Interviews

Technically this area is not in the 509, but I honor our regional sisterhood with one of my dearest friends who happened to find herself making a lost cat poster last fall for her cat Sheldon.

Since cat posters are a reminder to me of connection, my friend’s poster is a fine story to begin with. Here is their story..

• What do you love about your cat?
•  I love that my cat is extremely friendly and personable. He appears to be excited to see you. He is the opposite of timid, he’s sociable. He likes to hang out with people, and he has friends all around the neighborhood that he spends time with.
  • Have you always known he spends time with others in your neighborhood? Yes, our neighbor walks him every morning, and what I mean is that Sheldon follows her consistently and also goes with others who have dogs. How long a distance does Sheldon follow your neighbor walking?: 1 mile! My neighbor knows his name; everyone knows his name! I’m known as Sheldon’s mom in my neighborhood. My neighbor’s grandson visits her daily and has pictures of him and my cat that have made it into his school yearbook, he loves hanging out with him so much.  Other kids have made Sheldon toys; a stick with a string to try and entice him. The neighborhood was distraught when he went missing. At Spirit Lake he’s less familiar with the area, and less known because not many people bring cats to the lake.

• Who made the lost cat poster? I did.  What were you hoping to capture in the poster? I wanted to capture people’s attention and enlist a call to action. In hindsight, I would have encouraged people to call out loud for Sheldon. I made 3 posters, all of them different.
• Why did you name your cat Sheldon? My mom picked it and we all fell in love with it. It’s inspired by the show The Big Bang Theory. How old is your cat? 6, he’s a pre-covid cat! I had sold my camper and got a cat.
• Did you ever find them?  Yes, Sheldon was found! I took one of my posters to the HOA meeting at the lake to canvas the homeowners. I had lost him at Spirit Lake when we went to the cabin, not in our neighborhood back in Coeur d’ Alene.
  • He went missing after a thunderstorm. I had found his cat hair in my meal at the Mexican restaurant we went to after setting up for the garden party. (My husband and I had gone to lunch with Cora after she helped us with outdoor set up for a celebration last August.) I knew in that moment he was alive, so the next morning I shocked my parents by showing up to the HOA meeting at the lake; but anyone who had a lake cabin could be there. My parents were there. I was crying and talking to people about Sheldon. I had gone through 3 stages of grief already.

• A homeowner told me she had seen him in her bay, so I went and canvased that bay neighborhood. While I was there one resident told me they had seen him in another bay the night before. I went to that bay, and as I was driving, I saw a parking lot across the road. I had a feeling, so I got out of my car and called for him in the parking lot and he meowed right back! After I turned off my truck he came right to me!

• He had been missing for 12 days! He came out from under a boat trailer. I had looked through the entire campground and had been looking for 4 hours before finding him. When I found him, I was right across the street from one of my posters I had put up! I spread the 3 posters I made along the stretch of the lake road very randomly. I was crying hysterically because I love him so much. I was shaking with joy, it was surreal, I couldn’t believe that I actually had him. He was 2 miles from the lake cabin.

• When I got back to our lake cabin my dad saw me first and my mom started crying. She said, “No fucking way!” My mom was the one who was pissed that I brought a poster to the HOA. She was visibly upset at the time and thought I was stupid and delaying the grieving process because he had been missing for awhile. I had an uphill battle there. She had a cat in Montana picked out to replace his loss, and in that time I found him.

• What has your cat taught you that surprised you? He taught me that he is a survivor, just like me.
• Did your cat have relationships with other animals? Yes, absolutely! He regularly visits 2 houses in the neighborhood and has a relationship with an indoor cat. They have a window relationship. The neighbor he walks with has a cat he visits daily at the same time at her house, and her cat goes outside, so they are outside friends. He’s a ragdoll cat. He catches lizards, frogs, and snakes. The tip I got on his whereabouts at the lake was a guy whose son had seen him hunting mice under his cabin.
• Does your cat have any special abilities and/or psychic powers?  Yes, tangible. We like to go for a night swim often in the summer, we live 2 blocks from the water. Sheldon walks with us to beach, walks on the beach, sits on towels with us, watches from the towels while we swim. He feels like he’s part of the family, that he’s supposed to be there. Intangible: Sheldon has been hurt a few times, he tells me; he has a way of telling me what he needs through the quantum field. His body vibe shifts. He had a puncture on his head once and claws stuck in him, and would come up to me and tell me he needed help. His particular flop, he “eyes you in the eyes”, gets off his baseline, lays in different places than usual. We are clued in to each other; he intentionally looks at me and is telling me stuff a lot. I am his chosen person and because of that we have a special way of communicating that’s nonverbal.
• Is Sheldon an inside or outside cat?  He is an Inside and outside cat. He has a cat door at our house and has a magnet on his collar. We’ve had raccoons in our cat door before. Now I have cat tracker since finding him, and I can see a map of where he goes, his radius, and I get notified if he goes farther away. Everyone in the family can track him with it now.
• How would you describe your cats personality? Tender and nurturing, he’s the best dog I’ve ever had. He comes when I call him, he likes to snuggle nearby or lays directly on someone. He wants to sleep on the pillow with us. He likes to snuggle by our feet in bed. It’s great!
• Why did you decide to talk with me? Because I now know the pain of people who have made missing cat posters, the pain is real! I called all the shelters and they put me on lists, but there is not a good system out there for lost cats. The pain factor is real and It’s helpful to talk about what happened, the story. My pain is shared pain; others are still experiencing it out there.
• Does your cat remind you of anyone in your life? My dad. He’s easy going, loving, handsome. Very clever.
• What kinds of things do you notice about your cat? He likes squirrel TV. My parents feed squirrels on their porch and it’s created so much entertainment for all of us. He’s out in the backyard and tries to catch them, it’s hysterical. He’s Never gotten close to a squirrel. There are so many unique and special things about Sheldon.

• He likes to greet strangers and likes to meet new people. He will lay in the middle of the street. He is a fierce hunter too. His Ragdoll breed was developed in the 1950s by a woman who wanted a big indoor pillow. I’ll only be getting Ragdolls from here on out.