pusakal

pusa2, originally uploaded by watson.

Now here's something you don'€™t see everyday. My wife and I were on our way to the Thrift Shops at nearby Evangelista St. in Makati City. So there we were, walking along the narrow road going to the main thoroughfare where we were to get our short jeepney ride, when we chanced upon this white cat. It was not so much as the immaculate white coat the cat sported (which contrasted strongly against its quite filthy surroundings) that caught our attention, but its rather funky eye coloration. One's blue, and the other brown!

Seeing the cat brought back childhood memories. Or rather stories my mother told us when I was a kid, for I only have vague memories of a white Persian cat we had when we were staying in Bokawkan in Baguio City. May parents were designated caretakers of this haunted house (I kid you not), which was owned by the Acebedo family (the owners of the then-popular Optical Shop).

There was this neighbor who owned a white Persian cat with the unique eye coloration as the one we saw last Saturday. One day the cat went to our place and decided to stay. The owner, of course, looked for the cat and had brought it home a number of times. But the cat kept coming back to us, so the owner decided to let it go. Yup, it was a well-off neighborhood.

Then the time came when we had to leave the place and rent an apartment in Aurora Hill. That night, our things were being packed in the truck and Muning (the cat's name) jumped into the front seat and stayed there. So she went along with us. Amazing, isn't it?

Her life ended rather tragically. She was crossing the street to the park nearby and did not see a car speeding by.

As far as I know, she was the first cat we ever had. My parents loved having pets around. There was a time when we were living very close to Session Road (the main business district), but we had a couple of ducks, some chicken, more than 5 cats, a couple of dogs, a full cage of white mice, and some fish in an aquarium. It was quite a zoo. And we loved it.

If only for the no-pet policy in our apartment here in Manila, , I'™d have taken cared of some cats. But it wasn'€™t possible as it is, so we had to content ourselves with seeing our Stuart Little dangle and run through our overhead wiring and coax him to step into the humongous fly trap.