I’ve written about rehab, about ESL (which, truthfully, is going to go on forever), written about my bruised ass, written about the weather. But now, it’s time to write about Vancouver. And cats. Specifically, my cat. 

It was exactly ten years ago, 2014 to be sure, and I was living in a ground-floor flat with my then-boyfriend, Charles, in the Hastings-Sunrise area in the east side of Vancouver.  

Ten years really isn’t that long of a time ago, and the cost of living in Canada is pretty much making the cover of People magazine now, but I’m still scratching my head over the fact that we only paid $975 per month in Vancouver rent even then.  As I said, our neighbourhood was Hastings-Sunrise, an area that, not too long before 2014, was considered fairly run-down and uninhabitable, but come on–this is my hometown:  Vancouver has never had issues with charging its desperate residents something like $2,000 per month for a shabby studio basement suite, windowless and situated in an alley, where you have no security, where renovictions are the norm (i.e. you get booted out so a few adjustments are made and the slumlord can increase the monthly rent, or move his nephews in), and where you will be paying unholy amounts for heat and hydro because it’s not included in your tenancy agreement…if, and that’s only if, the rapacious slumlord even bothered drafting a tenancy agreement.  

$975 was oddly low in price.  Less than a grand for a one-bedroom in a fairly coveted part of town?  It was the first place we looked at after deciding to move from our shoebox in North Burnaby.  I will state right here that North Burnaby (or “Norburn,” as some of us dorks like to call it) is a very pleasant area of Metro Vancouver, crammed with independent businesses, wonderfully-affordable produce marts, terrific delis and restaurants thanks to a healthy Italian community…and stop lights at every single block between Boundary and Kensington that have never synced up, and will never sync up.  Don’t drive that stretch of Hastings-Norburn if you can help it.  You will not just utter things that you’ve never dreamed of uttering before, but you might ruin your car in the process, as I did.  Many, many years ago when I was a student at SFU, the unreasonable logjam that invariably occurs on this stretch of Hastings pushed me to such a degree of road rage, I smashed my palm against my steering wheel repeatedly as I spewed forth a high-decibel stream of obscenities.  

The horn that was affixed to the centre of my steering wheel became dislodged, and plopped unceremoniously into my lap, a wire or two still dangling from its back.  I didn’t have a horn for months after this, and I didn’t have a car after that particular one bit the dust not long afterwards (RIP white 1986 hatchback Honda Accord, you were part of my soul).  It’s actually best I don’t drive in Vancouver: let’s leave it at that.  I do have some anger issues, as we all do, but I save them for people like my ex.  He’s basically this guy.  And somewhat along the lines of this guy.  But mostly, he’s totally this guy, which might be the hallowed Mona Lisa in the Museum of Insufferable Vegans. 

And no, not Charles, who grew up hunting game and gobbling freshly-caught trout with his clan.

The place Charles and I were sharing in Norburn simply wasn’t adequate for many reasons, and we wanted to be back in East Vancouver.  A perfunctory search of apartments around Hastings-Sunrise came up with this one-bedroom suite, and we accepted it almost right away.  No credit checks; no social insurance numbers needed.  Those were the days.  And here’s a pro-tip to any unfortunate soul who is seeking a rental unit in the city: don’t even bother with Craigslist or Kijiji.  You’ll be up against rich students, desperate families of twelve, newlyweds, expectant mothers, and just about everyone else that might have a better chance of appealing to the property managers.  Find the part of town in which you would like to live, and pound the pavement.  Write down numbers.  A great deal of apartments don’t even bother placing ads online; they simply use a VACANCY sign.  This is how I have found nearly every apartment I’ve ever lived in, and I must have–by this point–lived in at least two million.  

So.  This part of town, Hastings-Sunrise, is anchored by the intersection of Nanaimo and Hastings Streets, and we were exactly one block north of there in a very ideal location on Franklin Street, parallel to Hastings, between Garden and Templeton and across from an off-leash dog park.  While I’ve since learned to love dogs very much, this setup proved to be somewhat intimidating, as East Van is notorious for very sketchy guys with leashless Rottweilers that sprint towards you, snarling and snapping, as their smug owner invariably claims, “He’s super-friendly.”  

While once a fairly grubby part of East Vancouver, by 2014, Hastings-Sunrise was hep, it was trendy, it was crammed full of hep and trendy businesses, and it was also inhabited by hep and trendy Millennials (very young at the time) who made our late-thirties / early-forties asses feel ancient.  

I should note some of the great places right around the corner from our pad.  I can’t say if all those establishments are still there a decade later, but I do go back to the area from time to time, and a lot of them continue to be happily up and running.  I also go to Hastings / Nanaimo a few times per year to get my hair washed and trimmed at Edison Hair Salon, an extraordinary hidden gem: you will get the best shampoo and head massage of your life with this guy, have your locks snipped and styled, and pay maybe twenty bucks.  He’s the best deal in town, and he’s a fantastic human being who legitimately loves what he does.  

There is Donald’s Market, where you can usually purchase a head of cauliflower for less than five bucks, or a bag of apples for around two dollars.  Right now, like everywhere else, things have gone up in price–a loaf of rye bread at Donald’s is presently hovering around seven smackers–but you can always walk past and find deals on the vegetables on display outside.  

There was my personal favourite, BK Market Ltd, just steps up from Nanaimo and crammed full of all sorts of produce, condiments, Asian ingredients, teas, and really everything else one might need to quickly grab from their neighbourhood bodega.  Some of their wares were iffy, some of it had suspicious-looking rodent droppings on it, and some items had possibly been there for longer than I’ve been alive, but the service is impeccably friendly, and you’ll find deals on vegetables there that you haven’t seen since the 80s.

I also have to laud Tentatsu Sushi, directly across the street from BK Market Ltd, which is one of the nicest Japanese restaurants I’ve been to.  I think this is the first place I tried raw oysters.  And then steps up from that is Tamam, a Palestinian joint that has the best hummus and tabbouleh salad I think I’ve ever had.  It’s just too bad that the few times I went there, young mommies were there with their tykes on play dates, so it was snotty-nosed mayhem for my entire meal.  

Charles and I lived there for many months, and moved in at the end of 2013.  However, it wasn’t until about January of the following year (again, 2014) that I started seeing evidence of mice, and that evidence was tiny, unmistakable pellets of rodent poop…just like that which was sometimes scattered all over the tea section of BK Market, Ltd.  And, oh yeah, the teensy little mouse that zipped across my kitchen floor.  And, right, the small and extremely creepy mouse tail sticking out from the heating grate in my bathroom.

When it comes to mice or rats–as I’ve described to many people–I become a shrieking cartoon girl jumping onto furniture.  I am a lifelong musophobe.  I simply can’t handle them.  Cockroaches and spiders freak me out, as they do for many, but scurrying little rodents in my domestic environment terrify and repulse me.   I imagine them leaping onto my bed as I sleep, burrowing themselves in my hair and racing up and down my body, or simply crawling up one of my pant legs and being trapped there.  I had never lived in a place before that had a mice problem.

“Charles, we have mice,” I said to him one day, standing on the armrest of our sofa.

He wasn’t perturbed by vermin, but understood my vexation.  “I know, I think we do, too.”

“No, I’ve seen them,’ I wailed.  “John [our absolutely sweet, crippling alcoholic of a landlord] set a sticky trap in the kitchen, and that’s not going to work!  It was awful!”  While these uninvited little critters were pretty gross, seeing their tiny, helpless bodies stuck to an adhesive trap was way past anything I could accept.  That was torture.  

My piece of grilled salmon?  Glory.  A mouse helplessly stuck to some glue in my kitchen?  Savagery.

“What should we do?” asked Charles.  “I can’t deal with those traps, either.”

“We need a cat.”  

We did.  An obligate carnivore.  Guaranteed domestic pest control.  Another one of the aforementioned mental-case vegans have their opinions on cats (impose my insane eating disorder on an entirely different species, destroy them all because they kill even though animals are sacred, etc) but I think they’re the greatest house pet you could possibly have.  Adorable, sweet-faced, toilet-trained, low-maintenance, clean and hygienic, and ready to absolutely annihilate any pests you might have with total abandon, freedom, dopamine, and focus.  And no chemicals, either.  

So that was the plan.  Get a cat.  I had never had a cat in my life, really.  I had wanted one so badly as a very young girl, but my father had no time or room for pets in his life (hey, it was his house).  I fantasized about having a cat so much, I used to write in my first-grade journal–one that my teacher collected, read, and marked every day–about my cat, Fluffy (who did not exist), and the cute, zany little antics she got up to.  During a parent-teacher interview, my teacher, Mrs. Forewell, remarked to my parents that she enjoyed reading my writing, and that “Nadz really loves her cat
Fluffy.  I mean, it’s so obvious.”

I don’t know if my parents called me out during that meeting, but I’m sure they exchanged bemused looks.  It’s been a solid piece of family lore ever since, just like how my two-year-old brother allegedly got into my dad’s studio–and my dad at the time was painting a huge masterpiece of a dilapidated barn in the prairies–and decided to grab a brush and add to the flora at the bottom of the canvas.  Not sure if this is even true, but we’ve talked about it for almost fifty years.  Family lore is the best.  

*   *   *   *   *

Vokra.

It was the first place we looked; the first place we were recommended to find a kitty.  I know they do good work; I know plenty of people who have found their little feline soulmates through this organization.  However, it didn’t work out for us, and I couldn’t be happier about that: because without the Vokra failure, I wouldn’t have ended up at the East Van SPCA, and I wouldn’t have had my best pal calmly decide I was her human, go home with me, and grant me the sort of love and indescribable joy I had never felt before.  I finally had my Fluffy.  

Except I called her Annie, and I knew she would be an Annie before I even met her, and as many of us who take rescue animals into their homes, I say with true sincerity that she rescued me.  

To be continued (only one more part)…