retro-post 2: finding Delilah

On travel day, besides cramming everything into 2 carry-ons (in addition to the occupied cat carriers) and luggage suitable for checking, there was a significant task at the day's outset: finding Delilah.

I had perused the basement many times, trying to suss out her hiding place. Partly to just be comforting, say hello, and partly to make travel day a little easier. Well, I couldn't find it. The first day, Phoebe and I did manage to flush our quarry, but I had closed the basement door to keep Shindy cat out, so when Delilah fled upstairs, she had to turn around. Boy, was she freaked! Establishing that she was present and ambulatory was sufficient for our purposes at that time, so we brought down some food and let her be.

On travel day, we had four people looking: Phoebe, Thorsten, Mike and me. We broke out the flashlights and explored everywhere -- the pile of empty cardboard boxes. Behind stuff on shelves. Behind the furnace. Etc. No one could find her, so we expanded the search to the other floors, in case she had found a better hiding place upstairs.

(you may be asking: why didn't I lock her out of the basement during a wee-hours visit? Answer: I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to sneak out the door without letting her out, to make sure Shindy wasn't in the basement and then close the door and come back to bed. Silly me - I prefer sleeping.)

No luck. One cat vs. four humans. Score: cat 1, humans 0.

Then I noticed behind the laundry drying rack, the bricks on the floor had some gaps, and there was a hole big enough for Delilah to crawl into. Phoebe started moving the drying rack; Thorsten started working on the cupboard over the hole. Couldn't move it: built in. I managed to shine a flashlight underneath, and spotted the telltale flash of cat eyes. Cat located. But completely out of reach, of course.

Thorsten found some of the boards a the bottom of the cupboard could be removed ... but not where Delilah was. A long arm's reach was needed. Do I recall correctly that Thorsten wasn't thrilled about the possibility of cobwebs, etc? Well, neither was I ... but my cat, my problem. Man, it was tough getting her out of there. I couldn't get a good grab on the scruff of her neck, and so I generally could only pull her partially out, and then she'd run back into the corner, nearly out of reach. After the third or fourth try, I got her. Carrier was not quite handy, and poor little D was so freaked out. All the banging around while looking for her, the invasion of her hiding place. If the carrier had been right there, we might have avoided the next problem:

In her fright, Delilah peed. On my jeans.

Gave some authenticity to my bag lady status: homeless, unemployed. Stinking of urine. And now running a little bit late for the drive to the Syracuse airport.