The cat came back...

It was quite the week.

My boss was away so I was up to my eyeballs in work. By Monday night, I was already exhausted  but managed to drag my butt out the door to do a hill workout. It went well but, on my way home, this little guy jumped on to the sidewalk in front of me, forcing me to pause. I made the mistake of petting him before running on and, when I looked back a few minutes later, he was galloping after me. In fact, he proceeded to follow me for nearly two kilometres though I tried several times to shoo him back to where I thought he lived. He wasn't having any of it and it was a bitterly cold night so, in the end, I scooped him up and brought him to our house instead.

When I dropped him on the floor of the kitchen, Husband took one look at him and asked me if I was out of my mind. "What could I do? I couldn't leave him out there. It's freezing tonight and he's too young to be wandering the streets like that." Husband wasn't having any of it and insisted we take him back to where I'd first spotted him. I agreed reluctantly. The kitten was very cute and seemed to have been well-loved so I thought there were likely people looking for him.

We drove the two kilometres back to Crichton Park and I got out of the car and put the little guy down on the sidewalk. He took one look around, looked up at me quizzically, then jumped back in the car. Husband gave in and said we could give him a place to sleep for the night.

The rest of the week was spent posting notices at local shelters and vets' offices and on Facebook and Kijiji in hopes we could reunite "Gus" (as we opted to call him) with his people. No luck. By Friday, it had begun to dawn on me that someone had likely dumped Gus in our neighbourhood hoping a soft-hearted schmuck would take him in. We were sorely tempted to keep him but our two old dears were having none of it. They didn't like him. Would never like him. And, just by the way, we could forget about feline affection or snuggling of any kind until Gus was gone.

With a heavy heart, I contacted Bide Awhile Animal Shelter Friday afternoon and they agreed to find him a new home. He's a lovely little guy - handsome, well-behaved (especially for a male kitten) and very sweet and cuddly so I'm sure he'll be adopted quickly.

Anyway, between work and cat dramas, it was a big week. I managed a second run on Thursday morning before work. I should have done it at tempo pace but I was simply too tired. In fact, I was so tired I might have been tempted to skip my run this weekend but, fortunately, my friend David was in the city and invited me to join him on his long run so we met at 7:00 yesterday and did a terrific 16k run through Point Pleasant Park and along the waterfront. I wish I'd had a camera with me. The early morning sunshine breaking through the clouds was stunning.

The run reminded me of how helpful it is to have company for challenging workouts. David and I were deep in conversation as we ran up a series of tough hills in the park. When we hit the top of the last one, David remarked that he was impressed I'd run up them talking the whole way and I realized I'd barely noticed how hard I was working. I'm sure if I'd been running on my own I would have been tempted to walk at some point but, with my mind distracted, my body just did what it had to do. Go figure. It's nice to realize I'm stronger than I think sometimes.

Time to sign off and do some work on my novel. I finally reread the draft I wrote in November 2012 and realized it's not quite as bad as I remember - though I've lots to do to finish it. I still like the central characters and think the main plot moves along at a decent pace. The big challenge will be figuring out which sub-plots to cut so that I can pull the story together in 100k words or less. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

In the meantime, happy running and writing, friends.