moujacat

Technically this probably should have wound up as a Photo Friday entry, but it's been one of those "slow news" weeks... plus this will probably end up being one of those long and involved stories I'm so good at...

This is Mouja... he was my cat... for all of about 12 hours...

Back in January 2001, very early January actually... I had former buddy and my first model Dan over and we were chatting away... and because it was warm, I had the front door open, and, I think, the fan in the doorway... anyway, we're yacking away about goodness knows what, and suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see movement.

And there was Mouja, front paws up on the doorstep, peering in, checking things out. I told him to shoo... which he promptly ignored... then when I shooed him a second or third time, he seemed to take off. So Dan and I went back to yacking... next thing I know, I see movement out of the corner of my eye again, and not only has he decided to peer in, he's also decided to run inside to check things out.

I tried to herd him back outside (but you know the old saying about trying to herd cats), which wasn't overly successful, so in the end, I scooped him up and took him down the street to the house I assumed he'd come from (since I knew the woman who lived there had a cat or two)... I dropped him outside, then legged it back home again.

Not five minutes later, he was back again (yeah, I know, it was a crap plan)... so in the end I just gave up the shooing and just let him be, since he seemed mostly content to hover around the doorway, although I think he also probably disappeared down "cat alley", the gap between my sofa at the time and the window.

Dan left shortly after, and before I went to bed Mouja decided he wanted to have a full on look around the place, and this time I shut the front door, just to see what he would do. He took it all in his stride... sniffed around the kitchen, then the bedroom, then the bathroom (which pretty much accounts for "the rest of my house"...

I've always described him as being a "teenage boy" cat... he seemed to be all paws and tail, and fairly young... which, at the time was just what I didn't really need, another "teenage boy" making himself at home and complicating my life...

Once he'd done his thing and sniffed all the rubbish bins and stuck his head in all the appropriate small spaces, I decided it probably wasn't the best idea in the world to keep him inside while I was sleeping, so I herded him outside eventually.

After I'd been in bed for a bit, I heard some noise from out the front of my apartment, and when I peeked through there curtains, there was Mouja basically sitting on my doorstep... and then he flinched and bolted away towards the front of the building... not because I'd scared him with opening the curtain, but because two of my incredibly dumbass neighbours at the time had decided that throwing things at him was an appropriate way to make him leave. Stoopid neighbours...

Had I not been standing there in my pajamas (okay, a teeshirt and underwear), I probably would have gone out and told them to quit it... as it was I thought about opening the door and letting him back in... but he seemed to have vanished, so I figured it was all for the best.

The next morning, the first thing I did when I got up was go to the window and peek through the curtains... and there was Mouja, sitting on my doorstep again. He looked up at me and mewed... so, naturally I let him in.

I picked him up, and he did that thing that cats do where they rub themselves on you... not because they're being sweet, but because they're marking you as belonging to them... ("This is mine, and this is mine, and this is mine")... anyway, Mouja rubbed his face against mine when I picked him up, so from that point on, I was pretty much gone...

I let him wander around the place while I took a shower... and because I don't bother closing the bathroom door (I live alone, what does it matter) when I shower, he wandered on in... which I have to say, was a little unnerving... having a cat watching me shower... but then he proceeded to lick the water off the shower floor... which I just knew couldn't be good for him. So I dragged myself out of the shower and put some milk in a little plastic container for him... but he turned his nose up at that (which is probably a good thing, you're not supposed to give cat's milk for people, right?), so in the end, I emptied it out and refilled it with water... and he was a little more pleased about that.

After my shower, I sat down to watch the morning music video show that was on at the time, and Mouja ended up sitting in my lap, watching along with me, purring like a lawnmower and getting lots and lots and lots of strokes.

I have to say, that was really nice... just hanging out with him, sitting there, stroking his soft, soft, soft fur and feeling that rumble of his purring...

Eventually it got to be about the time that I needed to get dressed and haul ass to work, but I wanted to take a photo of him, since he was being so very pliable and agreeable at the time... so I picked him up off my lap, set him down on the sofa (check out the badness and wrongness of my sofa at the time in the picture... but it was free, so I'm not complaining)... and he just melted into the same position he'd been in on my lap... didn't rearrange himself, nothing. So I grabbed my camera and took a shot. The flash went off in his face, but he just lay there looking at me, and just kinda blinked at me as if to let me know that he'd already worked out that I was weird.

After I got dressed and was ready to go, I scooped him up and dropped him outside before setting off for work. He followed me for a little bit, then turned around and wandered off.

And that was the last I ever saw of him.

He wasn't waiting around when I got home... and because I was heading out for the Moonlight Cinema with some friends that night, I don't know if he rocked up later when I wasn't home.

All that I hope is that he remembered where he actually lived and headed back there. But since he didn't actually have a collar, well, I kind of doubt it.

For the record, his name (and, I will freely admit, I'm not even sure he WAS a he), Mouja, doesn't technically mean anything... it was a term of endearment a friend of mine used, most often with her daughter... so, in place of something to actually call him, he became Mouja... and since he didn't stick around long enough to GET a name, Mouja he stayed...

And if you're wondering how I manage to remember all the intricate little details of something that happened over five years ago, I actually do remember most of it, but some of the finer details did come from an email I wrote Lownee at the time...

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