By Lydia LaFleur, a member of Get Your WordsWorth
When my daughter Ingrid returned from Wales where she spent two years at the University of Swansea and at the local pubs, she brought with her Brandy, a large yellow tortoise shell and white cat, the kind that are bred to hunt mice in the barns of Europe. She made me think of a plump German hausfrau. Then off Ingrid went to finish her degree at Boston University leaving Brandy with me. Since I’d never had an animal in my life, not even a turtle or a gold fish, I had never learned how to relate to them and was not too happy about the arrangement, but then neither was Brandy; since there were no mice in my apartment, she began stalking me whenever I entered the living room after midnight. It was unnerving to have a cat suddenly leap up onto you especially at that time of night. Sharpening her claws on the furniture became another favorite pastime. I bought her toy mice laced with catnip and a scratching pole with ledges, but those didn’t appease her. Maybe Brandy was lonely. What she needed was a playmate — or another victim, so off I went to Bide-A-Wee to get her a companion. I almost bought a gigantic black cat who greeted me with an arched back and a big grin on her face - the very essence of a scary Halloween She would spook Brandy out, I chuckled, but I wasn’t that mean. I settled on a small very sweet looking black cat with a tear progressing from one eye to her cheek who looked at me longingly. I decided to call her Mandy from Mandisa, meaning sweet in Swahili, and she lived up to that name until the day she died twelve years later. Continue reading →
