Bringing Opie Home

In light of this recent BP fiasco, I’ve actually been happy not having a car. Yes, I know that by riding the bus, shopping, and begging rides from friends, I’m still a consumer of oil, but consuming on a smaller scale has taken the sting out of suddenly going from 2 cars to none.

There are times though that it’s highly inconvenient to not have a car. Yesterday, for example when I had to move Opie from where he’s been staying to the new flat, which is over 2 km away.

Opie is a big boy. He weighs about 20 lbs so it was kind of a hardship when my plans to borrow a car fell through and I was faced with carrying him all that way. But, I solve problems for a living and those skills thankfully transfer to every other area of my life. So…

I packed Opie into his carrier, packed his supplies into my backpack, and hauled it all to the grocery store where I borrowed a shopping cart. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but I’m doing a lot of things these days that I wouldn’t normally do. In order to borrow the cart I had to put in a 20 kroner coin, which made it feel a little more legit, but still I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be pushing a 20 lb. cat across the city in a shopping cart.

He howled all the way there. He also does this in the car, so I knew I wasn’t causing him any harm. But I wonder what people thought about this crazy backpacked lady pushing a howling cat through the city in a shopping cart on a Sunday night.

I regret that there are no photos of this, and today I’m laughing at the craziness of it, but at the time, it was very stressful and I just wanted to get my baby home.

Opie appears to love his new home. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw him lounging on one of the shelves in my wardrobe. He’s also been hanging out on the bathroom shelves, under the bed, and just running around our empty space. To him, it must seem like a giant jungle gym. It’s nice to finally have him home.