Others’ Fine Felines: Fairway

July 4, 2013July 4, 2013 Bernadette

tabby cat on couch — Fairway gazes out the window.

Meet 19-year-old Fairway, rescued from, you guessed it, a golf course. But there’s more to it than that!

Fairway lives with four other rescued kitties and Bonita Farinelli, who owns Distinctively Different Decor & More here in Carnegie, though Fairway came some distance to be here.

Bonita was vacationing with a friend in North Carolina, and had rented a condo on a golf course. The two got lost on the way to the condo but finally found their way, arriving at about 4:00 a.m. As they unpacked their bags a skinny tabby cat arrived as well, meowing and very, very friendly.

Bonita’s friend laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, “a cat even finds you here!” They went to church the next morning and came back with cat food, but the tabby kitty was gone. Not for long, she reappeared and happily took the offering. She seemed to be “mooching” off several of the guests.

When the two friends decided they wanted to move to a condo near the beach instead of the golf course, they packed up the tabby cat and took her with them. And at the end of the vacation, they packed her up to take her home.

One snag in the plans was the two had decided to visit Washington DC on the way back, but they couldn’t leave the kitty in the car while they toured the city, so they rented a hotel room for the time they were there so the kitty, now named Fairway, could sit in the air conditioning and watch TV, which is exactly what she did.

“But when we went to leave, Fairway was missing, she was nowhere in the hotel room, and here we were in a strange city calling for a cat who probably didn’t know her name yet, looking all over and around the hotel,” Bonita said. A few hours later, a cleaning lady thought she saw a pair of socks behind the bed, but it was Fairway having a nap.

“And then she meowed a-a-l-l-l-l the way home,” Bonita said, home being Pittsburgh, several hours of driving.

Fairway was about two to three years old then, and unspayed. She had a bit of a hard time fitting in with Bonita’s cats at that time, but has been the boss of Bonita’s household for a number of years. She has lots of character, delivering swats to whomever approaches her food. You can see by her expression she is a no-nonsense cat.

tabby cat on arm of couch — Fairway decides to look at me.

Bonita is a multiple-time rescuer, living currently with five fine felines, some of whom you will see in future days.

As I had mentioned, Bonita has an interior decorating studio and a boutique shop, Distinctively Different Decor & More, in Carnegie, and you may remember she also carries some of my feline and fine art merchandise as well as being the seamstress who sews the pockets in my garden flags. The first time I met Bonita was when she’d done decorations for a benefit event at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, and one of the things she’d included was an absolutely gorgeous sculptural feline tribal lamp as an accent; I knew I had to meet her, I knew she had to like cats. And since then we’ve become friends and business partners.

See where your love of cats will lead you, if you let it?

Browse some rescued cats and kittens!

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