Traditional Bagheera Interlude (Part Three)

(Part One, Part Two in Catching Up)

The hardest part about coming to London? Sure, the visa paperwork was a hassle (I ended up having to pay for a rush delivery to ensure my visa would arrive in time for my departure). Moving from the Mayflower building, my little apartment nest in the sky, was an ordeal (my belongings are scattered across the great state of North Carolina now, in various hide-a-holes and attics and trashcans).

But the worst?

Leaving behind my friends and family, my solid and loving support system.

Thanks to technology I can still Skype and chat and leave pithy and witty Facebook comments on my friends pages, but it is a hard lot, to leave behind the ones that I would see daily, the ones that I would dance with, drink with, laugh with.

Included in that is my little man, Bagheera. The UK is rabies free, and the island country intends to keep it that way. Any animal coming in must be kept quarantined for 6 months. Six months. That’s a long time in cat years.

I spent a lot of time agonizing over what to do. Poor Bagheera would suffer me picking him up and crying into his downy fur for hours. How could I make him understand? We were going to have to be apart, and I didn’t know where he would be. I couldn’t stand to have him quarantined. So the decision was made that he would stay stateside.

We were blessed, Bagheera and I, with the generosity and kindness of one Miss Katie-Rose, who opened up her home to Bagheera and loves him as much as I do. Sharsta-star, my homegirl, sister, and constant companion, worked her magic and introduced me to Katie-Rose and her wild child kitty Nico. Katie-Rose and Nico were welcoming to Bagheera, on the condition that when meeting, it did not turn into a kitty bloodbath between the two spoiled alpha males. They would either hate each other or love each other. Luckily, it’s the latter.

They are now plotting to take over the world. Or the tuna. Whichever comes first.



Pic of Nico and Gheera, pre-world domination.

Photo credit: The lovely Miss Katie-Rose, who put on her superhero cape and saved my education and my sanity.