8:29 PM 4/24/2007

Tonight I'm back home. It's been a quick four days and I've fallen behind in everything. I got back around four, spent some time unpacking, took a walk, read for a bit, took a nap, then remembered that I was supposed to call and tell my parents that I made it home safe. They say the cat (my sister's cat) looked around the house for me and was disappointed when she couldn't find me. So a word or two on the pet situation:

Back in 1995, my sister Vanessa was living in Russia - as she has for most of the time since - but that summer I was 23 years old and still living with my parents in Maryland. She breezed into town with a job teaching at GW. She has spent enough time in Russia to qualify to teach first-year Russian. There were also these basketball players the school recruited, and they didn't know enough English to get by, so she had to teach them a hodgepodge of subjects. We found an apartment and moved in together. I was taking Japanese classes at GW back then, and the departments were down the hall from each other. Convenient. She also brought along a new cat - Brunhilde - about a year old, probably less. She was - and still is - a perfectly black cat, with all her claws. They only spent a year here. The GW job did not renew, and Vanessa found something to do back in St. Petersburg. The facts of her life are irrelevant to the story, so I'm not making an effort to get them perfect. Suffice it to say that the cat stayed with me for one year almost eleven years ago. For about a month during the winter break, Vanessa went back to St. Petersburg for a 'vacation'. I was stuck taking care of the cat. I also remember that there was a big snowstorm in DC.

On Saturday when mom let Brunhilde out of the guest room to roam free in the house, she came running up to me and rubbed against my leg like I was an old friend. Some cats are just that friendly - she is spending most of her day cooped up in a guest bedroom, so you might explain it away as 'starved for contact'. But it's also possible that she remembers my smell and that formative year we lived in this apartment in DC. There is also that month I was responsible for feeding her. Even today, when the cat couldn't find me, I realize that she might just miss having me there. But, cats largely ignore you, so it takes a while for me to get the sense that I've bonded with a cat. Is three days really enough?

Well, she isn't the only cat living at my parent's house. She's really just a recent addition.

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