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PoetryIn-e-Motion

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Poems and short stories ©   by Arno and Anna unless differently stated (Disclaimer).

It's not that I want to say that I'm in charge of the household here, most definitely not. As in every relationship the woman's the boss, and well... What can I say? "Yes, Anna", "No, Anna"...
No, just kidding (or am I? *grins*). No really! (Did I completely lose my credibility here? ;o) )
But what I was saying...

Let's start with the beginning. In my family we never had cats. We used to have a dog, or actually it was my grandad's dog, which was absolutely adorable, but when it was put to sleep at age 19, with several handicaps that made its life not worth living anymore in our eyes, my mom and dad decided that it was best that no pet would come to our house anymore.
So dogs I loved... But cats... For some reason I encountered only bad experiences with cats, which made me a bit reluctant to get involved with them.

Mom and dad have a huge garden with a huge pond. Cats would piss and shit in the garden and dig it under and next thing I hear a ***** when mom or dad was working in the garden and grabbed in a pile of cat shit. Not good. You don't see it, because cats are so clean that they bury their doings, but when you grab in it, it stinks like hell.

Or another time I hear a ***** from mom or dad when a cat's sitting on the edge of the pond, picking a nice and fat fish as its lunch. Not so good either.

Or then one of my friends decides to get a cat for his partner and the animal turns out to be a complete monster. Clawing at everything, digging in the plants, eating the plants, climbing up your pants (you know, the thin pants that DON'T hold cat nails).

And then Anna and I move to Finland, where we get an apartment previously owned by someone who owned two long-haired cats. I don't know WHAT she did, but it seemed she wasn't really thorough with cleaning up after the cat. There's a big yellow stain in the bedroom, on the linoleum, obviously the cat pissed there, and no matter how hard we tried, scoured, rubbed, cleaned, it just won't go off.
And we happen to have a sauna, yay! Only... The sauna used to be one of the favorite places of the previous owner's cats. Apparently it spent huge amounts of time there, because six months after we moved in and used the sauna, there were still bushes of cat hair coming from behind the wooden boards when we cleaned the sauna.
And then there was this one time when a bottle of drink started leaking in the fridge. It had dropped in the fridge and seeped down to the floor and half under the fridge. It needed to be cleaned, of course, and when I took that ventilation panel away from the front to clean up under the fridge, I was confronted with a horrific 4-5 cms thick layer of cat hair, which was obviously NEVER cleaned *shudders*
I'm not easily grossed out, but when I think back of that, I still get goosebumps.

So that was for me reason to hold it off as long as possible. Several times Anna had asked if we could get a pet, a rabbit or a guinea pig or a cat, but I always said no. Our apartment is to small for a pet, we're gone so often, they'd be neglected, they'll be making a mess of the apartment. Any excuse I could find, not to get a pet.
Really, I'm not an animal hater. On the contrary. But to my environment I'd sort of become a person who wouldn't want to have a pet, or at least a cat. SO untrue! The argument that our apartment is too small is still something I feel strongly about. I wouldn't want to have a dog here, for example. But that doesn't mean that I NEVER want to have a dog. Heck! I LOVE dogs! I love animals in general! If it were for me, I would've bought me a tarantula long time ago, but Anna threatened to leave me if I did, so I never bought one *grins*
But well... Anna started asking more frequently, did searches on the internet about different cats and their character and their looks, and one time, not so long ago (with her knowing that I have a love for panthers and cougars, yes, really!), she showed me a number of pictures of the Russian Blue. And I found it beautiful.
And Anna convinced me with looooong talks that it has a very good character and it can be trained not to destroy the whole apartment and thus I thought that maybe I should give her, and the cat, the benefit of the doubt. So we started looking around, only to find that all litters were reserved already well before the kittens were born. The first kittens were available only in like half a year to a year from then. And Anna, who'd been so happy to finally get a cat, got grumpy and down, because she had to wait for so long. But luck was on our side! One reservation was cancelled and we went to see the kitten that might become ours.
And well... What can I say? "Yes, Anna, we'll take it..."
No really... Who can really resist it if you see this:
Cassandra
I couldn't, at least...
But there's still this little thing in the back of my mind, which I also told Anna: "Don't make me say I told you so, I would hate that".