My home doesn't have a cat.
When I finished high school in 1994 and headed off to college, I moved in with my older brother, and one of the first things he told me was that we would have a cat.
We'd never had pets in our house growing up, so I wasn't sure what to say. I was surprised, as I'd never really thought of having pets during college (and never really thought of my immediate family as 'pet' people). It was an entirely new concept to me.
But it was his place after all, and my impression was this would be his room-mate's cat, as the room-mate had already given him a name.
I moved in that summer, and as one set of room-mates (just married, and heading out of town) finished off their time in the crummy rundown house (certainly soon to be demolished and replaced by a half-a-million dollar home), I experienced living with a pets for the first time.
(Their cat was an independent clever sort, who knew how to pop the latch on the screens over the windows to bust outside in the early morning (only to start whining at the room-mates windows before dawn). It was only there for a few weeks, but it gave me the sneak peek of the domestic feline world.)
And by that point, my brother had adopted a dog - a semi-wild dog found at a ranch near the city. A very clever dog, who certainly seemed to know far more about the world than I did at 18. (It certainly knew to find and eat local pecans that had fallen into the yard - and it knew how to bust out of the yard and wander the neighborhood when it was bored.)
So between the three of us - myself, my brother, his room-mate - we'd have a dog and a cat for my first year in college.
The cat came to the house before the room-mate. He was a tiny buff-colored ball of fuzz, with plenty of attitude and personality. The first time he came to the house, my brother held his dog near his feet as the kitten inspected his new domain and determined if it was satisfactory. After returning to the middle of the living room floor, it finally dawned on him that there was another furry thing on all fours already there too. (The king had finally noticed one of his subjects.)
You'd have never though they'd ever been apart based on the way those two would get along over the next few years. No cliched cat/dog animosity between them at all, they were just pals, and would hang out and play (and share food). My favorite thing was to see one of them curled up sleeping in complete contentment someplace and the other would come in and start poking their nose in the other's belly - 'I'm bored!'.
The cat stayed in my room for the summer, and I took primary responsibility during that time (my brother had the dog after all), and when the room-mate finally came... it turned out he was allergic to cats. The cat would have to stay out in the living room with me (and my relocated mattress). Without being asked, the cat was definitively mine.
My cat lived with me from 1994 until 2011. He kept me sane through my depressing college years, and the even more depressing post-college years. He made 3 or 4 house/apartment moves, as we lived with the cat's extended family for one year (in the rundown house - mother cat's owner living in the dilapidated shed outback), lived with another room-mate/cat for 1 year, lived on our own in cheap 1 room efficiencies, and then back with my brother and his dogs (now numbering two: the clever one and a sweet but dumb sheepdog) in various not-well-kept-up locations.
At two times in those early years, I appeared to have the option to pass the cat on to someone else. The first time was when the shed-living neighbor finally moved on. He offered to just pack up my cat too (and just add him back to his family), on his way out the door. I refused. Later I asked a women who I sublet from for one summer to watch him for a while 'on loan' while I took a trip. I thought she might ask to keep him, but she didn't (though she admitted he was the best cat ever, naturally).
He was indoor/outdoor during those early years, which meant he had the run of the neighborhood, and I'd occasionally find him getting belly scratches from neighbors, or wandering through nearby gardens chasing something that had caught his eye. Mostly, he'd go out in the day while I was at school or work, and hang out with me at night, sleeping in a wicker chair by my bed (if in summer) or on my bed (or me, if in winter).
I often think about how surprised I am he did as well as he did. Some of the places we lived weren't the best for outdoor cats, but he never seemed to have trouble (other than the occasional flea occupation). He gave me a few scares when he wouldn't come immediately when called, but he always showed up before I fell asleep.
In 1999, I met my wife, and her cat. Our two cats entered into a kitten and elder statesmen relationship for the next 12 years. My cat mostly tolerated the annoying grumpy black ball of energy (if nothing else, my cat was chill through-and-through). We took the two of them cross country to San Francisco (where they scrapped under the bed in an overpriced apartment). My cat got a slightly too close sniff of Wasabi during our time there, still one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. We moved them back across the country to the East Coast, there dealing with a variety of apartments (including one where the firemen had to bust down the door to reach a fire in the crawlspace next door), until finally they made it to their own house.
By this point, they were pretty much fully indoor (us having learned a bit, and realizing how much a difference this made to longetivity). In one incident when my wife was still letting them 'out to see the sun', her cat reverted to his semi-feral state and started attacking her (vaguely, he was a pushover really). My cat came to her rescue.
That's just the kind of cat he was, he was friendly, talkative, always willing to hang out and get belly scratches, but also not interested in grooming or respecting your personal space. When you were sick, he'd stay with you all day to keep you company.
When my cat got sick, probably with some sort of stomach cancer, we had to start treating him with insulin and steroids daily. It maybe went on too long, and by the end he was struggling to make it between the hallway (where we'd set up a resting spot) and the litter box 10 feet away. I still don't know if I prolonged his pain for too many weeks. I really hope not.
But he lived until my daughter came home, for which I am forever grateful. He was with me, nearly every day, from when I was a know-it-all 18 year old, until I was a 30-something know-nothing dad. He got me through some dark times, and I don't think I would have made it without him. He died in 2011, and I still miss him.
My wife's cat, full of attitude and jealousy of me and my presence near his 'momma', was born feral and given 'snuggle treatments' by my wife until he was a totally spoiled indoor cat. He could scratch her, bite her nose, give her ringworm, and it wouldn't matter. He was fun to be around as a kitten as he got into all sorts of trouble and caused all sorts of damage during his youngster years.
For many years, we struggled to get his thyroid issues sorted, and as such he developed joint and bone problems as he got older and older. He could still move pretty fast when he wanted too, he just never wanted too.
After having subjected my cat to the hyper-kitten attention, it hindsight in only seems fair that he got subjected to the same. It was decided (with little input from me), that he needed a friend - not a replacement for my cat, but a new buddy all the same - and into our lives came my daughter's cat in 2011. An orange and white puffball.
For nearly 5 years, the orange and white puffball did the little brother thing to perfection, both for my wife's cat and for my daughter. For the former, he struck the right balance between the hang-out, groom, and share food and treats side of things, with the 'oh-my-god you are so annoying I'm trying sleep here' side. For the latter, he put up with grabs, tugs, teasings, carryings, usage as a pillow, and on and on and on.
My wife's cat finally hit his limit in winter. After putting up a good show for a long time, it was obvious he just couldn't go on. We said goodbye, and like that, our two longtime anchors were gone.
The orange-and-white puffball was now fully a lapcat. If my wife was on the bed, the puff was on top of her. If we were watching Game of Thrones, the cat was there too. If there was a box on the table, he was in it. If there was a place to sneak into to sleep, he did it.
But on Friday my daughter's cat was hiding under the couch. As he tried to get out, it was obvious he was either struggling to actually get out, or was hurting himself in the process. He peed on the floor, took a couple of drunk steps towards the litter box, and collapsed. I picked him up to inspect him, and it was obvious something was really, really wrong. He'd been fine the last time we'd seen him, just a few hours before.
The emergency animal hospital took tests and x-rays, but it was becoming obvious he was crashing. His blood work was really bad (anemic and not producing platelets) and he had trouble controlling his temperature. He had fluid around one of his kidneys, and his heart was undersized. My wife asked if she should come with my daughter to say goodbye, and with the chance (even on continued treatment) that he could pass in the night, the doctor said yes.
We're still not sure what exactly happened. If he had been hiding a long-term sickness, he'd done a great job of it. If it was some acute illness or trauma, we don't have any signs of what it was.
All three of us were there as he was put to sleep.
This cat was supposed to be the last. My wife is very allergic (having found out only a few years ago), and my daughter probably is as well. Losing one this winter was very hard for all three of us, and we just didn't think we could keep going through that over and over. And now, the young cat (5 1/2) we thought would be with us until my daughter was in her teens is gone, unexpectedly. He was such a good cat.
The house feels very, very strange. Doors that we used to leave closed are open. The utility room door that used to stay open for access to the litter box is closed. No food or water bowls. I work from home a lot, and am used to walking around the house and taking a moment to scratch a fuzzy belly, or make sure that 'yes, he's still sleeping in the cardboard box'.
I walked around all Sunday thinking I needed to change the litter box. I have to remind myself that I don't have to check under my daughter's bed to make sure he doesn't get trapped in her room at night (one of their favorite things to do when they were little - we used to hear my daughter giggling when she should have been asleep).
I also slept in on Sunday, mainly because the cat didn't wake me up making noise in the kitchen as he waited for a food refill. We looked at new couches, because now we can get nice ones without worrying they'll be destroyed in the first month of having them. We don't have to worry about a pet-sitter for our summer vacation.
Some of these things make me feel really guilty, and I'm frankly not sure how I feel about not having a cat in the house. We're cat people, I guess.
My wife is taking this even harder than me. My daughter is hard to read on this. I think she understands, but doesn't really want to think about it, so seems like she's just acting silly to not have to.
I debated with myself whether I should bother writing all this out, and whether I should bother posting it. I'm hoping it makes me feel a little better, but I can't tell about that yet either.
So yes, this was just a really long-winded post that could be summed up:
I really miss my cats.
When I finished high school in 1994 and headed off to college, I moved in with my older brother, and one of the first things he told me was that we would have a cat.
We'd never had pets in our house growing up, so I wasn't sure what to say. I was surprised, as I'd never really thought of having pets during college (and never really thought of my immediate family as 'pet' people). It was an entirely new concept to me.
But it was his place after all, and my impression was this would be his room-mate's cat, as the room-mate had already given him a name.
I moved in that summer, and as one set of room-mates (just married, and heading out of town) finished off their time in the crummy rundown house (certainly soon to be demolished and replaced by a half-a-million dollar home), I experienced living with a pets for the first time.
(Their cat was an independent clever sort, who knew how to pop the latch on the screens over the windows to bust outside in the early morning (only to start whining at the room-mates windows before dawn). It was only there for a few weeks, but it gave me the sneak peek of the domestic feline world.)
And by that point, my brother had adopted a dog - a semi-wild dog found at a ranch near the city. A very clever dog, who certainly seemed to know far more about the world than I did at 18. (It certainly knew to find and eat local pecans that had fallen into the yard - and it knew how to bust out of the yard and wander the neighborhood when it was bored.)
So between the three of us - myself, my brother, his room-mate - we'd have a dog and a cat for my first year in college.
The cat came to the house before the room-mate. He was a tiny buff-colored ball of fuzz, with plenty of attitude and personality. The first time he came to the house, my brother held his dog near his feet as the kitten inspected his new domain and determined if it was satisfactory. After returning to the middle of the living room floor, it finally dawned on him that there was another furry thing on all fours already there too. (The king had finally noticed one of his subjects.)
You'd have never though they'd ever been apart based on the way those two would get along over the next few years. No cliched cat/dog animosity between them at all, they were just pals, and would hang out and play (and share food). My favorite thing was to see one of them curled up sleeping in complete contentment someplace and the other would come in and start poking their nose in the other's belly - 'I'm bored!'.
The cat stayed in my room for the summer, and I took primary responsibility during that time (my brother had the dog after all), and when the room-mate finally came... it turned out he was allergic to cats. The cat would have to stay out in the living room with me (and my relocated mattress). Without being asked, the cat was definitively mine.
My cat lived with me from 1994 until 2011. He kept me sane through my depressing college years, and the even more depressing post-college years. He made 3 or 4 house/apartment moves, as we lived with the cat's extended family for one year (in the rundown house - mother cat's owner living in the dilapidated shed outback), lived with another room-mate/cat for 1 year, lived on our own in cheap 1 room efficiencies, and then back with my brother and his dogs (now numbering two: the clever one and a sweet but dumb sheepdog) in various not-well-kept-up locations.
At two times in those early years, I appeared to have the option to pass the cat on to someone else. The first time was when the shed-living neighbor finally moved on. He offered to just pack up my cat too (and just add him back to his family), on his way out the door. I refused. Later I asked a women who I sublet from for one summer to watch him for a while 'on loan' while I took a trip. I thought she might ask to keep him, but she didn't (though she admitted he was the best cat ever, naturally).
He was indoor/outdoor during those early years, which meant he had the run of the neighborhood, and I'd occasionally find him getting belly scratches from neighbors, or wandering through nearby gardens chasing something that had caught his eye. Mostly, he'd go out in the day while I was at school or work, and hang out with me at night, sleeping in a wicker chair by my bed (if in summer) or on my bed (or me, if in winter).
I often think about how surprised I am he did as well as he did. Some of the places we lived weren't the best for outdoor cats, but he never seemed to have trouble (other than the occasional flea occupation). He gave me a few scares when he wouldn't come immediately when called, but he always showed up before I fell asleep.
In 1999, I met my wife, and her cat. Our two cats entered into a kitten and elder statesmen relationship for the next 12 years. My cat mostly tolerated the annoying grumpy black ball of energy (if nothing else, my cat was chill through-and-through). We took the two of them cross country to San Francisco (where they scrapped under the bed in an overpriced apartment). My cat got a slightly too close sniff of Wasabi during our time there, still one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. We moved them back across the country to the East Coast, there dealing with a variety of apartments (including one where the firemen had to bust down the door to reach a fire in the crawlspace next door), until finally they made it to their own house.
By this point, they were pretty much fully indoor (us having learned a bit, and realizing how much a difference this made to longetivity). In one incident when my wife was still letting them 'out to see the sun', her cat reverted to his semi-feral state and started attacking her (vaguely, he was a pushover really). My cat came to her rescue.
That's just the kind of cat he was, he was friendly, talkative, always willing to hang out and get belly scratches, but also not interested in grooming or respecting your personal space. When you were sick, he'd stay with you all day to keep you company.
When my cat got sick, probably with some sort of stomach cancer, we had to start treating him with insulin and steroids daily. It maybe went on too long, and by the end he was struggling to make it between the hallway (where we'd set up a resting spot) and the litter box 10 feet away. I still don't know if I prolonged his pain for too many weeks. I really hope not.
But he lived until my daughter came home, for which I am forever grateful. He was with me, nearly every day, from when I was a know-it-all 18 year old, until I was a 30-something know-nothing dad. He got me through some dark times, and I don't think I would have made it without him. He died in 2011, and I still miss him.
My wife's cat, full of attitude and jealousy of me and my presence near his 'momma', was born feral and given 'snuggle treatments' by my wife until he was a totally spoiled indoor cat. He could scratch her, bite her nose, give her ringworm, and it wouldn't matter. He was fun to be around as a kitten as he got into all sorts of trouble and caused all sorts of damage during his youngster years.
For many years, we struggled to get his thyroid issues sorted, and as such he developed joint and bone problems as he got older and older. He could still move pretty fast when he wanted too, he just never wanted too.
After having subjected my cat to the hyper-kitten attention, it hindsight in only seems fair that he got subjected to the same. It was decided (with little input from me), that he needed a friend - not a replacement for my cat, but a new buddy all the same - and into our lives came my daughter's cat in 2011. An orange and white puffball.
For nearly 5 years, the orange and white puffball did the little brother thing to perfection, both for my wife's cat and for my daughter. For the former, he struck the right balance between the hang-out, groom, and share food and treats side of things, with the 'oh-my-god you are so annoying I'm trying sleep here' side. For the latter, he put up with grabs, tugs, teasings, carryings, usage as a pillow, and on and on and on.
My wife's cat finally hit his limit in winter. After putting up a good show for a long time, it was obvious he just couldn't go on. We said goodbye, and like that, our two longtime anchors were gone.
The orange-and-white puffball was now fully a lapcat. If my wife was on the bed, the puff was on top of her. If we were watching Game of Thrones, the cat was there too. If there was a box on the table, he was in it. If there was a place to sneak into to sleep, he did it.
But on Friday my daughter's cat was hiding under the couch. As he tried to get out, it was obvious he was either struggling to actually get out, or was hurting himself in the process. He peed on the floor, took a couple of drunk steps towards the litter box, and collapsed. I picked him up to inspect him, and it was obvious something was really, really wrong. He'd been fine the last time we'd seen him, just a few hours before.
The emergency animal hospital took tests and x-rays, but it was becoming obvious he was crashing. His blood work was really bad (anemic and not producing platelets) and he had trouble controlling his temperature. He had fluid around one of his kidneys, and his heart was undersized. My wife asked if she should come with my daughter to say goodbye, and with the chance (even on continued treatment) that he could pass in the night, the doctor said yes.
We're still not sure what exactly happened. If he had been hiding a long-term sickness, he'd done a great job of it. If it was some acute illness or trauma, we don't have any signs of what it was.
All three of us were there as he was put to sleep.
This cat was supposed to be the last. My wife is very allergic (having found out only a few years ago), and my daughter probably is as well. Losing one this winter was very hard for all three of us, and we just didn't think we could keep going through that over and over. And now, the young cat (5 1/2) we thought would be with us until my daughter was in her teens is gone, unexpectedly. He was such a good cat.
The house feels very, very strange. Doors that we used to leave closed are open. The utility room door that used to stay open for access to the litter box is closed. No food or water bowls. I work from home a lot, and am used to walking around the house and taking a moment to scratch a fuzzy belly, or make sure that 'yes, he's still sleeping in the cardboard box'.
I walked around all Sunday thinking I needed to change the litter box. I have to remind myself that I don't have to check under my daughter's bed to make sure he doesn't get trapped in her room at night (one of their favorite things to do when they were little - we used to hear my daughter giggling when she should have been asleep).
I also slept in on Sunday, mainly because the cat didn't wake me up making noise in the kitchen as he waited for a food refill. We looked at new couches, because now we can get nice ones without worrying they'll be destroyed in the first month of having them. We don't have to worry about a pet-sitter for our summer vacation.
Some of these things make me feel really guilty, and I'm frankly not sure how I feel about not having a cat in the house. We're cat people, I guess.
My wife is taking this even harder than me. My daughter is hard to read on this. I think she understands, but doesn't really want to think about it, so seems like she's just acting silly to not have to.
I debated with myself whether I should bother writing all this out, and whether I should bother posting it. I'm hoping it makes me feel a little better, but I can't tell about that yet either.
So yes, this was just a really long-winded post that could be summed up:
I really miss my cats.
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