This is a story about a cat

Her name is Pixel, and she's a very sweet long-haired tortie. She has a harlequin face, and she needs to lose about five pounds to even approach her proper size. (At this point she is somewhere between football shaped and watermelon shaped. I think she's more a Megapixel.) At this time last week she was about two hours from being put to sleep before I called San Francisco Animal Control in tears, begging them to give us (that would be the Maine Coon Rescue) just one more day. We were having trouble finding anybody who would be able to get into the city to pull her from the shelter before closing time. The poor guy on the other end of the phone had little choice but to give in, and I found somebody to pick her up in the morning.

At the time, she had the promise of a foster home in Davis, but that fell through, so I said "just put her on a plane." She arrived at Dulles last Saturday afternoon after taking a red-eye to Detroit, a seven hour layover, then a short flight to Northern Virginia.

The really amazing thing about Pixel is that one of the people who works at the air cargo desk out at Dulles wants to adopt her.

This cat's story is really sad. Her former owner had two cats. One of them started having litter box issues, so this person decided to dump one of the cats at the shelter, and Pixel was the unlucky one. Being overweight and suspected of litter box problems she was deemed unadoptable by Animal Control, and therefore not eligible to San Francisco's no-kill SPCA. (Apparently the situation in SF is not all it's cracked up to be. The best and most adoptable animals go to the SPCA while the less desirable animals stay at Animal Control and have less of a chance.)

In any case, I haven't seen any litter box issues from her, so I have to feel sorry for the owner who dumped the wrong cat. (That's a joke, son.)

She won't be with me for much more than a week, because the person from air cargo has already started the adoption process, but she is a sweet kitty, and I can legitimately say that I saved her life.

That's not a bad way to spend a few days.

So my eyes are fine. More laser tomorrow, but it won't be too bad.

before - after