The Scrapbook

I remember the day I met Milo. It was Friday, and I had just left work after having a wonderful week. I love California, I thought.

The sky is blue, the clouds a puffy white, and the sun shines brightly through my sunroof, glazing my skin. Everything is perfect except being stuck in traffic for an hour. I'm only fifteen minutes from home when I hear a sound and feel my car slow on one side, almost a wobble. I have a flat tire.

I pull to the side of the road, and my suspicion is confirmed when I exit the car and I see my passenger side tire torn and a piece of debris, probably from an accident, left on the road as the culprit.

Ugh. I'm safely pulled over, so I put on my hazard lights, pop the trunk and find my spare and tools. As my dad taught me, I crank the car jack and change the tire. After getting the old tire in the trunk, I put my tools back in the trunk too.

I hear a noise, but it sounds faint. I look around the empty lot I'm parked next to, not seeing anything or anyone.

I hear the noise again. I see a cat making its way from under a bush. It's meowing to me. It's a cute brown and white cat, very fluffy. Adorable.

I look around, and it's all alone. No mama, no pack, just the lonesome cat. "Here, kitty kitty," I say as I attempt to bond with the cat. What am I thinking? I can't take a stray cat home. I abandoned the thought.

I hear something and turn around to find the cat at my heels. When I reach down to pet the cat, it scurries off.

I do this several times with the cat pretending to come close and then backing up. I grab a stick and throw it. He chases after the stick and brings it back to me. Interesting. So he's like a cat/dog. We repeat this for a few seconds before he looks bored. I'm curious if I throw the stick in the car, if he'll jump in the car? Probably not, but it's worth a shot.

I throw the stick in the car to see if the cat will come with me, and he does, then rides home with me.

I realize he's well-groomed and doesn't look like a stray. Someone misses him. He was loved. I quickly made a flyer in Canva about the missing cat and contacted the local animal control to see if any cats were reported missing. So far, no luck. I need to get some supplies if I plan to care for the little guy. I think he's a he. I'm still determining. I haven't seen him urinate and will not check because he could scratch me. I'll have to take him to the vet. It's part of the plan, anyway.

I drove to PetSmarty, leaving the furball in the spare room of my townhouse. I spent about twenty minutes in PetSmarty getting a food dish, water bowl, litterbox, litter, wet food, dry food, litter scoop, a cat brush, cat shampoo, catnip, and a cat waste disposal system--that guaranteed to keep your home smelling fresh. 250.00 dollars later, I walked out of the store with what seemed like the necessities and loaded them into the trunk.

Once home, I parked in the garage and began unloading the trunk. I prepared an area just for the little cat in the kitchen. I put his water bowl next to his food bowl and a silicone mat under both. Then while holding a can of wet food in my hand, I flicked the can and opened it, pulling the round tab off as I saw on YouTube.

It didn't work. I didn't see the fur ball run out like the cat in the YouTube video. I hear faint meows and realize I left the cat behind a closed door in the guest room. When I opened the guest room door, the cat darted so fast that all I could see was a brown and white-blur. I returned to the kitchen and watched as the cat lowered his head to eat.

"Wow, it worked! I'll have to post a comment on the YouTube video saying thank you."

After one month, the cat, I named him Milo, and I got into a routine. I would make him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He would entertain himself while I was at work, sometimes scratching at the sofa and acting angelic when I got home.

Around this time, I got an email from someone named David. He said he saw the flyer around town, recognized the cat, and believed it was his grandmother's cat. It was only a few months old when she accidentally opened the garage door, and the cat escaped. Unfortunately, his grandma moved to a nursing home and isn't allowed to have cats.

He'd already spoken with her, and she said I could keep the cat. David asked if I had any pictures of the cat so he could show them to his grandma. I have tons! Now I know why there's a term cat lady and why people love cats so much! They are absolutely adorable creatures!

I go to send him a few pictures by email, but I stop. If these photos are for an older woman in a nursing home, she'll want to see her baby. I get an idea to create a scrapbook! I get Milo dressed up in little clothes, and take candid pictures of him. They look amazing. My local Walgreens can make the book the same day, so I arrange the images, add filters to some and add nice fonts from Canva. Then I submit the scrapbook for printing.

I responded to David's email asking him if he could meet up, and I have the pictures for his grandmother. He agrees, and we meet.

“You must be David, I’m Morgan!” I'm unprepared for the onslaught of emotions when David and I meet for the first time. He's a great listener and conversationalist. He smells good, and he's a gentleman. I thought we would meet and I would give him the scrapbook for his grandmother, but he invites me to a small cafe nearby to discuss how I found Milo and pivot into talking about life. As we talk, it's like I've found my other half. I've never felt so understood.

I discovered he recently moved to the area to take over his grandma's house and to work closer to help her out. She decided to move into a nursing home, but he wanted to take care of her. She was the only family he had left. She said the nursing home is actually lovely, and she's made friends. It was better than her living alone as a widow. She loved her roses and garden, but that's the only thing she misses as a homeowner. Everything else she can get at the nursing home.

She confessed the food wasn't horrible, so she was okay. They tend to her health needs, and she keeps her room tidy and smelling good.

After meeting with David, I was surprised when he invited me out for lunch. He wanted to see me again. We meet up that week on Friday and head to an Italian pizzeria. He kept me laughing with jokes and the comical lens through which he views life.

After a year, we were still together and closer than ever. I met his grandmother several times and cleared it with the nursing home to bring Milo by.

We visit Helen, David's grandmother, on Christmas, and he proposes to me. I was shocked, but Helen knew it was coming. Milo even seemed happy. I'm the last to know.

I accepted, and we got married. Helen couldn't make it to the wedding as her health began to decline, and she started talking about how she wanted to be with her husband, Michael. That it was time to see him.

Meeting Helen, David, and Milo was one of the highlights of my life. I didn't come from a big family, but David and I agreed that we wanted children running around the house and more fur babies too.

Milo is still the same adventurous cat he was many years ago when we first met. David, Milo, and I decided to buy a bigger home and use his grandma's house and my townhome as rentals.

Milo was now five years old, and we discovered that he's a Maine Coon breed which explained his doglike behavior.

He roamed the house looking for things to play with, whether socks, spiders, cardboard boxes, or the lizard in the backyard.

Most of the time, Milo was unbothered. His favorite poses consisted of being a frog with legs spread while laying on his stomach, being a puffball, being a bread, or holding his leg while licking his butt. He's talented. He can also chase after pretty much anything you throw. He loves balled-up paper, pens, and socks. Sometimes he played in my hair. For the millionth time, I wondered why I buy cat toys when Milo only plays with them a few times and gets bored.

I bet he wishes to materialize through the mesh fabric and play with the birds that sing on the fence daily. He stares at them intently from the sliding glass door in the kitchen.

Sometimes I wonder what he's thinking. I bet he thinks he's the responsible one. He has to tell his humans to give him food. He has to remind them that he only drinks ice-cold water. I bet he says putting his butt in our faces lets us know how much he loves us. He wanted us to have a quick sniff.

The latest misunderstanding between Milo and me was that I kept getting in his space when he was on guard duty, as I'm sure that's how he viewed it. He was always in my way when I departed the bath.

"Milo, what are your thoughts on world peace?" but Milo heard, "do you want to have a staring contest?" and stared until I had to turn away as my eyes were burning from dryness and lack of moisture. Cats are Olympic athletes at starting competitions.

I allowed the nostalgia to wash over me as I finished the last sip of her moscato. Realizing the fluted glass was empty, I set it on the countertop, grabbed a terry cotton towel from the towel heater, and wrapped it around my body. "Milo, you have to move," I tried to nudge him with my foot. He always laid directly in my exit path on the plush floor mat. He ignored me as he always did.

I haphazardly moved around Milo and safely made my way to the vanity area of my bathroom. We finally agreed. Milo would lay in my path, keeping me safe from spiders and keeping me company, and I would let him.