SHE IS NO SHRINKING VIOLET: CATS AT GELSONS

She is No Shrinking Violet: Cats at Gelsons

As I open up to the world, the world never fails to reveal itself to me.

I was in a hurry this morning, the day before Christmas Eve. I hit Gelsons in Silver Lake at 8:30 am, strategically grabbing all the hard to find items, grabbing the latte and rye bagel and zipping happily across the parking lot with my shopping cart full of groceries....when there, across the parking lot I saw a van with a cat happily snoozing inside.

I saw the cats owner was behind the wheel sipping a cup of coffee, so there was no need for concern. But something compelled me to leave my cart by my car, and walk over to them. I walked over to the van slowly, so as to announce my presence. As I got closer I saw the woman was very old, with sun wrinkled skin around blue eyes.

She rolled down the window and we began to chat. I told her how incredible it was to see cats so relaxed and comfortable in a car. "I wish my cats could be so mellow in a car" I said. "I live in the van she said, so they are at home" she told me. "It took a long time for them to get used to it, but now they have."

I saw that there were two cats, and then I saw a third step out. "How many cats do you have?" I asked. "Nine" she replied. "Nine" I repeated. I introduced myself. Her name was Vi (rhymes with eye). "As in Violet?" I asked. "Nooooooo" Vi said, wincing and shaking her finger at me. "I've spent my whole life trying to get away from that name".

Then Vi told me a story. She had been an artist in the past, and used her skills to alter her birth certificate, carefully whiting out letters, so that Violet became just "Vi". When it was time to renew her drivers license, she feigned loosing her old license and instead brought the birth certificate. She told me she had to keep her hands in her pockets because she was so nervous she was shaking. The man eyed her birth certificate, and she could see he saw the alteration. "Oh come on, please, it's important to me" she told him. And the man understood and said "well, alright then". Thus Vi's license now shows her chosen name. "It's like the bible you know" she told me. "Nobody argues with what's on your drivers license".

We talked some more about cats. She's been feeding and catching feral cats for years. She spays and neuters and then releases them or finds them homes. The vets clip one of the cats ears when they are neutered and that way the animal control folks know which cats are okay to be left in the wild. She has one pair of spayed twins, and the vet clipped one on the right ear and one on the left, so that she'd know which twin was which.

Finally I realized that my frozen food wouldn't remain frozen for long and I had to say good bye to Vi. "Merry Christmas Pam", she called. "Merry Christmas Vi."


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