Friday, June 17, 2011

The EX Nanny Blogs: "I want THAT one!"


As a special treat, I got to spend the afternoon with Venice, going to Wal Mart and buying cat supplies and then?  Going to the Humane Society to let her pick out her VERY OWN CAT.
I picked her up at preschool and as soon as I walked in and she saw me, her little eyes lit up and she squealed, "It's my DANI!  YOU CAME BACK!" and I held back silly, sappy nanny tears of joy as she ran towards me and wrapped herself around me (totally crushing the relatively new boobs in the process but whatever... totally worth it). 
"Dani!" she said, as we walked out together, hand in hand, "you come back to wiv at MY house?"  (She always kinda had it in her head that I lived there, too... I just happened to leave about the same time every afternoon, kinda like when mommy and daddy came home.  Like we were just changing shifts.  I was always included in her list of family members who lived in "her" house, as in:  "Venice house, Chawie's house, Kegan's house, Mommy's house, Dada's house, DANI's house!") 
"No," I told her, "We are going to Dani's car, then to the store, then to buy a kitty!"
"I get a kitty?" she asked, bright blue eyes shining, little cheeks pink and rosy.  (Can you tell I'm madly in love with this child?)
"You get a kitty," I told her.
"I want bwack one," she informed me.
Alrighty then.
We went to Wal Mart and bought all the necessities a cat could possibly ever want... food, litter box, litter, pooper scooper, toys, bed, etc.  (We also bought poptarts and orange juice for lunch, because that's what she requested and that's how I roll.)
"Now we go get cat," she said, after loading up the car and heading back towards the freeway.
The drive to the Humane Society in Brookings takes about 20 minutes and the entire way Venice informed me of all things she required in a kitty:  it had to be bwack, it had to sweep in her bed, it had to wiv in her house, she had to hold it, it had to be hers. 
"No problem!" I told her. 
We made it to the Humane Society and with much anticipation, walked inside... to be instantly inundated with cage after cage of cats.
Venice was beside herself with joy.  She looked in every cage, stuck her fingers in, touched every cat that pressed it's nose against her hand, and then?  The Best  Moment Ever... we got to go in to the Cat Room.  About 50 cats were milling about, lying in beds, climbing up cat towers, playing with toys (truly, this Humane Society was so clean and so well set up that it made my heart go pitty-pat with happiness).  A monstrously HUGE gray cat immediately walked up to us and pressed itself against Venice's legs.  She kneeled down, wrapped her arms around it, kissed it and made up her mind.
"I want DIS one, Dani," she said. 
"Why don't we look at all the other kitties, Venice?" I said. 
"I want DIS one," she insisted, leaning down and kissing the top of the gray cats head again.  The gray cat nuzzled in and purred like a motorboat while she squeezed him, hugged him, and kissed him once more.
I pointed out cats of every shape, size, color, age, variety... and she kept turning around and pointing at the gray cat, who never left her side and insisting, "That MY one cat."
I finally quit pointing out other cats and requested that a volunteer come in and give me some info on the gray one. 
He was, apparently about a year old, had been abandoned on the doorstep in a box a while ago, was neutered, a lover, a volunteer favorite, healthy, mind-bogglingly fat and ridiculously tolerant of a 3 year old girl who wanted to flip him onto his back and cuddle him like a baby.
The volunteer picked him up and Venice, looking worried, said, "Dani... her taking my cat!"
I called Zach and said, "Here's the dilemna... I know you guys wanted a younger cat, and there is a 7 month old black and white one that I can almost kinda get Venice to look at, but it won't let her hold it and she isn't really interested.  The cat she WANTS is 1 years old, weighs about 400 lbs, and is tolerant and loving and at this point, she's pretty sure it's hers."
He said, "Get her the one she wants."  (Here's the part where I'm totally blaming Zach for the cat, in case it destroys the furniture, eats the chihuahua, etc.  You're welcome in before, Zach.)
She wanted the gray one.  She pet every single one of the approximately 60 other cats in the shelter but... she wanted the gray one.  "That one MY cat."
We sat through a 45 minute interview, to determine if I were a fit pet owner (I passed with flying colors), the cat was loaded up in a carrier, Venice was the happiest little girl in the world and off we went, Venice strapped in beside HER cat, back to Crescent City and HER house.
While driving home I asked, "Venice, what are you going to name your new kitty?"
She leaned over and pressed her face against the carrier and said softly and sweetly, in the same kind of voice people use when they talk to babies, "Kitty?  What you name?"  Then she was very silent for a moment, listening closely.  She sat up and announced, "Him say hims name is Boots."
Of course he did.  (On the way there, she told me she wanted a BWACK cat and she was going to name him Marsha.  So Boots was a slight improvement, considering the cat was slightly not female.  And a cat named Marsha?  Just kinda cracks me up a wee little bit.)
So not only is Venice a sparklingly bright little girl, who was so incredibly well behaved in a place filled with pets, to the point where the volunteer interviewing me was shocked to find out she was only 3 1/2 and actually said, "She's only 3?  I thought she was just a very small 5 or 6 year old.  She's the best behaved child I've ever had come in here," she's artistic, creative, imaginative, a ray of light in the world of all of us who share her life, but she's also, apparently, a Cat Whisperer.
Perfect. 
Purrrrfect

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