Rachel Rosales & Leo
The one thing my partner, Dan, and I knew when we moved to New York in 2014 was that we were not going to have a cat for the simple reason that our building didn’t allow them. What kind of broken person would forbid cats in their building? “Who hurt you, Mr. Landlord?” I wanted to ask our sad, bald, angry landlord. He clearly could have benefitted from owning a cat. It wouldn’t have made him any less bald, but two out of three ain’t bad.
Fast forward five years, and Dan and I are both cat people without a cat. We’re watching cat videos on YouTube, texting each other cat memes, and snuggling random strays when we travel. It was about as sad as it sounds. So, we finally cracked and went to the Animal Care Center of NYC to foster a kitten. Our idea was to get our kitten snuggle fix for a few weeks to just tide us over until we moved to a new place. Our smelly landlord (I forgot to mention before that he was smelly) would never know. It was the perfect crime.
Leo came to us from the NYACC in a box sight unseen at five weeks old. He was a bog-standard gray tabby NYC stray. More lowly and ordinary beginnings you could not find. We tried so hard to avoid getting attached, but this furball had his own plans. We cat people love to anthropomorphize our pets, and I know that we were just hallucinating, but the way he broke us down felt intentional, strategic, and borderline predatory.
Ask yourself how a sociopath would gain the trust of their target. They would love-bomb, feign vulnerability, and create dependence. From the first minute out of the box Leo couldn’t help pawing at, pouncing on, and scampering all over us. When it was feeding time, he meowed like he was minutes from death. You could hear his soul leaving his body. Oh the drama! When we came home from work, he would sprint to the door and purr his whiskers off. He ran all over our faces while we slept, so we began erecting increasingly complex barriers on our bedroom stairs at night. He overcame the first series of improvised obstacles with condescending ease, so we went to Home Depot and bought an impenetrable gate. Leo’s solution to the gate challenge was to sit next to it and sing the song of his people for ten minutes every night when we went to bed. Dan started to imagine he was singing “Papa can you hear me” from Yentl.
A few weeks later, as part of my foster parent responsibilty, I found a wonderful permanent home for Leo. A friend of a friend saw Leo’s perfectly symmetrical face and asked to see him. I chased Leo around the apartment for an hour to tire him out ahead of her arrival. As planned, he quickly snuggled and fell asleep on her chest while she took cute selfies. Of course, she was absolutely smitten with Leo. She wanted to take him home as soon as possible, but you can probably guess what happened next. This is when Dan and I became foster fails, and yes, it’s ok to point and laugh. I place blame wholly on Dan, because when the realization set in, he (read: we) just couldn’t let Leo go. Consequences be damned.
The consequences, of course, were that our dumb landlord (somehow, I forgot to mention that he was also dumb) evicted us when he discovered we were harboring a kitten. You know how some cat owners joke that their home belongs to their cat and they just live there? In our case, that joke has a little bite to it. Leo's name isn’t on the deed to our new condo, but we bought it entirely because of him.
These days Leo lives the good life. Our unemployed freeloader begins and ends his day curled up in bed at my feet. He spends his days among the usual assortment of cat beds, meandering in rhythm with the rays of sun through our windows. He has a turbulent, one-sided relationship with the local pigeons. Once or twice a day he patrols the hallway to secure the perimeter and keep a wary eye on our neighbors. While not the cuddliest cat—he values personal space—Leo finds every opportunity to sit on our laps, of course on his terms, to nap and watch TV in the evenings. Leo also has an impressive ability to learn words and phrases, especially those food-related. Particular favorites include "Are you hungry?", "Kain na" which is Filipino for eat now, "Snack time!" and "Go get your brush" because he knows he'll get Greenies after a brushing.
I know that Leo isn’t really an exceptionally special cat. While he is really quite handsome, there are thousands of adorable grey tabbies. He is quite sociable, but there’s nothing unique about that. Dan thinks Leo is very smart but I suspect he’s just projecting. I question Leo's understanding of object permanence. Yet none of that matters to me. Maybe it’s real, or maybe it’s just toxoplasmosis talking, but Leo is like my very own child. I cherish and treasure him, my sweet boy. He is my little shadow, my constant companion, and life is so much more enriched with this fur ball.
Rachel hails from Vancouver and has called NYC home for the last ten years. When not working as an Enablement Manager for Salesforce, she is likely trotting around, seeing the world. She currently lives in NoMad with her husband Dan and beloved Leo.