“Everyone loves Mia”

It is true. She courts everyone who comes into the house and demands attention. And she gets it. If anyone sits down, she will stealthily slide onto their lap and before they know it they are absently — or intentionally — stoking her as they talk. Sometimes she even manages to engineer a lap at the dinner table, keeping a carefully low profile so she slips under my radar. But the guests win. And when they get her into a state of bliss that tongue tip comes out.

But Mia is living on borrowed time.

She courted all of the nephews, nieces, in-laws and friends who visited since she arrived in December, and I have so many pictures of her on the lap or stomach of a nephew asleep on the couch. But now there are no guests, laps are few and far between, and I am back in the states. And three days after I left she developed a very stubborn case of cystitis that she can’t shake. While stress and environmental changes are generally considered contributory causes, it usually resolves in a few days. Hers seems to be getting worse not better, even after a visit to the vet. It’s hard to be so far away, leaving Walter to deal with pilling and caring for an incontinent cat on top of arranging Andrée’s care. I’ll be back for Fall break, but that is still a month away.

So this is a celebration of Mia the indomitable.

Mia, born to feral parents, rescued from our porch with her siblings and soon more than happy to live in a house with regular meals. Mia who lived with her siblings for five weeks in what was left of that home of 13 years while the sealed rooms in the rest of the house were stripped of fire and water damaged contents, and walls, by a team of noisy, hazmat suited workers.

Mia who then moved twice before moving again to France, along the way losing all three of her birth siblings, including the brother from whom she was inseparable for her whole life. Mia who at almost 17 years old walked into a soft-sided cat carrier and traveled 3,000 miles under the seat of a plane to relocate in Mouzieys-Panens, and did it with grace and aplomb [see December 17, 2025]. Even in transit she charmed everyone she met, sticking her head out of the carrier in Charles de Gaul airport and immediately attracting a swarm of kids all wanting to pet her.

As I reported on December 30, 2025, she has reached a detent with the outside cats (there are 4 regulars now), joining their live-and-let-live colony when she wanders outside, but preferring the comforts of her favorite chairs and cushions inside. She even caught a mouse that had somehow made its way into the kitchen.

Shortly after we arrived she was diagnosed with kidney disease and had to transition to special cat food, much to her chagrin (she is allergic to chicken, and there is one renal support cat food in all of Europe that has no chicken in it; sadly it has carrots, her sworn enemy). Shortly before we left the US she had a seizure, and she had more once we arrived. My amazing vet at Clinique Vétérinaire Codes Sur Ciel, got them under control and she is so far seizure free. But these are two of the things that put her on borrowed time. Now, what started as a run-of-the-mill bladder issue may be presenting a third. And now I imagine she is not happy, exacerbated by the fact that this is the first time the house has not been full of people whose role is to pet her.

Prior to this, she really was living her best life with almost constant attention and no stressors aside from the regrettable food (which she eats with relative enthusiasm, carefully leaving a pile of cubed carrots in middle of the dish). We are amazed by how well she adjusted to the new house. When there are no available laps, she finds a patch of sunlight and claims that for a log nap instead, waking up to follow the sun before she settles down again. When denied a lap (or the stomach of a sleeping nephew) she sits next to us, a quiet loving presence always ready in case the lap opens up or a hand needs to stroke her.