minnie is adjusting to her new surroundings and I feel satisfied that I did the right thing. I am grateful to her for giving my kitty a new home. And I am grateful to my local friend for going down with me -- her company made a long and painful trip pleasant and much quicker than it would have been with me alone.