2010 - The Year of the Cats

When I look back to 2010 - I have only 3 words that would sum up my year:

1. Surgery
2. Emma
3. Buster

I will expound on those 3 items soon, but allow me to say this out first. I had no major expectations for 2010, because 2009 was THE YEAR for me. It was the dream year, the year when almost all my dreams became a realty and more, much more. After such a monster year, no matter how great 2010 would be, it would pale in comparison to my 2009. Hence I had no expectations whatsoever.

Still I was a little perplexed that the year would start with uncertainty and seem to be ending with another kind of uncertainty. But I sucked it up the entire year. I knew whatever life would bring I could handle it - I was still enjoying the afterglow of a marvelous 2009.

And so my 2010 began with a doctor's visit that ended with him saying: Surgery would be your best bet. Please, surgery here is not THE ONLY option. I had other options. I was never in danger at any point. My choice of surgery is like choosing to have an aching, pestering, nagging tooth be removed/extracted, other than taking in pain medications. So the surgery my CHOICE.

And yet it's monumental for me being my first time to have a surgery - let alone be confined in a hospital. I've lived all these years and thank heavens I've never stayed in a hospital overnight as a patient. Many times I did when my father was sick. He was sick the whole time I knew him, from my birth to the time he expired. Poor guy.

Anyway, what was unforgettable about that was it went by pfft - so quickly, so painless. I thank God for pulling me through that test.

EMMA came out of nowhere. Sure we were visiting animal shelters because we heard that with the down economy comes a spike in the numbers of pets in the shelters, but we weren't in the market for a cat.  We were hoping we could get a dog for husband who's aching to have a four-footed best friend. 

Emma was a sweet one. She meowed her way into my heart that first meeting. When she continued to extend her paw from inside her cage to touch me combined with her purring and mewing, I knew that she had to come home with me. We took the weekend to decide, just to be sure, although we knew the two days would change nothing. We still wanted her home.

And she came home in the middle of my recovery. I was still housebound and recuperating marvelously. But I thought having Emma around the house keeping me company and sharing my lazy days [who would have thought that cats loved doing nothing with their owners, not I?] made me heal faster. I couldn't think of life before her.

I named her after Emma Watson. On the second HP movie, Hermione turned into a cat, remember that scene? I thought Hermione there looked a lot like my cat, so we named her Emma. The cat did not look like a Hermione, but Emma fits her to a tee.

And BUSTER completes the year.

The San Francisco Giants had an amazing year, memorable, awesome year. They won the World Series trophy after 50+ years. That's a long time to wait for a championship. That's why the entire region was almost hysterical in their euphoria.

In the midst of their hunt for the trophy, the region was awashed with the team's colors of orange and black. Anything orange and black seem to be selling. The shelters - I thought all of them - were having a "sale" of only $9 adoption fee for orange cats.

So off we went to the shelter closest to our house, the same one where we got Emma a few months ago. This orange tiger was on the front and he wowed my husband. I wasn't paying attention to him because I was too enamored by the trio of 2-week old kitties in the back. Sooooo cute!

Before I knew it, my husband was signing the adoption papers. Unfortunately, this shelter was not having a "sale" and so we didn't get Buster for that price. It didn't matter. We love the cat.

Buster wasn't fixed when we adopted him, so we couldn't take him home right there and then. Instead, we picked him up four days later at another facility and he was a darling, although he was roaming all over the car when we were driving home.

We named him Buster for BUSTER POSEY, the SF Giants rookie phenom catcher. So we call our cat, Buster, the Posey cat.

I cannot imagine life without the cats now. Emma sleeps in between my legs, and only in that spot, and only when I go under the sheets. Lately I have been waking up with Emma in between my legs and Buster next to me with his toys. Buster is funny that way. He carries around his toy with him whenever he goes from upstairs to downstairs and even to the bed.

My co-worker has warned me that cats are indeed addictive, that I better watch out not to get any more. Else she'll see me on the ten o'clock news with all my cats being taken away by authorities. Funny. I fear that may be true. I am so in love with cats right now.

That's what I remember about 2010. It is the year I became a cat owner and a cat lover.