Out of the Gutter Art

Category: art

  • REALIZATIONS dawn…

    The Cold Weight of Guilt

       CHAPTER 5, ORANGE BABY…

       My little “farm” now included 3 indoor kitties in 2022: Zignatious the Fluffball, Zagnut the Torti-Tabby Tom, and my nameless rescue kitten, “Orange Baby”.

        Her beautiful sister had been adopted by my Aunt, her name was Peach; she was as healthy and robust as a young cat could be…unfortunately, Orange Baby didn’t get the same bill of health. She had the gingivitis and malnutrition from their time “on the street” as orphans. She had all the hallmarks of being the runt of the litter. My heart swelled with love for the odd little tyke. It seemed like all would be well, watching all three interact, tumbling and tussling all day.

       So began a time of quiet family life…

    Zignatious Horatio Needlefingers
    AKA The Golden Fluffball

    Orange Baby after smacking Kleo the Shih Tzu in the left eye, resulting in near total blindness and a $500 vet bill…
    Frenchy, the Nature Guide
    Orange Baby in Cuteness Overload Mode
    Orange Baby in Shades of Grey Kitten

    The Pandemic Ends, New Tenant Arrives

          My isolation, and the entire populations’ came to an end, finally. Life was still tumultuous and uncertain in so many ways. Over the years I had developed a good relationship with my next door neighbors, a gruff New Yorker and her wife and daughter. Because we live in tiny mobile homes at about an arms length apart, being kind makes life more pleasant here.

      There was major familial friction in their home, however. It centered around the wife’s blood sister who had recently  become homeless, in the process  of moving in with them to sleep on their couch . This was a new wrinkle…

      

  • ORANGE Baby

    ORANGE Baby

    AKA The Crazy Cat

    Chapter 3

       I didn’t want to become the “Cat Lady” of my new neighborhood. I had gotten off on the wrong foot, on day one, with an off-balance dope fiend who lived directly across the street from me. While attempting to acclimate my kitties to their new home, they had escaped the trailer, bounding joyfully through the neighborhood at 100 miles an hour.

      Oliver was a long and lanky boy of dubious Russian Blue heritage. Beautifully Grey and a little odd, he would saunter up to just about anyone. Frenchy was a lovely Calico of the clouded kind, petite, demure and a veritable hellcat when she was cornered. And then there was Fogerty…

       Fogerty deserves his own paragraph. He was a descendent of the Banyan Drive rescue crew, one of the kittens my Mom had meticulously documented in her “Book of Cats on Banyan Drive”. He was born in 1997 , brother to Munson , son of Teddy. He was very old when we arrived in Tampa. But very spry. To the point that the local Vet argued that there was no possible way he was 20 years old, even if I did have documentation.  I gave up trying to persuade him.

       So these were my three cats at my new home. Mine, in the sense that I inherited them. I promised Mom on her deathbed that I would care for her cats after she died. And I was keeping my promise. I was not capable of loving them properly at that time. My heart was too fragile to let any love in. So I fed them, watered them, and talked to them. I watched them settle in, watched them play. Even let one sit on me, now and then.

       But they weren’t allowed in my bedroom, no, that was sacred Shih Tzu territory:

        My pets, my dogs, my loves.

  • Orange Baby

    AKA: The Crazy Cat

    Chapter 2

        Relocating to Tampa after my Dad had died was a horrible experience. I had run from the house I inherited when my Dad died. I had been primary caregiver for both of my parents; their deaths six years apart left me traumatized. Aching for maternal love, Tampa seemed the right choice. Two elderly aunts, (Mom’s older sisters) lived there, as well as my cousin Sadie. I desperately wanted them to want me.

      It warrants a whole other book to describe the dystopian and farsical experience of selling that house. Suffice to say that I had made a rushed, pressured and very poorly thought out decision to sell when I did. I had 2 weeks from the day of sale on April 30th to move out, with no new home to move into. It all became an endless, exhausting exercise in anguish and compounded grief as all my family’s most treasured possessions (which were all I owned of monetary value) had to be carted off to the auction house. A treasured mantel clock made in 1798 was sold for ten bucks, as I watched in horror. The rest of the sale was equally tragic.

       On May 15th I moved myself, my three Shih-tzus, and the last three of Mom’s surviving cats into our tiny new home. A dilapidated 1970 single-wide mobile home situated on a tiny parcel of dirt which I now owned, lock, stock and barrel. In the middle of the most notorious druggie  neighborhood for 30 miles.

    This was ok, I told myself as I helped unload the tiny moving truck and uncrated the animals. At the end of the day we were all inside our hot and humid home, with windows that didn’t open and an air conditioner that sounded like a helicopter firing up. It would be ok, I whispered to the frightened cats and dogs, desperately trying to convince myself also.

       Mother had become a cat rescuer after we moved to Florida in the early 80’s. I was so busy doing cocaine and going to jail that I somehow missed the beginning of this trend. She and I had a very unhealthy codependent relationship going on: I was a ruthless addict using her up emotionally and financially, all while my Dad still lived in Pittsburgh. So it was amazing to me to find out she had 11 cats, 9 of them living in the house while the most feral lived outside. Their numbers fluctuated as she rescued, spayed, neutered and vaccinated the new ones she tamed and caught. This was before the days of any rescue organizations, the  financial burden was entirely her own.

       Many recoil at the thought of “catladies” and hoarder situations; I wasn’t keen on the quantity at first either. But they were all so loved, so well cared for. Clean boxes, carpeted cat trees everywhere. No smell, no fleas, no problem. She was entirely dedicated- they filled the void my addiction had left in her life.

       Over the years I was there , then gone again. I tried AA, NA, geographical cures. On and on to eventual marriage and living a few states away. After more trauma and abuse I was allowed to move back into their home at age 35 after my husband was sentenced to 15 to life. Again, I had no problem with the cats, in fact I helped card for them. I even added to their numbers, since I brought 2 of my own when I came home from SC. Kitties everywhere, different ages , all colors, all beautiful! I got clean on September 19, 1999. Life was good, we were learning new ways to get along and heal. The future was bright indeed!

       One day I used the bathroom right after Mom, I freaked out when I saw the bowl filled with blood. Unmistakable and there was lots of it. Lots.

       ” Mom! What happened?!  Are you hurt? ” I grasped her hand, saw her fright when she realized she hadn’t flushed.

      She was hesitant and tried to dismiss it. I was adamant that she told me where it had come from. She finally confided in me that it had been going on for a long, long time. I was horrified.

       ” You have to go to the doctor. Mom, you HAVE TO.”

       She balked, crying , ” Bonnie had a colonoscopy. She told me how painful it was. I’m afraid!”

       Taking her soft hands in mine, we sat close on the edge of her bed, her beloved Munson cat purring next to her.

        “I will go with you. I will be there every step of the way.”