Bringing Henry home

I moved back into my apartment Tuesday 11/28 from a big house on the hill where I was pet-sitting over Thanksgiving. Moving Henry was a disaster.

I got a taxi to go from the office up to the house, and I made Miranda come with me because I figured this was gonna take more Bosnian than I have. But the cabbie said he couldn't wait for me to go in, disarm the alarm system and find my cat, because he had a pre-arranged trip; he would come back, however.

So I went into the house captured Henry and stuffed him into my big JAWS tote bag. My cat carrier is in the US. This procedure went smoothly enough that we decided not to wait for our cabbie and we called another taxi. The dispatcher said he'd be there in two minutes so we, rearmed the alarm system and went outside. Dickens the dog looked at us forlornly as we went out the gate into the driveway.

Then Miranda said, "Oh look, Henry is peeking out," and before I could say "NOOOO," she was petting his nose whereupon Henry summoned all his feline strength and exploded out of the tote bag like those peanuts with springs out of a can. He took off.



At this point, of course, the taxi pulled up.



Henry leaped over the fence into the next-door mansion; Dickens began howling at all the activity. I'm squatting and leaning as far into the fence as I can reach -- which is about a foot short of where Henry is sitting on his haunches watching me and Miranda is putting her computer into the taxi. I yell at her to let the taxi go and we'll get another. She disgustedly tells me I'm a quitter and OPENS THE GATE into the yard when Henry has taken refuge.


I am flabbergasted. I imagine hearing alarms blaring, guard dogs coming out at us, machine-gun toting sentries swarming. The ambassador from Serbia lives in this block. But the gate isn't even locked. "It's Bosnia," Miranda tells me.



"We are going to be arrested for trespassing at least," I whine. "We don't have trespassing here," she tells me.

But then she makes a mistake. She grabs Henry by the tail and neck. Before I can yell, "NOOOOO," Henry has raked her arm and leaped free. We are now both running all over the lawn trying to catch the cat, the dog is howling and the cab driver is certain he's dealing with an insane international.



It all turned out well in the end. When I left this morning Henry was brutally attacking my sheepskin rug.