meowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeow

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so this is our cat: harper. for some reason when miss n met her she called her parnell and it somehow ended up sticking as a middle name as did petunia, koogs' addition. she looks innocent enough but beware. . .this bitch has claws and she's not afraid to use them. por ejemplo:

when rogray and i were making plans to move across the country back to nyc we were trying to figure out how to transport harper -- at first the plan involved driving with her across the country, sneaking her into hotel rooms and putting ice packs in her carrier so she wouldn't overheat -- we decided that was too difficult and were about to choose the more expensive option of having rogray fly back with her the weekend before we left and deposit her at koogs' (her second mommy, really) and then rogray would fly back to drive with me. crazy? yes, but it seemed to to make sense at the time. then mateo told me he was coming to l.a. for work the week before we left and valiantly agreed to fly back with harper and take her to koogs' himself.

the day arrives and amidst many warnings of her reputation as a crazy, homicidal, killer feline, mateo assures me all will be well, that he "loves cats and not to worry." so i pump her up full of kitty tranquilizers and send her to the airport with an idealistic mateo at the wheel of his snazzy rental car. if only he had heeded my stern warnings.

since mateo was not landing in nyc until midnight and koogs teaches the future of america he had to keep harper with him until the next day when he could take her over at a more reasonable hour. so around the time that harper should have been snuggling into her old friend's lap i gave a call to see how things were going. that is when i found out from koogs that things were not going well and i should call mateo. i do and it's awful. not only can i hear her meowing and growling in the background but i can here a broken spirit in mateo's voice. he sounds like he has been through a battle between good and evil and evil is winning. i tell him to steady himself, throw a blanket over her and shove her into her carrier no matter what. he says he's tried it and i say do it again -- i tell him how there have been times when i've had to straddle her and pin her down to clip her claws or grab her by the tail to get her into the carrier and that she won't get hurt and that she can't actually murder him -- she just sounds like she can.

we hang up and i wait. a few minutes pass and he calls and sounds worse than he did before. at this point harper parnell petunia is hiding under a table in his living room snarling at him like what'sherface in the exorcist. i call koogs and ask her to go over there for back-up. she kindly agrees and goes over with her head held high and optimistic that she possesses the magic touch to calm harper and get her to willingly walk into her carrier.

cut to something like an hour and 30 minutes later (!!!!) and i still haven't heard from either of them so i call and now koogs sounds like she has been broken by this 5 pound ball of fur. apparently they have spent the last hour with harper in the closet, koogs sitting outside of it meditating only to have harper come out and allow koogs to pet her while simultaneously growling at her. and now harper is huddled in a corner and koogs can't get near her and neither can mateo.

at this point harper has been freaking out for something like 4 hours and mateo has been on the brink of an opera style meltdown for at least 3 of those and koogs has joined him in half that time and i am feeling horrible that this has taken such a disastrous turn. so i finally tell them to just grab her, stick her in the carrier, put the carrier on it's end so she can't run out, zip it shut and be done with it. i tell them that they can do this. that no matter what sound she makes she is not actually hurt -- she's just putting on a show. i tell them that rob suggests getting her into the bathroom so she has nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide. (sorry about that musical interlude, it was unavoidable)

somehow mateo rallies and gets her in her carrier in under 5 minutes.

all of this is to say that our cat may be small, she may have the cutest white paws and little nose, but she is a beast that can bring an adult woman who is in charge of 25 8 year-olds every day and an adult man who directs entire plays to their knees. she is a beast.

of course, she's never treated me that way. . .

*photo courtesy miss n's camera phone.