Things are going very, very well so I’m staying with on the compound with my parents as I rehabilitate my ailing form from a long COVIDish illness or an autoimmune thingy triggered by a stupid decision I made against the advice of my MD PhD immunologist and every other doctor except for one...
But, yes, the other day my father and mother came into the room I’m staying in and unprompted started talking. I was taken aback but I assumed that they’d want to regale me with stories about my growing up, my being strong in the face of adversity as an example of how I could face yet more adversity. Or I thought we’d talk about my niece, who is beloved by all since she small, her favorite song is uptown girl, and calls pants bahdeedas.
(If you hold up pants to her and ask her “What’s this?” she replies, quite confidently without a moment’s hesitation, bahdeedas.) But instead of talking about Matt, me, or their grandchild, we talked about our late cat Macavity, whose ashes currently reside by my father’s tie rack possibly next to my grandmother’s.
Since our parents, particularly my mother, was obsessed with Macavity, we took her everywhere. Literally everywhere. When we flew, Macavity would go in a small case that we’d put below the overhead bin. Then, at the airport, we’d sometimes bring a leash because my parents reasoned that Matt and I should walk her around during layovers. "It would've just looked too weird for two adults to be walking around a cat in an airport in the 90s so we let you do it," my Dad said. And yes, this is true.... It would have looked weird for my then forty something father to be walking around a cat on a leash in an airport in the 90s. Children are given much more leeway. We got looks but we were small and cute and well-dressed so people were surprisingly okay with it...
So yes, we took her everywhere we went in the continental United States and, if there was a no pet policy at the hotel, this did not deter us. I believe my parents took no pet policies almost as a challenge. Smuggling Macavity into a four star hotel felt like some sort of high stakes heist to them. It wasn't uncommon for my Mom to say, "OK, so, AFTER Dad and I check in we'll come back down to get you. Then I'll ask for restaurant recommendations from the concierge to distract him and then Dad will ask the front desk about upgrading rooms. And that's when you and Matt will take her in the service elevator in my Louis Vuitton bag." The thing is.... I don't think I'm exaggerating? All of this granular planning was probably quite unnecessary but my mother at least fed off it... It's like they were adrenaline junkies but they didn't get it from skydiving or helicopter skiing............ they got it from smuggling a cat into luxury hotels...........
The most problematic element to all of this was housekeeping. Taking Macavity in and out of the hotel while our rooms were cleaned was always an ordeal. Macavity did not like my mother's Louis Vuitton bag and she hissed and snarled when she was inside it (hence service elevators, which were often unoccupied).
There was one hotel in Carmel called La Playa. Housekeeping came in unannounced, somewhat insistent upon cleaning because it had been so long since we were hiding a cat. There was a bit of back and forth between my mother and housekeeping and then my mother came back to our room and told Matt and me, "They're coming. They're coming now. Hide with her in the closet and make sure she doesn't meow." I often wonder why my father didn’t volunteer as tribute to keep Macavity safe from the cruelties of the La Playa housekeeping service but, realistically, he couldn’t hide in closets with kittens. Like walking kittens through airports, hiding in closets with kittens is really the work of the young. I do remember almost sneezing a few times or sniffling (I was allergic to Macavity) and Matt’s face looking up at me, eyes full of terror. I think we imagined the La Playa management had a boiler room where they incinerated dogs, cats, gerbils, and other dander producing pets they’d found on the premises, violating the laws. To us, La Playa --- or any no pet hotel mind you -- was an authoritarian city state that was intent on ethnically cleansing any beast, whether furry feathered or fowl.
So we stayed still and silent for two hours till the housekeepers left.
This post really dates me btw.... you never saw a cat being walked around an airport in the 90s but I'm sure it happens now. And no pet hotels??? Do those even exist anymore???