Sunday Cat Blogging, or Molly Your Fifteen Minutes Have Begun

Those of you who aren't animal people have probably been scratching your head for the last two weeks as the saga of Molly the Cat Trapped in the Wall has begun to rival Missing And Feared Dead Pretty White Girls in terms of cable news time. Well, for those of us who have cats, even those of us who haven't had a good night's sleep at home in five years because we have a cat that thinks she's an infant and wants to be draped over our necks ALL DAMN NIGHT LONG EVERY NIGHT DAMMIT, the Saga of Molly has been our worst nightmare of the dire things we think about when Maggie has puked up her dinner for the third night in a row because she wants baby food.

Well, at 10:15 last night, Molly became just another mouser again -- or will be after she makes the inevitable round of talk shows. For Molly, whose plaintive cries tugged at the hearts of ailurophiles for the last two weeks, is now free after a two-week vigil that turned a building on Hudson Street in New York into a form of street theatre:

Molly's distressed meows _ audible from the sidewalk outside the building _ became international news, and rescuers worked almost around the clock for her safe retrieval.

The activity began after the cat wandered into a narrow space between walls and got lost in the building's complex network of beams and pipes.

Those involved in the rescue effort drilled and hammered out bricks in the cellar of the 157-year-old edifice, trying everything from special cameras to traps to locate her and get her out. Kittens were used as bait to appeal to Molly's maternal side. A pet psychic and self-described "cat therapist" even stopped by to offer a hand.

But in the end, it was good old-fashioned elbow grease that got the job done.

Rescuers drilled a hole in the wall from inside the store, cutting through layers of brick to get to Molly, said Mike Pastore, field director for Animal Care & Control of New York City, a private organization with a city contract to handle lost, injured and unwanted animals.

Animal Care & Control will set up a link on its Web site for people to donate to help with repairs at the deli.

Molly was finally retrieved by Kevin Clifford, a tunnel worker at a project nearby who had been volunteering for the rescue effort.

"I gave what they needed, and lent a hand to it," he said.

The animal didn't come easily at first, said Pastore.

"It was twisting and turning, paws were flying everywhere," he said. "It took a little struggle to put her back in a cage."

Molly's first meal? Nibbles of roasted pork, sardines in oil and water, Myers said. Hearty fare, but perhaps not surprising for a feline who spends her time in Myers of Keswick, a deli specializing in meat pies, clotted cream and other British food specialties.

"I'm amazed at how well she looks," Myers said. "She always was a fit cat, otherwise she wouldn't have survived 14 days in that hole."

Rita Cosby may now return to covering the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, or the family mauled by bears in Tennessee.

And let's hope Molly is smarter than my cat Maggie and doesn't decide to take a trip inside the wall again.