The summer before last, Dee decided he wanted a kitten. He was living in a trailer at the time (a description of the trailer warrants its own post) and it was lonely. Other people lived in trailers and houses on the roughly half acre property, but Dee spent much of his time alone. For the first time, he didn’t have family or roommates living in the same place as him—even if that place was a trailer. So I started kitten shopping; I thought I’d found one when my boss at the movie theater revealed she had rescued a pregnant cat. I raised the idea to Dee, but he brushed me off. So I didn’t think he’d actually end up with one—he often considered and then dropped ideas like this one. Then, one day in July of 2015, he texted me he was getting a cat from a guy who also lived in a trailer on the property. This guy had cats—sort of. More specifically, he had about twenty stray cats living in the garage that his trailer resided in. Kittens had been born recently, and though they were dirty, they were adorable. I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard the story so many times I feel as though I remember it myself. He picked up a little orange tabby, but it didn’t feel right. He spotted a little calico under the truck and asked to hold it—she ended up being the one.
He took her into his trailer and named her “Einstein”, not realizing yet that she was female. We ended up going through several names in fact, including Einstein and Sativa, but finally settled with Kaya, mostly because we didn’t want to keep changing it. She was sick at first with an upper respiratory infection and a host of fleas and worms, and it was scary because we loved her immediately and didn’t want to lose her. She was tiny, fit in the palm of your hand, and I wasn’t sure how strong she was. After an epic de-fleaing event that was taken on primarily by Dee’s mom and dad, we had most of the bugs off her, but a couple days later we woke up and she was very weak—she couldn’t stand and she wouldn’t eat. One trip to the vet (and one vet bill) later, we had meds for her respiratory infection and worms, and she made a quick recovery.
Owning Kaya has been its own adventure—she has been an important factor in both our lives since Dee got her. When Dee was forced to move in with his aunt a year later in September of 2016, he couldn’t bring Kaya. His aunt was allergic to cats, and we had no friends able to take care of Kaya for the weeks and potentially months Dee would spend at his aunts. After a very panicked couple of days, Dee found a lady on Craigslist who would keep and care for Kaya for $40 a week. Since all of the kennels we had looked at were $20 a day, this felt like an affordable blessing. The lady lived in Vancouver, so Dee convinced his mom, who was moving up to Camas, to drop Kaya off at the house. It was surreal, giving Kaya up to this random lady who neither of us had met, when we weren’t sure if we would ever be able to take Kaya back. Dee was heart broken, especially since this move also forced his mom to give up his dog he’d gotten at seven years old. I was heart broken too—I worried a lot about how Kaya was being treated.
Fast forward a couple months… Dee moved into his friend’s garage and learned he could keep Kaya there! We rented a ZipCar and headed to Vancouver to get our baby cat. The lady Kaya stayed with was vegan and had only fed Kaya vegan food supplemented with vitamins. I felt deeply suspicious of this, primarily because cats are carnivores, so my goal was to get Kaya out of there as fast as possible. The lady loaded us up with vegan food, an antibiotic for the eye infection Kaya had developed at her house (thanks), and more mysterious supplements, promising us “we could pay her later”, while ignoring our cries of “no we really don’t need that!”. Whatever—we ended up with beautiful Kaya in the car with us, and today she is a healthy, long-haired, feisty calico who likes to cry to go outside and cuddle. She gets lots of attention here—Dee still lives with his friend, and I moved in too—as there are always people coming and going. She has a nice backyard to explore, grass to eat, and boxes to chew on, and we think she’s just about the cutest cat ever. Thanks for reading, follow me for more updates on Kaya!
