Rosendale Ramblings By Sari Botton

Rosendale – in case you haven’t heard, or seen the bumper stickers – rocks. It’s a funky little river town with very cool, interesting people, and we are getting to know more of them all the time.

Sometimes, though, you get to know the neighbors in unusual ways. Like, their cat dies on your lawn.

Brian and I were at the hardware store yesterday catching the bus to the city. (Yes, the hardware store doubles as a bus depot.) There, in the window, was a photograph of the kitty we found dead last week, with a note asking for any information about this missing pet. Turns out our theory that the cat might have been old and reached it’s time was off the mark; the cat, although very large, was just a year old.

Brian immediately called the number on the note and left a message. A woman called back last night, and said it was her roommate’s girlfriend’s cat – and that she was going to be upset.

There was an instant familiarity in talking with her, which was a bit strange. Even though we live just a few houses away, we’ve never met before. It was as if a certain instant bond was forged by the passing of their pet at our house.

I believe it was right about this time last year…

The scene:

An unseasonably warm April day, just like today, a few months after we moved into the house. Brian and I had lunch outside, at the beat-up wooden picnic table we’d just picked up at a yard sale down the block.

Our lilac bushes were just beginning to bloom, but there was enough transparency for a five-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy on the other side to be able to spy on us.

Dramatis personae:

Me
Brian
Nicholas – four-year-old neighbor
Nicholas’ sister – five-year old neighbor

Nicholas, through the bushes, standing, staring at us with his sister at his side: “Hey, who are you?”

Brian: “I’m me.”

Nicholas: “No, but who ARE you?”

Brian: “Well, I’m Brian and she’s Sari. Who are you?”

Nicholas: “I’m Nicholas…is she your girlfriend?

Brian: “No, she’s my wife.”

Brief pause.

Nicholas: “Then, where’s your family?”

Brian: “Well, my brother is in New Paltz, and one of my sisters lives in Kingston…”

Nicholas: “NO! Where are you kids?”

Brian: “Oh. We don’t have kids.”

Brief pause.

Nicholas: “Well…who’s gonna play with the toys?”

Interesting question.

Brian: “We are.”

Good answer.

Okay, things are getting weird around here. As in, two dead animals on the front lawn in two days. Neither seemed injured.

Brian was watering the lawn this evening. Came in for a phone call, went back out, and there it was, just like the other one: grey, fluffy – dead. No blood. No limbs out of place. Except this was a possum. About ten feet away from where the cat bought it.

I called the highway department to see if they would come and dispose of it (that’s who handled the cat on Thursday), but they didn’t show. Finally, Brian (with the help of his brother Alan) picked it up with a shovel and tossed it in the marsh behind our property. My hero.

Is someone playing a trick on us? Might we, as my friend Janet suggested, have an electrical current under our yard that’s shocking these animals, like the one at the edge of Tompkins Square Park that killed a woman and a dog last year? Does our lawn just seem like a nice place to call it quits? Tune in for the next episode of CSI Rosendale…

Yesterday morning, the doorbell rang at 8 a.m. Startled, I peeked through the curtains and saw a familiar, slightly off-kilter woman. I’ve seen her before, walking up and down Main Street, shouting at no one in particular. On this particular morning, her bushy red hair was pushing out from under not one but two fishing hats, stacked one on top of the other. She was pacing nervously. I was a little afraid to open the door.

I pried the inner one open a little, and left the glass storm door closed.

“What happened?!” She demanded. “What happened?!” Her eyes were wet. She was pointing wildly to the area at the front of our property where we’d recently dug up 10 quince bushes that had been serving as a hedge.

“We planted them in the back,” I said, assuming she was asking about the bushes – not a totally far-fetched assumption considering that last summer another woman in town had scolded us for not trimming them as nicely as the prior owner used to.

“What happened?!” the woman asked more urgently. Again, I told her, “We moved the quince bushes to the back yard.” I was starting to get annoyed, when she pointed more specifically to a spot near the end of the driveway.

“No, not that. THAT.”

And there it was, grey and fluffy. And dead. It was one of the neighborhood cats that we had sometimes seen in our back yard. While his body was not far from the road, it didn’t seem as if he’d been hit by a car. There was no blood, no limbs out of place. He was just curled up, on his side, peaceful, like he had fallen asleep and neglected to get up. Could it have been that there was no violence, no road-crossing drama, that the cat just knew it was its time and chose our yard as a transfer point to the sweet hereafter?

“He was my buddy. He was my buddy!” The woman-child exclaimed, verging on hysterics. “I don’t know whose cat he was, but he was my buddy!”

I stood in the doorway, dumbstruck. “Oh my god,” I said. “I have no idea what happened. I’m so sorry.”

“Take care of him, please?” she begged.

“Yes, of course,” I said, although I had no idea what “taking care of him” would entail. “Don’t worry,” I told her.

My husband, Brian, came downstairs and I filled him in. Neither one of us had any clue what “taking care” entailed. Were we supposed to give this cat we barely knew a proper burial? Wouldn’t the owners want to do that themselves? How would we find the owners, and until we did, what should we do with this decomposing corpse? Or were we supposed to just shovel him into a garbage bag and cart him off to the town dump? What were the spiritual implications? The sanitational?

What do you do when an animal expires on your lawn? We’re new to small town home ownership. I don’t think this is covered in the manual.