The Nazi cat lady of Ko Olina

I haven't been putting much effort into this blog for the last few weeks because Luis and I have been trying to buy a house in Kansas City that we've only seen in photos. It seemed like a great idea to me until about an hour after the deal was done and then it seemed like the worst idea ever. Most of my energy since then has been taken up in fretting and imagining worst case scenarios.

However, I was distracted from my worrying this morning when Luis and I ran across a most unusual woman on the grounds of Ko Olina, the area where we live. Several weeks ago, Luis had gone for an early morning swim in one of the resort lagoons and had seen an elderly woman feeding both the feral cats in residence and the mongooses who live in the bushes. Since I have been pining for my cats, I went with him this morning and sure enough she was there sprinkling cat food in little piles for about a dozen very eager cats and about three or four aggressive mongooses.

She was a white woman, short and plump and dressed in a light blue muumuu which is a loose dress with a floral print favored by women on the islands, sort of a Hawaiian house dress. She had silvery hair and very pale blue eyes and a faint accent of a European variety. She asked me if I was an animal lover and I assured her that I was. She told me that she had been feeding the cats for about 8 years and that occasionally the owners of the hotel had given her some trouble but they were unable to stop her. "I told them, what are you going to do? Drag me off in manacles?" Then she cackled.

The lagoons are connected by a nicely maintained walking trail which is heavily used for fitness purposes and most of the people walking or running by us said hello to the old woman or asked how the cats were doing. She is apparently an eccentric but familiar fixture on the local scene. It was a most heartwarming moment as we watched the cats and mongooses eat and frolic.

Soon another older woman joined us and the talk turned to the mongoose bullies who occasionally prevent the cats from eating. The cat lady lamented both the unwillingness of the hotel to trap and remove some of the mongooses ("not to kill them, of course, everything has a right to live") as well as the people who dumped cats at the lagoons because they don't want them anymore. She probably had the typical complaints of your modern cat lady. Then in a flash she changed the subject to drug babies and the entire hospitals on the island filled with them and how they cry and cry and nothing can be done.

Luis and I stayed silent but the other woman agreed and said that you have to have a license to drive so you should have one to breed too. At this point I'm feeling a little awkward at the turn in the conversation but I was entirely unprepared for what came next. The sweet little old cat lady said wistfully, referring back to hospitals filled with crying drug babies, "you know if Hitler was here, that wouldn't happen, I'm sorry to say, it just wouldn't." The other lady nodded along with her and Luis and I exchanged startled glances and started backing away. We said a polite goodbye and excused ourselves.

The experience certainly took the shine off my plan to be a crazy old cat lady someday.