You know you have hit an all-time-low in real estate blogging when the topic is about your cat.

This is not a regular cat.  She wasn't even our cat until late last summer.  She is a foreclosure cat.  She has had to endure a lot.

My daughter Sara had a dream.  Specifically she dreamt that she would find people at the University of Michigan she would like to share an apartment with, who would share her values, tolerate her quirkiness and anti-substance use policies.  No judgements, just no abuses either.  That was harder to do than anyone could have imagined.  Eventually she decided she would find a one bedroom and live alone.  A studio was cheaper.  C'est le vie.  (She is studying in Paris now - I picked that phrase up from her blog....  www.saraaneinparis.blogspot.com)

Anyway, having lived with cats all of her life, she thought she would get a cat from the humane society in Ann Arbor.  She was rudely surprised that one must be 21 to adopt a cat.  I saw the wisdom in that, wondered if the cat idea was a good one anyway, and said no to signing on her behalf.  Then she learned of a special situation.  A friend of a friend's family was going through foreclosure due to entended job loss.  (It's Michigan.)  The family had several dogs and cats, and grown children.  All of the animals were placed except one elderly 13 year old cat; they did not want to put her into the humane society, afraid she would be put to sleep - reason:  unadoptable, old age.  They were desperate.  My daughter went to visit the little cat on one of her last days at that family's home; little Belle came home in a carrier.  She's a tabby like our 20 pound male but a third his size, if that.

Sara was home for the summer.  Her bedroom since college has been a six-windowed lower level suite with full bath down the hall and a semi-kitchen out the door.  Views galore.  No cats allowed, decreed by father/husband who shared the lower level, complete with the man cave wing - a dark computer room and a slightly brighter media room.  (I try never to go to either.)  Belle was a big secret behind Sara's closed bedroom door.

One day Belle was left alone in the college suite; she became impatient and battled with the door.  Her pathetic little declawed paws could just bat on them and the noise brought my husband to investigate.  Not noting the 15 pound difference in cat size, he assumed that big Toby had become inexplicably locked in the room - he threw poor little Belle out the back door!  She was stressed and confused, sitting on the park bench outside the window looking into the room she called home.  Our younger daughter found her and brought her in.  I knew I needed to come clean to my husband.

Well, the stress of the former family's move had caused her to lick her hind quarters in that way that cats do; she arrived with a bald spot above her tail.  The spot got bigger after that ordeal and I decided we needed to let her out of her one-room enclosure.  She found the computer room and perched on the warmth of the monitors there - like NASA, there were many to choose from.  Slowly, she worked her way into my husband's heart.  We heard him talking to her in sweet voices and praising her many fine traits.  We let her upstairs.

The three resident upstairs cats immediately trounced her.  She learned to hide under the family room coffee table, too low for the other fat cats.  She'd hide under the open door of the dishwasher, ditto.  She'd jump onto the hutch in the kitchen - a big no-no for the other cats but a safety zone for her.  The chasing, snarling, and hissing diminished while the bald spot above her tail grew.  The day I saw Belle and our big black dominant male cat greet each other nose to nose as they approached the food bowls simultaneously, I knew we had turned a corner.  She is still challenged by the big male tabby but he is a teenager - he challenges everybody.  No bites, no scratches, and no fur flies.  It's going to be OK.

Belle now sleeps comfortably in whatever sunny spot she can find, rarely bothered by the other cats.  As the oldest female, there is a respect between her and our oldest male - they greet each other when they meet and are almost to the point of mutual grooming.  I asked my husband if he misses her downstairs and he says no.  She's very social and needed to be around more people;  he has taken the loss in stride.

Yesterday Belle was doing the silliest thing.  She loves watching the birds who come to our seed feeder on the deck.  Apparently, the mice like the seed feeder too.  Back and forth she ran inside the patio door while a little mouse did the same outside the patio door.  She may be almost 14 now, cat interrupted, but she is showing no signs of aging.  I just wish the fur would grow back to prove that she knows the truth; she is home, this time for the rest of her life.