GRACIE

     One does not need to travel far to find a canine obedience school. I would be SHOCKED to see a feline obedience school. Dogs are like having an adolescent child, cats are like having a teenager. 

     She was not supposed to be for me. I had expressed an interest in having a cat, but Pinky and I were living on my little 27' Bayliner. We had a covered slip, and were adopting to marina life. A cat living amongst the ducks, geese, and other assorted wildlife that teemed around our marina, would be problematic, I thought. But there was Pinky, standing outside of Moreland Veterinary clinic pointing to a picture of a cat in the window with a sign that said, "needs a home". "Why not"? The cat in the picture was no longer available, but there was a difficult to place cat. She had, the nurse suspected, been a feral cat and had suffered abuse. What was more important was that she had feline immunodeficiency virus, though she was asymptomatic. Bottom line--she could not be in contact with other cats without exposing them, they would have to "put her to sleep". There were only dogs at the marina. Little boat dogs. Cute little yapper's incapable of terrorizing a cat.

     And so Gracie was given her rabies shots her Portland pet license, and turned over to her forever parents. One of those parents would not be forever, the other still remains reasonably healthy. Gracie was somewhere around 6 years old. She scratched at the inside of the cardboard carrier, meowing as if she was being kidnapped. We stopped at Fred Meyer for a cat box, kitty litter, and kibble. Pinky stayed in the car with the kitty carrier in her lap. Once we got her home we let her out of the pet carrier and I put her in Pinky's lap. She scratched Pinky and lept down on to the cabin floor to disappear in the small spaces deep in the interior of the boat. We gave her a second name that night. Schroedinger. Gracie Schroedinger. We went about our lives hoping she would eventually emerge from hiding. At night, when Pinky and I were in the forepeak bunk watching Netflix, Gracie would skitter around the cabin, eat her kibble, and use the kitty-litter. Eventually she got wise to the forepeak hatch which, even in winter, we kept propped open. She would leap onto our bunk, bound off of my hip, and out the open hatch, where she would wander freely around the deck. Funny story, on a very cold night we kept it closed. We had been gone most of the day and we were waiting for our space heater to warm up the cabin. We got beneath the covers with our clothes on. Gracie saw her opportunity and jumped up to my hip and into the plexi-glass of the closed hatch. Another time she went exploring and was gone several hours. I went around the length of A-dock, calling her name., peeking in small spaces. Being unsuccessful, I went back on board and figured she would find her way back home. I wanted to go into the village a few hours later and had just stepped off of the boat when I heard the unmistakable meowing of a cat. I followed the sounds until I found her, cowering beside a dock box. Nearby, on the fabric roof of a pontoon boat was a noisy gander protecting a clutch of eggs his mate had layed. Grace was adventurous one last time. She disappeared one morning and was gone all day and night. The next morning a neighbor from a couple boats down, knocked on my hull and asked if I was still looking for my cat. We found her on the stern of about a 46 ft boat two slips down. She was hiding on the side away from the slip. She was shaking nervously and settled into my arms for the walk back. 

     Gracie began to emerge more after that, staying aboard but preferring to run about topside. One time, I was sitting at my worktable on the portside, Pinky sat on the starboard bench, reading. I was tapping away on my tablet, putting together something for my colleagues in the Wednesday writing group. Gracie leapt onto the bench beside me and settled against my bare thigh. She was softly purring, something we had not heard to that point. It was a warm spring day and she had been with us some 5 months. Each day after that we saw more of her. She still favored me for some reason, though she warmed up to Pinky. At night she would leap onto the forward berth between us. When she was tired of our company she jumped through the forepeak hatch and did whatever she did in the wee hours. During this time she began vocalizing. Often it had a petulant quality, other times she had a friendly chortle. She has several chorttles which I have begun to understand. There's the chorttle that tells me she is in my blind-spot and not to sit/step on her. There is the "give me some room on the bed chorttle, the feed me chorttle, and the chorttle she emits when I scratch between her ears. By the same token she understands many of my words. Not all certainly, since you all know how much I natter on. But she recognizes my words and sometimes responds in the intended matter. Other times she gives me the metaphorical middle claw.

     Gracie hates to go anywhere. After Pinky went to assisted living, I put Gracie in the pet carrier and together we went to visit. She jumped out of the carrier and sought cover under the hospital bed. Moving a hospital bed, and its accoutrements, is nearly impossible. I attempted another time to bring Gracie to visit Pinky, and ended up chasing Gracie around the hallways on Pinky's floor.  On Labor Day of 2020 we had to endure the Labor Day fires, their smoke blurring the visibility on the Willamette. In February of 2021our little home was threatened again by an ice storm around Valentines day. All through the spring summer and fall months of 2020 workmen had been replacing posts and struts of the shelter over our boats. The marina must have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would take 3 days for those 8x8s and 4x8s to tumble into the water, taking a few of my neighbor boats with them. The snow was light and fluffy, what a skier would call "corn starch". It collected on the roof of the covered slips, and initially was sloughed off of the corrugations into the water. Then we got a light rain, which froze the snow in place, where subsequent snowfall would freeze to the underlayer, driving the narrow slips lower than comfortable into the water. At first the residents of the marina would comment on how long it would take to drop the snow off of the roof. It did not take long. First came the crack and tumbling of the roof of the adjoining marina. They had not strengthend their timbers. Looking through the cabin door facing north, I watched the whole row of the cover descend on the boats in slow motion, sinking many of them. Gracie was too frightened to skip about on the cabin-top. The next day, the roof over c-dock, three docks down in our marina tumbled. Starting on the landward side and radiating to the  outward sections that remained standing. One morning I woke up to find our boat heeling to port. I dressed quickly, grabbed a knife and went outside. The slip way that we were snugged up to was half submerged. My pressure sprayer that Pinky gave me for one birthday was under water. I quickly cut the stern line righting the boat. She was still tied by the bow line, so I could exit the boat by leaping off of the bow, but the boat swung wildly as I struggled for balance. I had a problem which the harbor-master was aware of. There was something preventing the stern lockout from engaging. I could go into reverse. I was saving up for a haul-out. Andrew came around to check on me and said that he had a guy who would help move me across the way to an uncovered slip. Shortly after Andrew continued his inspection a Zodiac putted up next to me and told me, "Unship your bow line and toss me a stern line". He pulled me out, nudged his bow against mine and pushed me to an empty slip across from where I had called home. Later that day, I watched the covering of A-dock crack and tumble slowly down onto slips, not all of them empty. The 46' cabin cruiser I had found Gracie cowering on, was sunk at her moorings, only the flying bridge visible. Gracie was clearly nervous. Waverly Marina would be closed for the remaining months of that year to make repairs. Live-aboard slips are very rare. Finding one is like winning the lottery. The reason is that marina owners would rather build a floating home in that space and get exorbitant rents. I had my little boat towed to a haul out yard for repairs and bottom paint. While there, I was told that my steering linkage and throttle linkage was loose and needed replaced. The additional cost would be somewhere around $4000". I eventually turned over my title to the Boy Scouts.

     During this time Terry had graciously offered me his guest room. Gracie became the occupant of a small room with dogs sniffing at the door. It was a difficult time for both of us. Pinkie would soon enter hospice care. Her ability to move from her bed was no more. I was trying to find a rentable space with rents spiking. I was becoming aware that there was no place where I could afford the rent. Terry needed to go to California to help a sick friend so Gracie and I found a room in a cheap motel. We paid weekly and had to move out for three days,  every 28 days, before a new room would be rented.

     So Gracie and I moved more than either of us wanted. Eventually I found a rooming house in Salem, where culture goes to die. That is now our place. She is more comfortable and we are completely bonded. She is my Queen. Her wish is my command and I await her chorttle. Or that petulant meow.