The 1st century AD, when this dude, Pliny the Elder, an author/ naturalist/ philosopher and whatnot, believed that if you got bit by a rabid animal (say, a dog), you should be eating a part of said animal in order to, well, get cured.
Last year, sometime after Christmas and before NYE, 27-30 dec I believe, I got to visit my mom in my hometown, ~450km away from where I live (I, unfortunately, was unable to during the holidays). My stepdad, who raised me, died in December 2023 and our tomcat, who’d been with us since I was in middle school, and who was extremely attached to him, died 5 months after, at 14, and my mom texted me ‘now I truly am alone’ which crashed my soul.
Imm going back and forth, I apologise, but it IS relevant to the story. Anyway. Mom was planning to maybe adopt a dog once she retires, in 5 years or so. The issue is, when I visited after Christmas, I saw this cat sleeping on the 1st floor (sovietic block of flats) while going to visit my biological father and texted mom ‘hey, what’s up with him?’ to which she replied ‘ah I’ve seen him around, probably a neighbour’s’ and then went with my day.
Some 10 hours later, after getting positively plastered with my father and some family (we’re talking the Moldavian part of Romania, so like, Eastern Europe, that’s tradition) I’m getting back home, and I see the same cat sitting on the frozen bench outside the building. Now, I was half blacked out so I’m not exactly clear as to what happened, but even if I were sober I would’ve done the exact same thing. Picked the poor boy up, carried him home and told mom ‘hey, look at him, you just can’t’, not to mention he curled right onto her and started purring in her lap.
That same night, mom had a dream about him, she dreamt his name was Luca. And she was worried sick. He’d slept with me the entire night.
The next day, first thing in the morning, in -5° weather, she carried him in a bag to the vet. He was a 5yrs old male, fairly strong (and, may I add, ambitious). He had a severe cold and conjunctivitis and had to be given antibiotics, but she was to leave for her NYE party the next day. She called a friend in, he came to give Luca meds, he took them willingly.
He got better.
Then, for 4-6 weeks, mom was ready to give up on him because he’d wake her up SCREAMING all night to be let out. I’d told her, once his balls are off, he’ll be good. And, lo and behold, once his balls were off, he got good.
Mom walks to work (~2,5km a day) and he goes with her for 500m. When she goes to pick up a package, he’s going with her. He is, legitimately, behaving like a dog.
He goes outside whenever he wants, and he comes in ~11PM every night. The neighbours (14 apartments in total, no longer close the door (small town, no one’s gonna come in) because they all know Luca has to come home in the evening.
Luca, at one point, did not come in before mom was going to bed so mom went out because she thought the door was closed. The door was not closed. Luca just wanted to be led home. And now, Luca waits outside, every night, until mom goes down 3 flights of stairs to go ‘come boy, let’s go sleep’ and they climb those 3 flights of stairs back together.
That’s all I wanted to share, I just find it all incredibly wholesome.
FUN FACT: in Romanian it’s called ‘greiere borțos’, ‘greiere’ meaning cricket and ‘borțos’ meaning big bellied, especially used, in the feminine form of the adjective, ‘borțoasă’, for pregnant women (somewhat) offensively, although I’m pretty sure there’s a dialect where they use it as the actual term, instead of ‘însărcinată’.
Saw dozens today. I think I might’ve hurt this one when I picked him up and I feel terrible about it, I just wanted to move him from the path. 😭
Stay tuned, cus ~150 pictures down the line I have some shots of two Elongated Bean weevils doing the naughty naughty