Rufus

Because of the "connotations" associated with Halloween, our school celebrated a totally different event, "dress up day", on Friday the 19th. My class definitely had lots of spirit- every single kiddo dressed up. We did lots of fun little activities, but it was hard to focus on teaching because something big was happening that day: my cat was in the sky.

Before we left Canada, we'd spent months going to vets, getting shots for Rufus, and getting the right paperwork ready for him to travel with us. But, he couldn't fly when we did because Hong Kong was too hot. There's an embargo on importing pets through Air Canada when the conditions are over 35 degrees. Well, on Friday we finally had a 34 degree day. Ru had been loitering at Mel's parents' house for over 2 months now, and I'm sure they had a celebratory drink when our little guy went to the airport. He's cute, but a bit of a bully to their cats.

It was really expensive to import Rufus. With all of the shots, the flight and everything it cost about $2500. We'd been quoted $5000 by a pet relocation agency at first, so we did as much as we could by ourselves to get the costs down. The big expense was paying for someone to pick him up from Hong Kong airport and drive him into China for us (if he'd flown into China there would have been a quarantine). We hired a company called Ferndale, based out of Hong Kong. They spoke English, answered any questions we had right away, and on Friday they were in touch by text constantly. We were given $1700 moving allowance when we took this job, so we just put that money towards bringing him here. It was totally worth it to us.

Mel had to stay late at work on Friday (she was volun-told-ing for the Autumn Fair, which is basically a Halloween fair) so I was by myself to greet Rufus. It KILLED her that she couldn't be here! When Ferndale texted to say they were close, I ran downstairs to wait for the car. When I saw a car pull up with his kennel in the back I freaked, "That's my cat!" I yelled, and I got in the car. I peeked back to verify that he was grey, and then directed the driver into our parking garage. The driver carried him into the elevator for me and waved goodbye. In the elevator I stuck my finger in the cage and he rubbed his face on it and gave a little meow. I was so, so happy.

As I was taking the door off the cage and freeing my poor cat for the first time in 24 hours Mel called and I was all "he's here" and she was all "ahhhHHH!!!! Okay, coming home". Rufus had peed in the cage, so he smelled kind of bad, but otherwise he seemed a lot better off than we usually do after a long flight.

He immediately went to each room to inspect the place (I followed behind with a damp cloth to try and clean him).

He liked the bathroom quite a bit.

We'd been so worried that something bad would happen to him on the flight, but he was totally normal. In fact, he was 100% lovey all night. He seemed happy. He curled up on us all night and wasn't at all the skittish wreck I pictured he'd be.

When we first saw our apartment, we knew it would be perfect for him. We have a lot of windows and wide ledges for him to lay on and look out. Saturday morning, he and Mel layed in the window and looked at Hong Kong. It's still so weird to see him wa

We're really, really happy to be reunited with our little guy again :)