A 'tail' of two kitties

Lola was a white ball of fluff when she wandered into the international headquarters of the YWCA in Geneva. The building, a yellow farm house with green shutters, looks nothing like an office inside or out having retained the kitchen as a kitchen, the fireplaced living room and entrance way. However, beyond these rooms, desks and computers are packed into what was once the dining room and bedrooms.

The employees of the YWCA fed the kitten taking turns checking her on weekends and making sure she had the necessary veterinary care. When a new director general was needed one of the tests was to make sure the candidates saw the cat, by then fully grown. If the candidate reacted with horror, they dropped on the list. The woman hired was cat friendly.

I knew Lola from the Unitarians who met at the Y headquarters. She seemed to enjoy our sessions not so much from a spiritual sense but just more laps to sit in and more people to admire her beauty.

Argelès’ library is in renovated several-hundred years old red brick building. The second story is the home of the Centre des Arts et Loisirs, an association the for 30 Euros a year, a member can take lessons in sewing, embroidery, silk painting, pottery, painting, mosaics, stained glass, and bookmaking (not the betting kind). This building too has its own cat, a large tiger tom who can be found mornings curled up in one of the chairs in the library reading room. He shows no preference for the liberal Le Monde or the more conservative Le Figaro.

Afternoons he devotes his time to inspecting the various art projects going on. After eating whatever he has been fed in the corner that has been set aside for him, he will wind himself around various ankles or jump on one the work tables.

They say cats are not owned by people, that people are owned by cats. These two cats seemed to prefer to own buildings.