Shenzhen Zen

What's New Pussycat?
"I've got news!" C phoned to tell me.
This in itself was nearly unprecendented. Her phoning me, I mean. While I faithfully check in like some lurveblind fool at least twice a day from Hong Kong, she abides by one of the many, unwritten, unspoken Chinese Girlfriend Rules - most of which I think they make up as the voices in their heads dictate and nearly none of which I have yet to fathom - though in this case it's the one that says: "Girlfriends Don't Call Guys or Otherwise Overtly Express Any Sort of Positive Emotion Regarding Your Relationship (The Guy Just Has To Figure It Out) Subsection B: "But If The Guy Doesn't Call Daily With Positive Strokes, He's 9-day old Porcine Afterbirth and Will Duly Suffer the Unspoken, Unwritten Consequences."
Her news was that she'd been fired. She also sounded thrilled for someone who'd just been canned, which (see last entry) gives you an idea of how fulfilling her work had become in recent months.
This however, came almost immediately on the heels of us giving up our rescued cat, Gato, for adoption. Her work and travel schedule combined with Shenzhen's paucity of catsitters/lovers - cats are considered generally by most Chinese to be good for 1. an appetizer 2. minor vermin control 3. a status symbol only if it's a Persian and you can parade around with it - had finally led us to a long search for a new home for Gato, a slinky white and dark brown street cat and in no way a status symbol. We'd had her for about 2 years and I was unable to bring her to Hong Kong short of having her drugged and trying to sneak her across in a back back while worrying that the drug dogs at the border would suddenly forget their sensory mission for cocaine, blunts, E, hash, Special K, etc and revert to their primal roles as cat-mauling hellhounds.
After using an Shenzhen expat Internet ad service, we'd finally given Gato up - complete with some tears from C followed by too much wine - to a New Zealand guy who wanted one so his "2-year old son could enjoy growing up with a cat" as he did. I hope his 2-year old son also enjoys growing up with a cat that considers scratching, biting and occasionally pissing on the couch and bed as expressions of affection, though even those disclosures didn't dissuade the dad.
Now we had a quandry, though. C's suddenly free. I returned to Shenzhen for the weekend where the sight of Gato's lonely food and water dish had become unbearable momentarily. We considered calling her new owner up and asking for her back when the Kiwi text messaged C with an update.
"Gato is sniffing around and settling in. The boy loves her! A little trouble with urine control though. But so far, so good. Many thanks!"
He didn't say if it was Gato or the boy who couldn't hold it. But we decided to control ourselves, wash the old pet dishes, store them and buff up C's resume - after another bottle of Great Wall.