Now I Will Always Have Cash on Hand

Well, right now it almost seems that this is becoming a cat blog instead of a singing blog!

As of Monday, I have a new member of the family.  

If you read my previous post, there was a black and white cat (sort of an imperfect tuxedo) named "Cashew" whom I met at the Koneko Cat Cafe.  

Well, now he's mine and I've renamed him "Cash".  He's sweet and loving and low key and likes to snuggle.

The only worry I have is that he has a nasal polyp that needs to be removed.  The rescue people will pay to have it done, in fact they offered to have that taken care of before they brought him to me, but I didn't want that, I wanted him here to cherish for a while.  I said I would contact them about the surgery after my concert.  It is not an emergency, but my primary care vet said that I need to get it done because the polyp could get bigger and cause problems.  Right now it just causes him to sound like he's snoring when he's sleeping, and his purr is a bit gutteral sounding.

Here are some photos.

His favorite places are the pillow that Charlotte used to sleep on, and this kitty condo.  It hasn't had a cat in it for at least five years. 

In other news, Trovatore is going really really well, and I have had fun working on the script.

Maybe these pastiches of opera and narrative are a new "niche" that I have found?

Wednesday at the Cat Cafe

Not wanting to be in a petless house, I have now started looking for another cat.I went to the web site Anjellicle Cats and found this little love.

He's a tuxedo, like my partner's Darby, but smaller.  I was told that he was at a place called Koneko Cat Cafe .

I went there to see him and maybe he's the one.  He seemed a little lethargic and did not respond to his name ("Cashew", which I will change to "Cash"), but the woman in charge said that a lot of the cats were tired (it was 2:00) because some children had been there earlier.  She said I should come back on another day at 11.  I will do that after the rescue organization has approved my application.  I submitted it Monday and am of course on pins and needles.  They have to call references that I provided but have not done that yet.

I saw two other cats at the Cafe that I liked, both a little bigger than Cash and a little older.  The yellow one is Paris and the tabby is Sammy (Sammy nipped me when I tried to pet him, which was not a good sign.)

One thing that I was disappointed by is that I wasn't allowed to pick the cats up.  I want to see how they respond to being picked up because for me that's big thing.  Cash did lick my hand finally when I petted him, so I am pretty sure he is the one but not 100%.  

I haven't done much singing the past few days, but I did run through "Condotta" on Monday and had a lesson yesterday.  Tomorrow is choir practice, which is fun, but I have to be careful not to lose this big Verdian sound that I have worked so hard for and finally really found, I think.  This coming Monday I have made a date with myself to run through the entire program, timing it for breaks.  I hope I can have a cat here if not this coming Monday (what I had hoped) then the following.  It's lonely.

R.I.P. Charlotte Bronte 1996-2016

On Friday morning (September 2) I had to have my 20-year-old Siamese cat, Charlotte Bronte (named because at 5 weeks of age she looked like Charlotte Bronte's little kid gloves on display that week at the New York Public Library) put to sleep.  She had fought the good fight and stayed with me on a lot of expensive medicine, but Wednesday she hadn't eaten and Thursday morning I woke up to find her lying in the litter box.

This is the first time I have had to be in a petless house in over 40 years.  Tomorrow will be my 41st anniversary of sobriety in AA.  It was my beagle Paulie, who got me sober.  I stopped drinking because I could see that I was not taking care of him;  he had  epilepsy and I would forget to give him his medicine because I had passed out.  Since then I have had two more dogs and four cats.

My house will not be petless for long.  I filled out an application with an organization that has pets for adoption and if I don't hear from them by the weekend I am going to go to Petco and see who is there.  And my partner has her enormous tuxedo.  (I will only be adopting one cat because I have promised her that if anything happened to her I would take him.)

Here are some photos.

She saw me through two jobs, a complete life transformation when I began singing, two dogs, and two cats.  She sat on my lap when I was working.  It's lonely enough being isolated working here alone.

I feel that her spirit is still in the house.