// Bear Hunting//

We have been stalking our cat Bear for the past five nights. Yes, we “found” our missing cat… sort of.

Bear escaped our massive apartment building and *somehow* found his way down six stories to the ground level. Despite numerous attempts, fliers, and phone calls, we hadn’t seen him in almost a month. Then, last Wednesday a neighbor called to say they saw a small black cat in the park across the street.

At first I begged Melbs not to go over there. It was going to be yet another disappointment and I was just coming to terms with the loss and ready to move on. But he insisted, and went out into the night alone. About ten minutes later I received a text message, “I just saw him.” And my heart leapt. Still, not wanting to get my hopes up yet again I replied, “are you sure?” And he said, “100%”.

It took me about 3 seconds to fly myself out of the building— ill fitting pajamas, no shoes, clay mask on face. I tip toed into the park myself and Melbs and I sat silent, waiting to see Bear again. About twenty minutes passed before he peeked his little head out of the bushes across the way and gave a little meow. He was looking right at us… he knew who we were.

We didn’t know whether to sit still or make a move, so we sat for a minute and then when he didn’t approach us we slowly stood to walk towards him. He ran. And we didn’t see him again that night.

Seeing Bear again was like seeing a ghost. As I said, I had just come to terms with losing him and had recently packed away his food bowl and cat box. I had started to remember the positive things: at least we got to experience raising a kitten, it’s kind of nice not being pawed in the face each morning, I like not scooping poop out of a box…

But there he was, alive and well, right across the street from our home all these weeks! I was proud of him. He was clearly resourceful, able to hunt and keep himself alive and unharmed. I wondered if he tried to come back home but just couldn’t find a way back into the building. I wondered if he loved being out in the wild and that this was his plan all along?

Regardless, Melbs and I resolved to bring him home. So, we have returned each night in vain with food and are now armed with a humane cat trap stuffed with sardines, hoping to get Bear and restore him to our home.

It’s been difficult. Really difficult, and again, I’ve lost my cool. It’s incredibly frustrating to not be in control. Trying to rationalize your efforts with a cat is futile. He is scared, he is fast, and to be honest I’m not sure that he wants to come home.

Last night, after we laid the trap, we sat out of sight on a park bench… barely breathing and trying to keep quite, hoping to hear a “SNAP!” You could hear a pin drop in downtown Oakland. All of the sudden, we hear a loud MEEEOW and to our left is Bear. He was so close, and looked so precious… just like when he was my baby at home. We didn’t move a muscle and he meowed a few more times and then just as quickly as he showed up, he scampered away not to be seen again.

What was he telling us? To leave him alone? That he knew who we were and wanted us to try harder for him?

One thing is for sure, he is smarter than the average cat. He won’t go near the cat trap… I’ve done a ton of research on catching difficult felines and this process could take weeks. It has been all-consuming and it may just be the beginning.

It’s a comical scene, Melbs and me. Each night we get ready for bed but then around 9pm we pack up our cage, some stinky food for the cat, a big blanket and slink out of our building on a mission. Our neighbors inquire about last nights attempt, and the park security guards always give us a thumbs up when we sneak behind the locked park gates. We are the craziest cat people you know.

For us, this experience has been stressful but has also brought us closer together as a couple. With wedding planning, heaps of travel, and demanding jobs, Melbs and I haven’t spent so much time together in months. Whatever the outcome of our Bear hunting, I know that this is just another colorful part of life and we were meant to live, love, and learn through it.

Wish us luck tonight…

Boy, have I been depressed this week. Even my tweets have been especially crabby. Losing my cat has made me sad but it’s also made me feel like a total failure. One would think that eating entire pints of Chunky Monkey would be the one obvious thing NOT to do when trying to cheer oneself up, but alas… I’ve been carb loading, hard.

If it weren’t for my running group, I don’t know how I’d cope, really. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday since Bear’s mysterious disappearance I’ve tried to talk myself out of meeting up with the team in favor of staying home to watch reality TV and eating graham crackers, but something in me always decides to put on my damn spandex and go. And I always feel better once I do.

The group is encouraging, social, and is surprisingly athletic— and I can keep up! During normal times I look forward to going and running up hills and around entire cities just to have the company in doing something I have grown to love, but now (during more difficult times) I think of this group as a support system. Like going to AA: it works of you work it! All I need to do is show up and ill instantly feel better. It’s miraculous.

During long runs, I talk to people about my cat, they tell me about theirs and we cry a little and then we keep running. Eventually we sweat enough that we forget all about tears and sad things and I’m so grateful for that.

So thanks, running. You’re the first hobby I’ve been able to enjoy in both good times and bad.

// On Loss & Family//

When Melbs and I go on house-hunting kicks, we often bypass the fireplaces and staged sitting areas and make a beeline to the backyard. “Nala would love this yard!” “Can’t you just imagine Bear climbing this tree and lounging in this flower bed all day?!” “It would be perfect.” And it would.

We have spent the last three years nesting, and creating a small family for ourselves. A furry family, but a family nonetheless. Nala is our little princess, a rescue mutt with golden eyes and a passion for fetch. Six months after we adopted Nala, we somehow acquired our cat, a long-haired black beauty, Bear. And by “somehow acquired” I mean, some little girl brought over a box of kittens and we couldn’t say no. We figured a kitten would give Nala the companionship she needed during the day, and teach her some responsibility (you know, thinking of her still as our daughter). So, its been the four of us now for a couple of years and its been awesome. Our pets keep us calm, motivated, well-loved and listened to; they bring us joy and pride every day. We often put their needs first, and in learning to do this, they’ve helped us to grow up and learn responsibility of our own. This is why we picture one day living in a home with a yard for them to play. This is why we want to give them the world… because they’ve given so much to us.

So here is the part where I write about loss. We lost Bear a couple of days ago. And when I say “lost” I don’t mean he died… at least I don’t think so. That’s the worst part: the not knowing for sure. You see, we live on the sixth floor of an enclosed apartment building downtown. Our apartment has a patio that hangs over a courtyard, one that Bear loves to sunbathe on and watch the world go by. Sometimes he pokes his little head through the slated wall to get a closer look, at which point I always drag him back inside, because six stories is no joke, and because losing him is my absolute worst nightmare.

This past weekend was warm— patio weather and while we entertained some guests, we left the patio door open to catch the breeze. We drank wine, ate cheese, were gay and gluttonous all around. Two possible scenarios as to how he escaped. Its entirely conceivable that while dashing to and fro dinner, drinks, and touring the building, we were careless and allowed Little Bear to casually slip out into the hallway. What he would after that is beyond me… long hallway, several doors, an elevator. No way to easily slip between floors or arrive at the ground level. The second scenario involves him falling off the patio to his most certain death (of which we’ve found no evidence).

If you’ve read this far, I am looking at you to solve this mystery for me. Which is more likely? My cat hurling himself at the courtyard from the patio, six stories below, or him wandering hallways until some cat hoarding neighbor grabbed him? The later seems more plausible, but if that’s the case we’ve got a real cat-napper on our hands. We’ve gone door to door, we’ve posted fliers, offered a reward, called the SPCA, gone in the the Animal Control Centre, posted in our community message board, and even made a Bear-trap consisting of a Cor-o-van box and my running socks (which he loves because they have dirt, leaves, and bits of the earth crusted in them). We have no leads. Nothing seems truly fathomable nor reasonable for that matter. Where the hell did he go?

Never having been a “cat person” I’m taken aback by the sorrow I feel in my cat’s absence. This tiny little thing. This little thing who wakes me up in the middle of the night to knead my face, this little thing who drools all over me when I come home, this little thing who pulls the loops out of my handmade rug… oh how I miss him. The thought that he may never turn up has crossed my mind and brought me to tears many times over the past two days. It’s caused me to lose my temper, to sob uncontrollably, to pray to a god of some sort, and to cling onto  Melbs and Nala like they too could disappear at any moment. That’s the thing about loss, I guess. You lose one precious thing and your life for a while becomes a series of loss-prevention hours, days, weeks. 

I’m a relatively normal person breaking down over a cat. On the internet of all places. A strange place I’ve found myself in, but one that I want to recall at a later time. I’ve never experienced a great, personal loss. Being aware of each physical and mental nuance during a traumatic time is important to me and that’s why I want to recount this in such detail. I am a fly on the wall, watching myself collapse with pain, guilt, and utter helplessness. And Melbs is no different. We lost our littlest baby, and that is just a terrible, terrible feeling.

Please, dear internets, please send good thoughts to our cat baby. Thank you in advance.

// My Two Halves//

So I did something pretty stupid today. I ran another half marathon… Yes just seven days after running my first one ever. Why? No good reason other than now that I know I can do it and there was a race in my own neighborhood and it seemed silly not to!

I hate being left out and if people were running a marathon around my building and would have been pissed not to be included. Plus, my half marathon in Hawaii last week was a wonderful experience in every way. Why not do it again and hope for similar results?

Well similar results are exactly what I got. I finished today’s half marathon in the exact same time as I did in Hawaii last week. Crazy right? There are so many variables within a 13 mile run that I almost feel like I subconsciously did this on purpose… or that someone is messing with me. The courses were not similar at all: Hawaii was lush and hilly… Oakland was flat and well, urban? I even had different strategies. In Hawaii I started off pretty fast and slowed toward the end, where as today I started off more slowly and felt like I stayed pretty consistent throughout.

Anyways. I didn’t beat my self and I didn’t do any worse so I guess that’s okay. It was a great local experience and I definitely learned a few things about racing.

1. Being familiar with the course is not necessarily a benefit. I had a really hard time running in Oakland from the beginning. I wanted to give up on mile three. I was very familiar with the course and therefore I knew what was coming up, exactly how long it would take, and subsequently dreaded many parts. The element of surprise adds a lot of additional energy and hopefulness.

2. One week’s worth of toenail growth can mean the world. I got a pedicure right before I went to Hawaii and had zero toe pain during my run last week. Today however was a different story. When I took off my shoes my toes were practically crippled and my toes felt raw. I attribute this to the few millimeters of additional toenail.

3. “GREAT JOOOB!” sounds a lot like “RAAY CHUL!” which can be nice in absence of a personal fan club.