When the kids wake up before we do, they can usually be found in the living room. The apartment is big and laid out similarly to our house in Brazil. There is a family/TV room and the bedrooms on one half of the house and a formal living room on the other. There's nothing in the living room now except the furniture that came with the house, so the kids have taken the few toys they do have -- including Pete's new Lego airport, runways and all -- and spread them out into every corner of the room. We even saved three of the large cardboard boxes our air shipment came in; now, the kids have three of their small cardboard apartments, complete with pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, and books.
Elise is quick to remind them once the rest of our things arrive, the living room will become a living room, and all the toys will go back to the kids' room, but for now, the living room serves well as a place where the kids and go and play quietly while they wait for their parents to wake up.
One day last week, I got up and walked into the living room to find all three kids already awake. Pete is still the early riser, consistently waking first, often before I do unless I get up early to go running. I usually beat Sam and Clementine up, but not this day. All three of them were gathered by the sliding glass door...Sam had spotted a momma cat and her kittens in our small front yard.
I opened the sliding glass door, so they could get a closer look. In their excitement, they startled the momma kitty and her kittens, and soon all three of them (the cats) were shooed from the patio area on one side of the house to the other, hiding in bushes.
We had a local stray at our house in India, Jetpack. Out of habit, I went to the kitchen and poured a little bit of milk into one of our bowls and set it out for the cats. Since our household wares hadn't arrived yet and probably won't for at least another month, my office is kind enough to supply all the residences with a few items to get through those first few weeks and months, plates, bowls, silverware, sheets and towels, and basic kitchen appliances included. We had a total of five bowls in the house, one for each of us.
I didn't think much of the cat or the milk or the bowl much after that. I got ready for work and went to the office.
An hour or so later, I received a text message from Elise telling me she could kill me for using one of our only bowls to give milk to a flea-ridden, worm-infested stray cat.
I told her I was sorry. I wasn't thinking and wouldn't do it again. She confiscated the bowl and sent it to quarantine. No one else was allowed to use the bowl lest they, too, become infested with worms. The bowl was set apart from the other bowls on a shelf above the kitchen sink. It was now reserved for the cats. No one else was allowed to use that bowl.
The next morning, I was in the kitchen, making breakfast when the kids when Elise walked in. "Where's the cat bowl?" she asked.
It wasn't on the shelf. Our housekeeper, Anna Lynn, had washed the bowl and put it back into rotation. Now, there was no way of knowing of the five bowls which one was the worm-infested cat bowl.
Elise confiscated all the bowls and forbade everyone from using them. The kids had to eat their morning cereal out of coffee mugs. Resistant to every form of change (ironic considering their entire known universe changes drastically every few years. Perhaps they seek to keep constant the small few things within their sphere of influence they do have some semblance of control over as a result), the kids protested. I felt terrible and told Elise I would get a whole new set of bowls from the office.
I did, and came home that afternoon with a pack of new bowls much to everyone's relief. The lesson here?
Don't give milk to a stray cat out of one of the welcome kit bowls.
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