“Meow.
Hi! Yes, I’m a cat. Well, a kitten really. Gayle weighed me at the Frutería
in Cantú a few weeks ago and I only weighed about a kilo. That’s
2.2 pounds. At the vets last week I was up to four pounds! So I guess you
could say I’m kinda small—but I’m growing fast! I have a nice fat belly
these days. Oh yeah, baby. A full belly. Not full of beetles and crickets,
but full of crunchy, yummy fish-flavored morsels of dried cat food and
Fancy Feast. Boy oh boy. Did I ever score or what?
“My name is OBE-Juan, pronounced just like that Jedi warrior in Star Wars. But please don’t mistake me for him. My official monniker is Old Blue Eyed Juan. Yes, I am a Mexican. Or I was. Now I’m half Mexican and half gringo. That’s cool. Since goofy old Gonzo is too and he got to tell the story of how Ann and her family adopted him, it’s only fair that I get to tell my story too. Right? Okay. Here we go.
“I was born in La Bufadora around Cinco de Mayo. There were three other kittens in my litter. Our mom was mostly Siamese and our dads were any one of several tomcats on the ranch. I was the only one who looked like my mom. We were born in the back room of Celia’s Mini Market and lived quite happily in a cardboard box while we were nursing. People would come in from time to time and pick me up, cuddle me, kiss me and make me purr. I loved that!
“But one day, when I was about six weeks old, everything changed. Mom took us outside to play in the sunshine. There were dogs out there! One of them decided to play with one of my sisters. He picked her up by the back of the neck and spun her around like a toy. Mom hissed and scratched at the dog. She even drew blood on his nose, but by the time she convinced him to drop my sister, it was too late. She was dead, her neck broken.
“Mom was shook up, believe me. She kept licking and licking her, trying to bring her back to life. It didn’t work. Mom kind of lost it after that. She disappeared. It was awful. My brother disappeared one night when he was out hunting for something to eat. Then it was just the two of us. All we could find to eat was the occasional bug or two. They tasted pretty okay, actually, and we got pretty darn good at catching then too—especially those big beetles that spit and hiss when you flip them upside down! Water was hard to find and we were thirsty a lot, as it was starting to be summer and the days were heating up. We slept curled up together at night under an abandoned house. In the mornings we’d get up really early to lap the dew off the leaves before the sun came out. It was okay, but we were hungry, thirsty, scared and lonely most of the time.
“People came by from time to time. We wanted so much to meow at them and ask them to scoop us up their arms and carry us away to somewhere nice and cozy like Celia’s back room. But most of them had dogs with them and that freaked us out. So we hid alone under our house. I was out hunting bugs one early evening while my sister was asleep. When I got back, there was a little Mexican girl in front of our hideout. She had my sister in her arms and was singing to her and petting her. I could hear the purring from way, far away. As I hid in a bush, I watched my sister leave my life forever. I was so sad.
“I knew my only hope was to find a human of my own—without a dog. I met a real nice lady named Bucky who fed me a little cat food and petted me one day. But she had this wild and crazy dog named Pearl, so I had to pass on adopting her. Enter Gayle and Derek.
I
saw them trailing behind their adults a few days later. The adults had
a dog, but by this time I was so hungry and lonesome that I didn’t care.
I meowed my loudest from under my abandoned house. Gayle heard me. She
picked me up. She loved me. She and Derek took me home with them and gave
me a warm bath. They picked out all my fleas and cleaned my ears. I got
to sleep on their beds. I got cat food and fresh water whenever I wanted
it. Derek built me a fort in the tree on their patio and I was able to
sunbathe up there all afternoon out of reach of that goofy dog, Gonzo.
“I crossed the border on July 6th without incident. Life is heavenly here.
I like riding in the car, I like my new house. I’ve even become best buddies
with Gonzo! I adore my new humans. They spoil me rotten! I am one very
happy gato with a very round belly these days, let me tell you. And guess
what? They have those twitchy, hissing beetles in Cardiff too! I don’t
eat ‘em anymore, but I catch ‘em and toss ‘em up in the air for Gonzo to
play with!”