So a couple of days ago I was talking with a friend about the long ago petcare service I had, the one that supported my life in art, and was rudely interrupted, in fact, crushed by the 9.11 attack (my clients were in corporate travel, and the attack finished off all corporate travel for over a year), anyway, first time I'd thought of that in ages.
Then yesterday I ran into another old friend, hadn't seen her in years, thought she'd moved out West, and she, or rather her cat Cookie, (my notes on her included: favorite toy a bit of string, never ever let it get thrown into the garbage) happened to have become a petcare client in the course of time.
When I had to close the business, among the few remaining clients there were three who either were or had become my friends, and were distraught about who else they could feel okay about having in their houses in their absence. All were midlife successful single women with single family homes.
So I thought for a minute and then suggested to each of them that if I gave them all each other's contact information, they could meet and figure out a sitting exchange -- all had cats, fair exchange -- and to my surprise, it worked out. Since I knew all of them and vouched readily for how they did things, and how careful they were of privacy, that was better than a reference.
So when I ran into one of them, as I said, yesterday, cat Cookie long gone, but her replacement Cassie in place, I asked about the others and found to my amazement that eleven years later, the friendship and the petcare exchange was still holding up. In fact one of the other clients was was even as we spoke on her way back from Oregon where she'd gone to escort the third client, with her two cats, one carrier per airline passenger, back to NJ. Of course they all have different cats now, their lives being shorter than ours. And typically, I asked about Rani and Rajah, the original cats, before getting the news of C. the owner, and her return to NJ.
You never know what you set in motion when you do an innocent arrangement! next up will be a reunion to which I'm going to be invited! more news will follow at that point.
What a great arrangement you instigated and what a great reunion to look forward to. Nothing better than getting together with old friends rather than a bunch of school mates who weren't really your mates anyway.
ReplyDeleteexactly. your friends are your friends because you have more in common with them than a mortarboard and diploma. I love the arrangements, by the way. It seems such a civilized way to run things, rather than putting the poor things in with strange cats...
ReplyDeleteYou are such a clever person!
ReplyDeleteNow I'll back up and look at the previous posts. All this water-off stuff has put me off my general routine, to put it mildly.