Before I moved, I was a little worried about how my cat, Chloe, would react to the new apartment.  She is an old girl, a rescue from Town Lake, and she’s had a rough life.  Not that you’d know by looking at her.  She is robust.

Chloe was angry and crying like crazy when we first got to the apartment Saturday night.  Luckily I had anticipated her freak-out so I had some cheap canned cat food on hand. (Iams turkey dinner with gravy– her favorite.)

Once she ate some turkey dinner, Chloe was feeling much better about life, but she still seemed pretty disoriented in her new home.  She cried for a lot of the night, so the next day I broke out the big guns.

I unpacked Chloe’s BFF, a large snail-shaped boot scraper my sister bought me for Christmas a few years ago.  Chloe loved that snail when she lived at my college apartment, and it had been packed away at my storage unit for the last 18 months.  Truthfully, I wasn’t really sure if Chloe would remember the snail after all this time.

She remembered.  I took this picture about 20 seconds after I took the snail out of the box.  I wish I could have recorded video of the reunion, because Chloe was chirping and meowing and purring so loud. The snail was indifferent.

Here’s how I found Chloe today when I got home from work.

Looking out the window, purring like crazy, alongside her friend the snail.

Next time someone tells me that animals don’t have feelings, I’m going to punch him in the face.  Not really, but moments like this do make me wonder about Chloe’s former owners. The ones who had her declawed and then dropped her off at Town Lake Animal Center (the kill shelter here in Austin).  I can’t think about TLAC or Chloe’s former owners for very long. No, it feels much better to spend time thinking about moments like this one, when Chloe is happy and I am happy and we are both grateful for a snail-shaped boot scraper.