let’s go to yellowknife.

first, put on your mittens, second pair of WARM socks, sorel boots, parkas, and scarves. for yellowknife is usually COLD.

don’t worry, i’ll wait.

okay, so here we are, in yellowknife. but 2005 doesn’t suit our needs, we need to go back to 1980. sebastian made a spaceship the other day in the playroom that can double nicely as a timetravelling machine, in you go.

so here we are in 1980. we’re in the basement of our church, although you are wise to keep your coats on. see over there in the corner? the girl with the dorothy hamill haircut and the pinstripe jeans? teeth suggesting a retainer will be worn in a few years? what else is noteworthy about this girl? oh, she’s yelling in church!

i don’t believe you! she’s red faced, yes, angry indeed. but why?

hang on, i’m sure we’ll find out.

animals DO go to heaven! they have to! i don’t care if they don’t have souls…they DO go to heaven!

your teeth are chattering, let’s leave yellowknife and the cold.

i remember that sunday very well. i was eventually asked to leave the sunday school class and wait for my mother by the stairs because i wouldn’t drop the topic of animals whereabouts in heaven.

i still believe, that animals will be in heaven.

not a lot of Biblical backup on this one, and quite a few naysayers. animals don’t have souls, it has only been in the last 200 years that animals were loved. previously, they were food or workers. or they were being worshipped, and God wouldn’t want any of that going on in heaven anyway. of course, does that mean every animal is in heaven, or just loved pets? is that fair to the fruit fly? who knows, definitely not me.

and truly, i do believe that when we get to heaven IT WONT MATTER if the animals are there.i know this, but i still believe they will be there. i do i do i do.

why?

1. God knows our love for our pets

2. a pet can love with a purity that God encourages

3. we often love our pets in an unconditional way, a better way, than we love our friends

there are lots of other reasons, but they are mainly emotional. these are my reasons. i suppose a theologian could come and bash me to pieces, but at the end of the day, they either will be in heaven, or they won’t.

and i think they will.

i have always been a bit of a cat whisperer, and when charles and i moved to hong kong, we adopted two cats. there were two rscpas in the city, and charles and i visited both of them, in order to make sure that we didn’t miss out on the cats we were meant to have. we would have loved to have a dog, but didn’t feel we had the space. dogs need space and we had 480 square feet of living space.

we visited the first spca, conveniently located on hong kong island, not too far from us. we looked at some, but only one caught our eye. charles’ really. she was a dark tabby (i do like tabbies) named olive. i didn’t like the name, but charles was really impressed with the cat. she’s dark and mysterious, he pronounced. we had seen ourselves adopting feral kittens, so the concept of adopting at least three year old olive was a stretch. we didn’t commit ourselves, instead the next day we headed over to the kowloon island rspca. a ferry ride and bus ride and taxi ride away.

we walked into the rspca, and passed through the area where the dogs were, and shuddered at the smells and the dogs obvious despair. i hate visiting animal shelters because of the despair and the knowledge that these animals don’t have long in this world. the smell is tough too, antiseptic not covering up the smell of waste and food.

into the cattery we walked. and there were several cats there who grabbed our attentions, but we were drawn to a cage filled with kittens. one kitten in particular. also a tabby, with a spotted stomach, which is a prerequisite for me. the wee thing was batting at sibling’s tails until it got tired, and then went and laid down. when we leaned down to look at the cage, it backed up and hid in the corner.

all kittens are adorable, but i had no interest in any of the kittens except for this one. i asked to hold it (the second interview, as my hr inclined beau called it).  it was a girl. placed in my hands the kitten stayed there for half a beat, and just as i was bringing her in for a cuddle, jumped five feet to the floor and tried to squirm between cages.

that’s the kitten i want. i informed beau charles.

offer her the job right now, then, he responded, because we don’t want to come back here. and i want to go back and have a follow up interview with the other cat.

we paid for the cat and the flea shampoo (we weren’t sure if the employees were saying this kitten had fleas or not) and a few toys. then we placed the kitten in a box and took it into the sunshine. even though we were poor, we decided the kitten had had enough excitement…we would take a taxi all the way home.

the kitten had an interesting background, she and her siblings were found in a box at one of hong kong’s neatest temples. she had personality, this cat.

as we approached pu nam do (bonham road) we remembered that cats were not allowed in our building, and before smuggling the kitten into the lobby and lift, we cautioned it, shhhh…be quiet! she didn’t say a word.

and upon arriving at our flat, she ran under the desk and stayed there for three days, perched on top of the hard drive, which was nice and warm.

more tomorrow.