I have a piece of personal truth I’d like to share: I’m not an easy person to get along with. I drink too much (coffee); I have awful(ly good) taste in music; and after about five minutes in conversation, you’d think that I was raised by a sailor with a vocabulary of four-letter words.
I believe that the only creatures who continually subject themselves to my presence either 1) are required to by legal/treaty/employment/contractual obligations or 2) depend on me for food/clothing/housing.
So when a multi-celled organism chooses to spend moments around me (and not with a pained look upon their face), I have to wonder “what have I done to deserve this?”
The recent trip to Salisbury (GBR) broke this sense of self-inflicted solitude. I woke early, found my brekkie at Reeve the Baker, and wrote random thoughts in my notebook at Salisbury Market. When I returned to the hotel, I sat within the courtyard attempting to continue my scheming plotting journaling.
The courtyard’s sole inhabitant got up from their activity, and walked over to my table with a look of pure disdain. After a moment of intense staring under a furrowed brow, I broke the silence and menacingly asked “So?”
She jumped up on the table and cautiously watched my cup of (McCrap) coffee. I half expected her to enact moments of destruction right out of Catlateral Damage, playing “Let’s swat the coffee cup.” To Leona’s credit, she did not “throw it on the ground” (thank you Andy Samberg for placing that earworm in my brain). The black and rust pussy pushed against any rigid surface in a vain attempt at guilting me into petting her. (Geez, I can’t even erase the double entendre without some wholesome effort at rewriting that sentence. Maybe next time…)
The owners of the Red Lion Hotel allow Leona to freely engage with customers in the courtyard, keeping her Cat Cave (yes, these are a thing) nearby so she may accost any hooman walking past. According to this article at Historic UK, the British really love their cats. On the ridge of the Inn’s roof, there is a cat statue. Yup, I watched it for 10 minutes before realizing it was a statue. (I cannot confirm, but there may have been beer involved beforehand.)
The Historic UK article lists various reasons why the Britons love their cats, but in my travels down the streets of Salisbury I found one of those reasons on the sidewalk… with its throat chewed out. (“Cat Lover’s Reason #103 – Keeps the Black Death out of town“)
I cannot say if Leona held the bloodlust that took this rat’s life. I’m sure if I whispered in her ear “Tell me the sordid tale,” she would do so exuberantly in a ca(t)caphony of meows and purring. Walking away, I pondered the mortality of the rat and the historic Black Death connection. Moments later, I walked past a shop that honored the town’s feline residents in some charming ways.
During my last moments at the Red Lion Inn, I waited patiently in the courtyard for my taxi. While sitting and reviewing my travel reservations, my black cat companion of five days came over to the table once more. We exchanged no pleasantries – Leona knew what she wanted and she hopped upon the table in her usual display of chutzpah. For a moment, she got the rubdown of her nine lives.
The taxi arrived and I walked toward the entrance to take one final look back.
Leona? She was already pursuing her next task of finding a comfy spot on a table top.
Joseph T. Page II 