Everyone, almost without exception, tells me I should get another cat when the time is right. \u00a0 I am almost inclined to agree, maybe. \u00a0 But any cat I bring into my life again will have to be a strictly indoor cat because I am not carrying another much loved pet back to the front porch with a broken body. So what kind of life can I offer an indoor cat? \u00a0 Well, I have a house of my own, and it has three levels and lots of space to run around and find places to lounge in. \u00a0 But it gets little direct sunlight into it because of the Japanese maples out front, and the aluminum awnings a previous owner put over the windows. \u00a0 I could put some places up by all the windows for it (her…it would probably be another her) to lounge on and watch the world outside go by. But I would hate to think I was keeping it (her) imprisoned. There’s a reason you can’t keep a cat confined indoors once it’s had the taste of the outdoors. \u00a0 A life confined indoors would disturb me. \u00a0 But I can’t be picking up another broken body off the street.<\/p>\n
The worst of it though is…it’s just me living there<\/em>. \u00a0 I go to work. \u00a0 I go here and there when I’m not at work. \u00a0 For a walk when I need it. \u00a0 In my car when I need that. \u00a0 Cat’s don’t do cars very well. \u00a0 Neither do most motels. \u00a0 The cat would be by itself a lot, and taken care of by a stranger who comes by just long enough to feed it (her) and clean the litter box when I’ve gone on vacation somewhere. \u00a0 It just wouldn’t be fair. \u00a0 I take your love and affection and then I leave you alone whenever it’s something I<\/em> need to do.<\/p>\n It isn’t that another cat wouldn’t be good for me. \u00a0 Claudia’s love convinced me I need companionship more than I’d thought. I’ve been searching for my other half since I was a teenager in first love, and telling myself that I’d rather be alone then fake it with Mr. For Tonight or Mr. Good Enough. \u00a0 But alone is more damaging than I’d really realized. \u00a0 It isn’t that another cat wouldn’t be good for me. \u00a0 It’s would I and my life be good for a cat. \u00a0 At least Claudia had the world outside the house too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone, almost without exception, tells me I should get another cat when the time is right. \u00a0 I am almost inclined to agree, maybe. \u00a0 But any cat I bring into my life again will have to be a strictly indoor cat because I am not carrying another much loved pet back to the front […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[166,130,157],"class_list":["post-7342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-claudia","tag-lonelyache","tag-the-old-man-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}