Cat Rescue & Nerf-meat Wars

12-13-15
It was the hottest part of summer, and I was at a block party.  The setting is a city that has seen better days; it has a little bit of grit and decay, but there's also a sense of safety and community.  The block party is taking place on a residential city street, with long folding tables lined up end-to-end.  Upon checking out the table containing all of the food, I found that there was hardly anything left.  A few pretzels and tortilla chips swam in their respective bowls, and a sparse smattering of other things were strewn about, but nothing was up my alley.  I took some pistachios back with me to the table, sitting next to a few girls around my age.  I was new in town, and as I sat there with my pistachios, one of the girls decided to make her friend and take me under her wing, so to speak.  We sit very close to each other, our chairs touching, like we'd known each other for years and were thick as thieves.

Some time later, I'm wandering around the city streets with a few of the aforementioned girls.  We round a corner were some kind of pharmacy or convenience store sits, and in the middle of the busy sidewalk, I spot Gandalf (my husband's cat when he lived at home) and Xena (brother-in-law's cat when at home).  The ears of both cats are drooping and folded over.  They are panting hard.  I'm immediately stricken with shock by the sight of them.  This is devastating, seeing them in this state.

I erupt in a frenzy, shouting at my friends that they need water.  I look around, frantically, not knowing how to provide the cats with saucers of cold water.  One of the girls turns her opaque white plastic cup, and dribbles water straight onto the sidewalk.  The desperate cats greedily lap up the streams of water and lick the damp sidewalk.  My mind races: 'There must be some place I can take them.  They have to get out of this heat...'  One of the girls knows of an abandoned foreclosure.  The house has been long forgotten, and will be a safe place for them, for now.

Gandalf (bottom) & Xena (top)

I take Gandalf and Xena to the house and into a room that is in shambles.  There is a sectional sofa that is at the end of it's rope, a filthy kitchenette covered in litter, and several TVs attached to the very top of the walls where they meet the ceiling. Torn paper and other debris is everywhere. There are a handful of other cats taking up residence here, as well, and I recognize a couple of them from their days in the shelter where I work.  I sort through dirty, food-encrusted dishes in the sink until I find a few cleaner ones, and fill them with food and water for the cats.

Having provided food, water, and shelter, I get on the archaic desktop computer that sits on a desk right next to the sectional.  Using the headphones that have a gaming mic, I Skype my husband.  I get through, but there's something wrong with the connection, and he can't hear me well at all.  I'm trying to tell him what's going on.  Struggling at the computer, I stop what I'm doing when the four TVs simultaneously turn on.  All the noise from the TVs will further hinder my husband from hearing me, so I then turn my attention to getting the TVs turned off.  The remote works, but the TVs won't turn off.  I try turning the volume all the way down, pressing mute, punching random buttons... but I'm having no luck.  That's when Nathan walks through the door.  I hadn't noticed that he'd left our Skype session.  He's carrying a giant cylindrical box fan, as if he had intuited how stuffy and hot the room had become.  Easily, he turns the fan on and the TVs off.

Electronic crises aside, I plead with him to consider the plight of the kitties.  I point out a long-haired white cat with gray splotches.  He's a good cat, and I know him from the shelter, I just loose his name while begging.  He doesn't give me a concrete answer, and instead points out that we need to get Gandalf and Xena back home before anything else.  I continue to plead with him, telling him that if I can foster some of the other cats in the room that he will never know they're there and we'll only keep them until they have homes.

I continue to plead my case as we leave the room, and enter the main hallway of the home.  He is skeptical and not committing to any answer.  I notice that the hallway and the rest of the foreclosed house is nicely furnished and not nearly as torn apart as the room we just left.

The next thing I know, we've returned to the house, and are standing outside.  It sits at the end of a row of houses, each with a pathway across a canal that separates the front lawns from the street.  We are met by a looming, tank-top clad thug.  Like a hood rat bouncer, he refuses to allow us entry to the house.  After some squabbling, I acquiesce and tell him that I really don't care, that I just want my cats.  The thug shouts to a lackey inside the house, and I suddenly remember the white and gray cat's name.  "Haven!" I yell as an addition to the thug's commands.  The lackey emerges, carelessly holding a cat, but it is not one that I recognize.



12-14 nap
The setting includes a sprawling, green outdoor landscape as well as a very large and very modern building that might be a country club.  There is a massive game going on between two teams.  They are playing a game akin to paintball, but with Nerf guns.  The twist is that,instead of Nerf darts or paintballs, the ammo is some kind of strange, loose meatloaf.


I'm not in on the game, but when I find an errant gun, I join as a rogue element.  Without a team, I shoot anyone and everyone, and I'm quite good.  To reload the gun, you have to pick up meatloaf from off the ground, roll it back into a ball, and place it in your gun.