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Published on 09/01/1999 All articles from this issue

Abby, the almost feral cat

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By Mary Cristy

A View from the Hills

A visit to our neighbors, the Muellers, shed new light on the peregrinations of the Abyssinian cat of our last column. The Muellers are everyone's dream of new kids on the block, warm, welcoming, and fun. Marge's first comment after she invited me in was, "I liked your column on the cat."

"The cat," who is beginning to assume celebrity status, having been widely sought when she was "lost," belongs to Joelle and Roger Burnell (more nice folks who live up the hill from us.)

"She has a wide range," Jim Mueller said with an approving grin.

Abby, the gadabout, crosses the street after visiting Cris and me, and performs a high wire act, hunting field mice from her vantage point on the Mueller's cyclone fence. Abby has calculated the odds that the bell she wears will scare off prey. Crouched on her elevated venue, she contrives to muffle the sound and make the leap that rewards her with a plump, juicy mouse.

After describing Abby's "Flying Wallenda," Jim concludes, "She's an amazing cat!"

Like Cris and me, Marge and Jim have been subjected to Abby's unequivocal rejection. "She takes off like a shot if you try to get close to her."

"She's an adorable cat, and I'd like to hold her. If it weren't for my scruples about feeding other people's pets, I'd woo her with salmon filet."

"That would get her!" Jim said.

A phone call to Joelle later that day revealed more about Abby.

"When her need for strokes strikes," Joelle vowed, "there's no more affectionate cat" than this slender, pure-bred puss, who spends her nights curled up in Joelle's bed. "She'd really love to have you pet her."

"If I could catch her..."

Abby is one of three household cats. Her siblings stay close to home,

As canny old Ben Franklin is said to have observed, "all cats are grey in the dark," but all cats are individuals, as are all children, and blanket rules do not apply. "So...Joelle concluded, "I've had to wrestle with the question of safety." And, ultimately, what emerged was "with some cats, as with some people, one must prepare to accept the unevitable. I know the anguish that comes with loss of a pet, but Abby is a rover, a near- feral cat. It would never do for her to be confined."

For such souls the open road could prove to be the Lodestone Rock. Joelle faces that. "But since it's not in her nature to play it safe, we leave her free to roam."

I felt a twinge of envy for life's adventurers, risk-takers like Katherine Hepburn, whose father, knowing he had sired an original, let her climb the tallest trees, knowing full well the price of a false step.

And, closer to home, our neighbor Jim, a vigorous senior imbued with joie de vivre, whose wife Marge bears "Raftwdow" on her license plate while Jim seeks week-end adventure in white water, or on a challenging slope. For me, such pastimes have been precluded by a nature too-cautious to weigh the possibility of serious injury against the thrills of encounters that could be exhilarating, and opt for the excitement.

My ever-loyal sisters, Laura and Vi, might argue that Cris and I were the ultimate risk-takers in striking out and attempting to survive as self-employed freelance writers, devoid of fringe benefits. There may be more than a kernel of truth in that. But, given the opportunity to redefine my destiny, I'd like to believe I'd be more like my friend Marjorie, who, after serious surgery headed back up the mountain to ski again, comfortable in the knowledge that, "If I fall someone will help me up."

Abby Burnell is that kind of cat, and we, who are afraid to die, salute her.

Mary Cristy is a Los Altos Hills-based free-lance writer and longtime contributor to the Town Crier.