JUST DOWN FROM SWAMPOODLE ROAD...

By Corene Johnson

From the cat carrier at my feet, periodic "mrrowl!'s" needed no translation into their English equivalent: "Woe is me!" Boots patently wanted everyone in hearing distance, me in particular, to know that coming here was not his idea. He'd been shanghaied, but then, that goes with the territory when your name is Cap'n Tall Boots. That's not what he was called, though, in 1982, when my father put the tiny black and white kitten in his pocket, and rescued him from a Michigan shopping mall parking lot. I can't imagine what caused Trev, my macho dad, to call the fluff ball, "Boots," after twenty million other cats with white feet, but Boots he was, and my father's cat he was, for the next seven years. After Trev died, Boots sat on the footstool beside his chair in the evenings for several months, apparently wondering why he'd been abandoned by his best friend.

But a cat who can survive infancy in a shopping center parking lot is an adaptable cat. And Boots spent the next five years bossing my mom around, eventually even switching from the foot of my father's bed to sleep to curling up at night in the crook of her knees. He survived a near-death experience from kidney disease, and in general, with no other male around, ran the roost, his Sylvester-like hubris unchallenged by any upstart Tweeties.

After Mom died, I brought Boots home with me to Pennsylvania, as I'd promised her. He took one look at my husband and like a cartoon cat, his thoughts were practically visible in a little balloon over his head: "Trev! You came back! I knewyou wouldn't abandon me, Dude!" Wondering how much all this revealed about the Freudian layer of my being, I nonetheless exhaled a relieved and joyful sigh. You see, my father's cat instantly adopted John as His Person. I agreed with John, that a cat with this much history needed a more appropriate appellation, and thus was Cap'n Tall Boots christened. Now 18 years old, our senior cat regards his position seriously, taking on the younger, whippersnapper males, when he deems them inappropriately assertive. And yesterday evening, I had felt a big lump on the side of Boot's face. "Uh oh," I told my husband, "Boots has got an abscess. I'll have to take him to the vet tomorrow." Next morning, before I'd even had coffee, John greeted me with the news that the swollen wound had opened in the night, and was draining icky goo all over Boot's fur. Knowing that an abscess can make a large, difficult to heal, pocket beneath the skin, I made the vet appointment anyway, and here we now sat.

Across from me, a daddy and a darling little blonde girl waited, the child obviously fascinated with the reluctantly caged feline at my feet. I introduced them, and when she tired of her conversation with Boots, asked her if she had a doggie or kitty. "Yes," came the answer, and she told me her doggie was here for a shot. Soon, two middle-aged women emerged from one of the exam rooms, one with her arm around her sobbing companion. The father and little girl stood and walked out with them, leaving me alone in the waiting room with Boots.

Now, ya gotta understand: what with two goats, eight or so cats, a part-time dog, and a passing parade of rescued critters, our annual vet bill is about equivalent to the gross national product of a small third world nation. And I am on first name terms with everyone in the office. "Did you see that?" Raquel, the receptionist and computer shaman, hissed from her desk.

"Yeah, " I replied, walking to her window, "but I don't know what was going on. That little girl said her dog was here for a shot. And who were those two women?" "They were all here together," Raquel explained, shaking her head. "Her dog had to be euthanized.And they didn't even tell her!" Dot came to call Boots and me in, just then, and I threw "That's awful!" over my shoulder, to the sympathetic receptionist.

Dot held onto Boots, Doctor John shaved the wound, and I recounted my dismay at the way the little girl would be shocked with her dog's unexpected and unexplained death. Doc John said that wasn't the half of it, he was still hated and feared by children who believed he had wantonly killed their pets, when parents did not explain beforehand that a dog or cat was too ill or injured to live, and had to be put to sleep. "You need a brochure!" I exclaimed, and both John and Dot raised their heads to look at me quizzically. "A brochure, " I repeated, all the professional free-lancer now, "to give to parents to help them talk to their kids when a critter has to be put down. So you don't have to do it," I added persuasively.

Doctor John handed me antibiotic tablets to take home for Boots, and I assured him I'd be back the next week to get all the bites on my fingers sutured after I'd administered them, and said I'd bring a copy of a brochure to consider, too. Both John and Dot looked a little uncertain. Nobody in that office seems to know how to take me; after all I'm the lady whose goat wears child sized sweatshirts in cold weather.

But I already have a rough draft on floppy, waiting to be reworked. If they like the brochure, I'll probably barter for veterinary care. That's not exactly cash, but like I said, I'm a freelancer. When I got home, late that afternoon, I assured my husband that our venerable cat had quite a bit of tread left on his paws, then made Baked Potatoes Alfredo for supper.

But I already have a rough draft on floppy, waiting to be reworked. If they like the brochure, I'll probably barter for veterinary care. That's not exactly cash, but like I said, I'm a freelancer. When I got home, late that afternoon, I assured my husband that our venerable cat had quite a bit of tread left on his paws, then made Baked Potatoes Alfredo for supper.

But I already have a rough draft on floppy, waiting to be reworked. If they like the brochure, I'll probably barter for veterinary care. That's not exactly cash, but like I said, I'm a freelancer. When I got home, late that afternoon, I assured my husband that our venerable cat had quite a bit of tread left on his paws, then made Baked Potatoes Alfredo for supper.

BAKED POTATOES ALFREDO
Serves 2