久しぶりだね。(It’s been a long time, hasn’t it.)
I think I’m finally out of my funk, we’ll see.
The cat was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Looking up at me, his light blue eyes were striking. No doubt he came by to check the food bowl at the top of the stairs left by some other tenant. It was a sunny day, and I was making my way toward the laundry room, an enclosed back porch that doubled as the entrance to another tenant’s apartment.
“Hello kitty”. He met my hand with his head, pushing against my palm. Well fed and obviously cared for, he followed me to the outer door to the laundry room. It was my first time doing the laundry after moving to Bellingham.
I rent a small top floor corner studio in a big converted house. Or maybe it was a boarding house. Hard to tell.
I’m still getting my new apartment organized. I had whittled down my belongings to what I thought would fit in the smaller apartment. Still need to get rid of more.
Just prior to this, I was in a liminal space between cities, selling the rest of my big furniture items in Seattle while wanting to be in Bellingham. After selling the last item, I cleaned the old apartment late into the night. I thought I was going to be done much earlier. I thought about staying the night in that old place with the dim sunlight and extraneous noise from the poor building design but I had already packed my air mattress and was eager to leave my old life in the rear-view mirror. I decided to make the hour and a half trip to my new apartment. My car was filled to the brim with the bare minimum that I had needed to sustain myself. I arrived at my new apartment well after midnight. I was exhausted. I just unpacked food and clothing so I didn’t have to go out to the car early in the morning. Also, I was concerned about making too much noise for the other tenants, the floor squeaks and the walls are paper thin.
Mid-morning still sleepy from the previous night's drive, I had enough laundry to do a load.
The washer is old and the enamel is rusted off near the hinges on the lid. It doesn’t mess with laundry, it’s just ugly. The capacity of the washer is much less than I’d seen, “I’ll have to do smaller loads more often”, I thought. I like to be punctual, to set my timer for the exact amount of time it takes for the washer to complete, so I am not taking time away from other people who need to be doing their laundry. This being the first time, I set a timer for 30 minutes. I would check on it in increments of 10 minutes after the initial timer ran out.
Outside the porch door, he was waiting patiently in the morning sun, eyes blinking languidly. On seeing me he instantly went into gear, getting off of his haunches and waiting for me to either pet him or head somewhere. “Mrrrow?”, he asked.
After I started moving he obviously knew where I wanted to go, heading to the foot of the stairs. I followed him up the steps, he was intent on leading taking looks back to make sure I was still there. The door at the top of the stairs is open during the hot summer months. We went through. As he passed my door I stopped, stooped down to pet him once more before opening the door to my apartment. Considering how gung-ho he’d been about leading, I was worried about him trying to get into my apartment. I like cats well enough but not in my space, getting hair in my food and walking on surfaces with dirty paws. I preemptively blocked his path, opening the door just enough to let myself in. He looked like he might happily oblige, if offered the chance, to come in and dig through my refrigerator, sit on the counter licking his lips after getting into the jam.
I made coffee and waited for the timer to go off.
He was outside my door lying down and jumped up when he saw me going out to check the laundry. He had a job to do! He purposefully led the way to the laundry room, waiting for me at the porch door again.
I didn’t really want a repeat of him lying in wait outside my apartment, so headed around the front which has a door at the bottom of the stairs. I guess my real concern was that he would try harder to get into my place. To my surprise, he didn’t attempt to follow me from the laundry room.
I was surprised that he had figured out my attempted deception and was waiting for me outside my apartment again. I reached down to pet him, resigned to him following me around.
When we returned, he looked hopeful that I would invite him into my room. Craning his neck to see around me and the door to view inside. “Sit.”, I said not expecting cooperation but surprised to see resigned adherence.
This went on for the next few times I went out to check the laundry or when I took the trash out. He wasn’t there when I went out the final time for the day.
That night, as I was falling asleep, I heard him calling for me outside my door.
Since then, I’ve seen him about. Clumsily stalking birds, sitting calmly at the base of the porch across the alley, watching the indoor cat spit and hiss while its owner tried to get it back in the house. He seems bored and lonely, or maybe that’s just me projecting. Maybe I do want a cat after all.
You do need a cat. 😻
I'm pretty sure cats choose us. :)