anecdote: amazing tale from a craptastic day

Posted by on Oct 6, 2009 in cats, pc-romania, veronica | No Comments

Yesterday was crappy — craptastically crappy on just about every front.  Some of the crappiness I’ll say is part of the Peace Corps rollercoaster experience and existing in ambiguity.  The other part is just crap.  Rather than spewing all the crappiness, I just want to share one bit that had me looking at plane tickets home but has since turned into gratefulness.

After my crappy day, I went home to vent to my lovely husband.  He got angry and he bought me chocolate.  I vented to Teddy and Melody and they assured me that I was not crazy. Between chocolate and the knowledge that I wasn’t crazy, I was feeling better about life.  I started to make dinner which was going to be crappy since we haven’t been to the supermarket or piata in a few days.  Ramen, it was.  As I’m bopping around the kitchen, I think out loud: “Gosh, it’s quiet in here.”  David and I look at each other and start calling for Zami (our kitten).  Nothing.  We look in all her hiding places — right now she likes to hide under the covers or in boxes.  Nothing.  We start panicking; our place is small, so there’s really nowhere for her to be. No one’s left or come in our apartment since the chocolate run and we’d seen her after that.

windowThen we see this window with the screen open.

looking downIt’s gotten dark, so we can’t really see anything at the bottom (however, above is the view in daylight), but we’re thinking the worst.  We live on the 4th floor (3rd floor European) and really, could a kitten survive that fall?

We race downstairs, both of us in tears.  The kids from the bloc see us and run to give me a hug.  They see I’m crying and want to know what’s going on.  I pull out a few Romanian words about the kitten maybe falling out of the window and she’s lost.  Next thing I know, a crew of neighborhood kids are searching for Zami.  I was glad they were helping because I was a hot mess.  Fifteen minutes later Alexandra comes running around the corner, kitten in her arms.  “Am gasit o, Veronica!” (I found her, Veronica!)

I proceed to give Alexandra a huge hug and check Zami out.  She’s shaking like a leaf, but there’s no blood and she doesn’t show signs of pain when I pull her legs or pet her tummy. Our best guess of what happened is that she wanted to get on the windowsill on our balcony.  But unlike all the other windows in our place, the windows on the balcony have almost no sill.  So when she jumped up there, she ended up pushing the screen open and heading overboard.

So we figured that if she was really alright she’d a) be alive in the morning, b) eat & drink, c) pee and poo d) play like her normal self.  I mean, there are no emergency vets in rural Romania, so what else are we supposed to do?

the wonder catHere Zami is early this morning.  She’s eaten, drank, peed, poo-ed, played (attacking our feet under the covers), and slept. All good signs.  Still saying a few prayers that she’s all right.

So Zami is an amazing cat and is down to 8 (of her 9) lives.  The kids in my bloc are totally getting some chocolate chip cookies.  And I’m trying to look at today with gratefulness — my kitten survived, I have a small support network here (David and the 10-year old kids) that come through in a pinch and I’m on the adventure of my life (albeit, I have to wade through crappiness from time to time).

1 Comment

  1. erik
    October 10, 2009

    Sorry your day was crappy, good to know your Romanian cat is a survivor. That’ll help her when she gets back to the states and the menagerie….

    on a good note, only two months til you and david get to throw back the vin with me and Benny babes!

    Back at the Grand Canyon, freezing here. A week to go (we came from Zion, interesting story bout that when i see you) then home to Montana to clean up, get laid off, and get out. see y’all soon

    Reply

Leave a Reply