Monday, April 13, 2015

K is for Kitties of Old

As y'all probably know, I am a cat lover... I know the stereotype of the "CatLady" is of an old maid who turns to cats for lack of human companionship.


But the thing is, I've loved cats pretty much as long as I can remember. In a funny way I almost feel like I was raised by them.

Here I am with my first cat, Samantha, back when we were both kittens. 


We got Sam about a year after my parents divorced, and oh, how I loved that little cat! I named her Samantha after the main character in the TV sitcom Bewitched, because she was a black cat, so she was a witch! 

I carried her around with me wherever I went and smothered her with kisses at every opportunity. The thing is... she didn't exactly return the affection. 


I think this might have had something to do with the fact that as a small child I didn't quite "get" the difference between a cat and a teddy bear... poor little Sammy. I do still have a nice little scar across the palm of my hand from where she enacted a bit of... um... discipline!

Still, even though she was not exactly the cuddle cat that I had hoped for, I'm not sure I would have made it through those first few years after the divorce without her to talk to, so I am forever grateful to my little Sammy-manter-panter-poo.



After a few years, Mom decided that for the sake of Sam's sanity, we should get another cat who might be more cuddle-able, so she brought home Mitten.


Mitten was a beautiful long-haired tabby, and to tell the truth I don't really remember very much about her because she was hit by a car and killed a few months after we got her. The above photo is the only one we ever took of her.

I was only about 7 when it happened, but it still brings tears to my eyes to think about it. And it happened right at the beginning of summer vacation - I can still remember crying my way through my entire first day of YMCA day camp. My poor, sweet little Mitsy.



After the trauma of losing Mitten had cleared, which took a few years, we got Paco.


Paco was one of a kind. He was born with a crooked tail which meant that he wasn't exactly as coordinated as other cats.


But what he lacked in grace he made up for with pure sweetness. He was the complete opposite of Sam in terms of tolerance, and actually seemed to enjoy letting me drag him around like a rag doll. Here he is dressed up in baby clothes, loving every minute of it.


A few months after we got Paco my very best friend moved away. Many a night was spent crying into Paco's sweet tabby coat, and I'm not sure how I would have coped without my sweet Pookey Bear.

Paco was also my faithful morning companion as I folded newspapers for my paper route. I was never a morning person, even then, so it was a struggle for me, and I remember one morning when it was particularly rough. 

I don't remember the source of my upset that morning, but what I do remember is that there was a big black headline, and the ink left dark smudges all over my face as I wiped away my tears... while Paco sat next to me purring the whole time. Curiously, I do know the date of that morning... October 7, 1981 - because the headline read: Sadat Assassinated.

I was, of course, delivering the Denver Post, not the NY Times,
but this was the best I could do.




About a year after we got Paco one of my mom's friends had to move, and her new apartment wouldn't accept cats, so we inherited Victor.


Victor was big, and beautiful and strong, and named for the sideways "V" marking on his face. He and Paco quickly became inseparable.


Victor liked to help out with the morning paper route duties too, but truth be told he was in it for the food more than the company... since I was the first one up I'd always feed the kitties.

Victor must have been able to tell time because every morning about 5 minutes before the alarm was supposed to ring he'd jump on my chest and start licking my face. It was all very adorable unless I didn't get up immediately, in which case he'd switch from face licking to nostril biting! Ever had a nostril pierced by a cat? Well... it certainly worked to get me out of bed!


Watching Victor was a bit like turning on the National Geographic channel... which was great except...

I remember looking out the kitchen window once and thinking how cute it was that Victor was crouched behind a tree wiggling his butt. The next thing I knew, he shot out from the tree after a squirrel - he hooked the thing with one paw, and went straight for the jugular. I sat there in horror realizing that my sweet affectionate cat was really a cold-blooded killer!


Anyhow, Victor was fond of bringing home his hunting prizes, and when he did he would arrive with a very specific meow to announce the kill.

So one summer night I was awakened out of a deep sleep by the tell tale sound of a cat announcing his kill... only it didn't sound quite right. I flipped on the lights expecting to see Victor with a bird or mouse or something, but instead it was Paco!

Little Paco wasn't actually coordinated enough to hunt, but apparently he was feeling a bit left out, so he decided that he'd bring home what he could... in his mouth was a tattered old McDonald's paper cup!

Not Paco, but you get the idea.
After that, Paco pretty much became the neighborhood trash collector. In fact, a few years later, after my mom had sold the house and bought a town home, she got a nasty letter from the HOA demanding that she immediately clean up the pile of garbage by the back door! Sure enough, it was Paco's stash.



Well, I could go on telling kitty stories forever, but this post is already too long. All of the "kitties of old" have long ago moved on to the proverbial (paper cup) hunting ground in the sky, but I will never forget my little furry friends and how they helped me through what was, at times, a difficult and tumultuous childhood. I am forever in their debt, and they will always be my little angels.







30 comments :

  1. When I was around 10 I had a cat named Mittens who didn't get the whole cat as teddy bear thing either. I used to get a lot of scratches taking him to bed. Your Paco sounds very cute, but he was obviously a garbage collector in a past life!

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    1. Ha! Paco was very cute indeed. I wonder what he became in his next life?

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  2. I don't know if you're famiilar with the autho,r Gary Paulson, but he wrote his autobiography for kids called, "My Life in Dog Years". Each chapter was about a different dog he owned and what was going on at that time in his life. It is quite good. You should write one called, "My Life in Cat Years."

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    1. I'll have to check that book out... sounds like one I might be able to handle!

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  3. I love these stories. I was brought up by cats, too, though as my parents each had a cat when they met, the cats had well established positions in the household by the time the baby arrived. Once, when I was about two, I pulled the tail of one cat while she was eating - I think it was Mum's cat Jennydot (named after the T S Elliot poem), herself a mother of several litters. She whirled round with claws outstretched and, to Mum's amazement, planted five pinpricks in my cheek instead of following through with a swipe across the face. I got an age-appropriate punishment.

    Years later, another cat had a litter of kittens, and a habit of moving her kittens around. One night I awoke to a small squeaking, to find her bringing her kittens into my bed. This was no mean feat, as the bedroom door was closed, so she'd taken them downstairs, out of the cat door, up onto the shed roof and in through my bedroom window. One at a time. I was thrilled that she thought my bed a suitable place for her kittens, but my parents didn't think it such a good idea, so they didn't stay there for many minutes.

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    1. Those are amazing stories.... especially about the kittens. She REALLY wanted to put those kittens in bed with you!

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  4. How sweet to remember your past kitties. I had a deprived childhood-not really, but I never had a cat until I got married. I forgot to tell you that I gave you 2 awards last week- one for creativity, the other, for inspiration.

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    1. That is a terribly deprived childhood! At least you've made up for it as an adult.

      And awards? I don't exactly know what that means, but I'm flattered. I'll have to go check out your blog to find out!

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  5. I also had a kitty-deprived childhood as my dad didn't like cats (to put it mildly). I've been making up for it ever since! But we did always have a dog and I became very attached to the one we got when I was 9. He was such a good buddy. Now I have dogs and cats, and it's just lovely.

    I really enjoyed your cat memories and the great pictures, real and not.

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    1. I had a dog too. She was very sweet if a bit neurotic. But it wasn't her fault - she was just in pain. We found out later in her life that she had terrible hip dysplasia. It was so bad the vet was amazed she could even walk!

      I've often thought about getting a dog, but honestly, a dog seems like a LOT of work!

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    2. I guess they are more work than cats, especially if you live somewhere that you would have to walk them every day. I don't but I like to walk anyway so it's nice to have the dogs along. My sweet neurotic Rufus saved me from a young buck deer last spring. I was walking in the woods behind our house with just Rufus and looked up to see this young buck charging at me (deer are as unpredictable as squirrels and I guess he didn't know what kind of animals we were). Rufus got right in between us and started barking ferociously at the deer and ran him off.

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    3. OMG... that's so amazing! A cat would be running in the other direction to be sure!

      There was actually a story on the local news the other day about a woman who was fostering a young dog. She took it for a walk and they ran into a rattlesnake. The dog jumped between her and the snake as it was attacking and took the bite for her. Brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.
      http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/foster-dog-bitten-by-rattlesnake-in-jefferson-county-while-protecting-dog-walker

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    4. What a sweet story! That dog's definitely a keeper. My dogs usually bark at snakes but I also keep children's liquid benadryl on hand after a teacher at a dog obedience course advised it. She said dogs usually start swelling in their throats when they're snake-bit, restricting their breathing, and the benadryl helps with that until you can get to a vet. I guess it would work with cats, too, although I can't imagine a cat getting snake-bit.

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    5. Interesting about the benadryl. I wonder if that's all they give them for rattle snake bites, or if they have to get anti-venim shots.

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  6. That is sweet. I sometimes feel like I was raised by cats too! I don't know if I could live in a house without them.

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    1. A house devoid of cats would be a sorrowful place indeed!

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  7. I remember the specific cat and dog "eras" of my life. George the dog who could get the newspaper coexisted with Dumb Cat (D.C.--which I think sometimes may have stood for something besides "dumb"); D.C. was like a younger sibling to me who purposely stole my doll house dolls and raced through the house with them ... I knew I was a grown-up when Ginger the dog died ...

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    1. Ha! D.C.! I believe I called Victor D.C.once or twice (and I mean that other work, not dumb) after an early morning nostril biting incident! And losing your first pet... it leaves an indelible mark, doesn't it?

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  8. Hello there.
    I am a cat lover myself, so I know exactly what you mean and where you're coming from! My Delilah (sister of Smokey, Samson and Kaijah) was my cat, my constant companion from the time she was about 6 weeks old (we got her way too young) until 16-1-2 yrs old. I left her with family in the UK when I emigrated to the US. I was crushed when she died a couple of years later, but she gave me many years of joy and comfort when humanoids just didn't understand me. I can't look at her picture without breaking down in tears. Cats are my favourite...you never know what you're going to get with them from one day to the next...they are full of so much fickleness!
    Thanks for a fun post. Nice photos too.

    Entrepreneurial Goddess

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    1. I didn't get to be there for the passing of any of the kitties of old either, since I had moved out by then. But I honestly can't imagine what I would have done without them.

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  9. Oh how cute all of them! So sorry with Mitten and the short life she had with your family; that would be traumatic to lose her when you were so young and at the start of summer vacation. I never thought how a cat with a crooked tail could be uncoordinated, but it makes sense. I have never had a cat as a pet, but one thing my sister mentions, who does have cats, is that they do enjoy bringing home their kill to their family. I did see a cat in the neighborhood who lives kind of next door walking by our house with a bird in its mouth. I guess it was taking the spoils home :)

    All nice looking cats you featured here!

    betty

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    1. Well, these days my kitties are all indoor cats so the only time we had any hunting adventures was when mouse got in the house. Jasper & his brother Smoky were just kittens then, and little Smoky caught the thing by it's leg and then froze, not knowing what to do next! Fortunately, their big brother Sputty came to the rescue - he caught it but didn't hurt it, and then I took the poor traumatized creature outside and let it go.

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  10. I loved this walk down your memory lane and I would have been much happier with Paco's gifts. :-)

    I had dogs growing up and one was my baby. The only problem was my mother would adopt a puppy then get mad at it staying a puppy and get rid of it, only to get another one a few weeks later. I learned not to get too attached because of the impending loss I knew was coming.

    The one time I had cats, as in plural, was at age 19. I was living in LA with my fiance in an apartment. We were both more fond of dogs but keeping a dog in an apartment illegally would have been hard, so he brought home a cat. It got out one day and never came back so when we moved into our house he decided to make it up to me. I couldn't figure out where he was as he was so late getting home from work. He walked in with a large box and told me it was a gift for the loss of our cat (we had a puppy now too). I opened the box to find seven kittens inside! Unfortunately, it wasn't a happy household as the dog thought the cats were for his entertainment and wanted to play, the cats would tolerate him unless he came close to one of them, at that point it would attack. I eventually found all but one of the kittens new homes because I just couldn't take the fighting.

    Oh, and my sister had a cat who was a mouser, one night he caught a mouse and tore it to pieces before gifting her with the remains in her sleep. She found pieces trailed through the house, on the bedspread, and even in her hair!

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    1. Mouse parts in her hair?!? The worst Victor ever did was leave squirrel carcasses in the middle of the living room. I came home from school one day and my eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the dark house, and I nearly stepped in it!

      Anyhow, 7 kittens is a LOT... even raising 2 was a challenge with Jasper & Smoky. I am glad they have each other to play with, but sometimes play crosses the line to hissing and snarling. I guess boys will be boys!

      And your mother's behavior strikes me as bizarre... but from everything you've told me about her, this sounds like the least of her transgressions!

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  11. Aw, Paco sounds like quite the cutie. I love the cup story and kitty stories in general.

    Hearing your stories made me think about how much I remember of the kitties of my youth. When I was young, animals were never allowed in the house, which was a bummer. And it's true that outside cats have much shorter lives. We lived in the country, and people would drive pretty fast, so a lot of them were hit on the road. But there were good times too...like when my first kitty Blackie stole a filet right off a guest's plate and my dad chased him but couldn't catch him.

    My main sidekick in those days, however, was my little beagle mix dog, Nia. She went everywhere I went and even did her own amount of bird catching in the cornfields amazingly.

    Thanks for bringing back some memories!

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    1. Thanks for sharing those stories. I bet Blackie was "in the dog house" after that one! Yuk yuk!

      One time when we were kids my brother got a toy sheriff's kit - it had a badge, a squirt gun and some plastic handcuffs. He was horsing around and thought it would be fun to sneak up on my mom and handcuff her - which he succeeded in doing - locked her to the kitchen drawer handle.

      My mother had been slicing cheese on the other side of the kitchen, and out on the counter was one of those giant logs of American cheese (yes... I was raised on the stuff.) Anyhow, at that moment, Tippy the dog seized the opportunity to jump up and grab the entire loaf of cheese. I can still remember my mother cursing and yelling as the dog headed out the back door with a month's supply of cheese!

      My brother was strictly prohibited from using his handcuffs on anyone without their permission from then on... and Tippy suffered from the most incredibly disgusting orange diarrhea for the next month or so!

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  12. I love cats, too, and always have. My first cat was Sassy. She's been gone for over 10 years now, but I still miss her.

    I do not understand all of the cat lasy sterotypes. I'm happily married, with four cats, and he loves them as much as I do.

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    1. Ha! This is why CatMan is called CatMan - he loves them just as much as I do. And on some level I don't think our kitties ever really leave us, they stay forever in our hearts.

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  13. We had two consecutive cats growing up, and after I left home, my parents got a new dog and a cat (I guess it took two pets to replace me). I had two cats of my own who lived 18-20 years, and now my current two, who are 8-year-old litter mates. So I measure my life in cat years (or cat eras) too!

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