Aimee Goes AWOL
posted at 1:14 am
on Oct. 17, 2004
Previous entry:
Terrorist Spam Trap Email?
Next entry:
Cloudburst
Our new apartment has windows floor to ceiling.
It’s important to have a nice view, but it’s also important to have windows that open. Otherwise, the apartment starts to feel like the inside of a car left in a parking lot on a hot day.
So as not to obstruct things, the architects put all the windows at floor level, and they open outwards from the bottom (as opposed to sliding up).
Seen from the outside, they’d look like so:
|
|
|
|
|
+
|\
| \
| \
Just outside the windows is a 4 inch-wide ledge.
Well, we’ve had to keep the windows closed, because we have two immensely stupid cats who would see an open window, poke their head out. Try out the ledge, and soon discover that they could not, in fact, fly. They’re never allowed out, and we’ve never lived anywhere with something high, so except for bookshelves, they really have no concept of “long falls.”
We have left one window open—there’s a window high above the bathtub that I figured no cat could jump to, and there’s nothing to see out of it, either.
But one day last week, as we were unpacking, I noticed that Aimee wasn’t playing in the pile of unwrapped blank newsprint we’d used as packing material.
I called out her name, and she didn’t come. This is odd; normally, she investigates everything, and rarely likes to be left out of the action.
Maybe she was asleep. I looked on the bed. I looked in the closet(s). I looked in all the semi-unpacked boxes. I looked everywhere in our place.
Susie joined in, calling loudly to Aimee. Nothing. No cat.
Lukaska started walking around the apartment, following us, smiling and purring. That’s not a good sign. In Pasadena, this usually meant Aimee was stuck in a room somewhere else. We tried to get Lukaska to lead us to Aimee, but we got lead to the food bowl, where Aimee also wasn’t.
Earlier in the day, the cable guy had been there to install internet, and he had gone in and out looking for the cable junction box.
So we also looked up and down the hallway, and in the fire stairs.
Nothing. No cat.
Looked in suitcases. Looked in the fridge. Looked in the desk drawers. Looked in everything again, twice. Looked out along the ledge below the bathroom window (while cringing).
Nothing. No Aimee.
At this point, I had errands to run, so I left the building. And, before I did the errands, I spent a long time looking on the lawn and in the bushes at the base of the building.
It’s not pleasant to be calling the name of your cat outside your apartment building when the only way your cat could be there is if it dropped in from above.
Nothing.
I called Susie, though, and told her that it was clear that Aimee had not done half a bungee jump, and that our cat must, was definitely, couldn’t not, still be in the apartment. And being out of the place gave me a clearer perspective: She has to be in there, some where.
Susie however, still in our place, couldn’t keep herself from searching between checking emails. And every noise seemed to be Aimee.
But wasn’t.
I returned an hour later after a hair cut and a trip to the grocery store. Aimee was not waiting at the door trying to dart an escape. Aimee still did not come when I called. Aimee was not lying on top of the couch back, or on top of Susie’s monitor. Or anywhere. I looked again in and around and behind everything.
Where was Aimee?
About 20 minutes later, when Susie and I were both at the front of the place, Aimee came strolling up the hall. We still have no idea from where.
We’re getting screens installed. And I still think my suggestion of taping a cell phone to Aimee would have worked, but even without it, she hasn’t gone missing again.
Aimee, if you’re reading this… Don’t DO that again, PLEASE!
