The Changing of the Guard: New Kittens

For a month, it was very quiet here.

I had spent the last two years watching my beloved Bonnie and Cindy die. Cindy went first, in February of 2008. Her kidneys were failing and she stopped eating. When I could no longer bear to see her starve, I put her down. That decision haunted me for many months; had I put her down too soon? One night, she came to me in a dream and said, "Don't you remember how miserable I was?" and I finally made peace with my decision. Looking at the photographs of those last weeks now, I know I made the right choice.

Bonnie left me at the end of January 2009. She was losing interest in food and that was making the management of her diabetes increasingly treacherous. She was beginning to lose control of her hind legs, due to complications of the diabetes. Finally, one morning, she was unable to walk anymore and the decision was made for me. Her passing was not easy; the vet had terrible problems finding a vein. I mourned her death on many levels. She was a beloved friend and companion. And she and her sister were a constant in my life for most of the last 20 years. It marked the passing of an era for me.

It was hard to come home to an empty house, but slowly, something very unexpected happened. During all those years, when the ladies were doing all sorts of wild and crazy things, and I was occasionally contemplating "catricide", I remember saying to myself, "Someday, when they're old and decrepit, you'll look back on these moments and you'll laugh." And I was right. I kept journal of all those funny, terrible things they did. And now that all of their suffering is passed, I was free to dredge up all of those hilarious moments and enjoy them. I laughed more in those weeks after Bonnie's death than I had at any time in the past two years.

For four weeks, I tried out life without cats. It was definitely easier. But finally, I knew I was ready to take the plunge. I went to a shelter in Norwalk and picked out a couple of kittens. When I took them to my vet last Monday, everyone there was very glad to see me again, in much happier circumstances. Everyone made a big fuss over the kittens. The vet said to me, "I knew that I would see you again but I was a little surprised to see you this soon." I answered, "Do you have any idea how easy it is to read a newspaper without a cat lying in the middle of it?"

He laughed, but that's how I knew I was ready to return to that maddening, hilarious, fascinating role of catslave.

Bonnie 9/27/89 – 1/26/09

Bonnie, my beloved little grey friend, was helped to the Rainbow Bridge, Monday, January 26, 2009, after several months of ill health brought on by complications of diabetes. Fortunately, she enjoyed a lifetime of remarkably good health before being diagnosed with diabetes in May of 2006 and didn’t really start to decline until this fall.

Bonnie was a strikingly beautiful cat, with a thick, soft, plush blue-grey coat. For the most part, she tolerated being treated like a big stuffed toy; she could be hugged, lugged, kissed, and generally fussed over. That sort of attention would always send her sister, Cindy, dashing from the room, but, as long as she was the center of attention, Bonnie seemed to eat it up.

She was a very playful cat who would often come up to me and assume a ”play posture” which made it clear that she wanted to be chased. She loved to stalk and be stalked (The “Momma’s Gonna Git You!” Game). I used to carry her around the house in a paper bag – with the top rolled shut – (The “Boo in the Bag Game”) and she would tolerate it for 20 minutes at a time. When she’d had enough, she’d rip a hole in the side of the bag and take off. (Unlike many PC techs that I’ve worked with in my time, Bonnie actually _could_ troubleshoot her way out of a paper bag . . . )

When she and her sister, Cindy, were babies and had just arrived at my home, I was down in the basement one evening with them watching TV. I was lying on the sofa with my knees up and both kittens eventually jumped up on the sofa and got onto my chest. Bonnie ventured up to my face, came up to my nose, and began a pattern that would become quite familiar through the years: Lick, Lick, CHOMP! She bit my nose! I was stunned, but started laughing. Both kittens backed up against my legs and I could see a mixture of fear and curiosity in their tiny little faces – who was this big giant who made so much noise??

One of Bonnie’s favorite sports was Box Sitting. I am not a native speaker of cat, but, as near as I’ve been able to determine, the rules of the game are very simple: if the cat manages to get all four feet into the box (or shoe, or whatever), it doesn’t matter how much cat is draped outside – she gets credit for sitting in the box (or shoe, or whatever). Bonnie pursued this activity with great gusto and I have many pictures of her sitting in boxes (and shoes, and whatever), most of which are way too small. She always has a big, smug grin on her face in all of those pictures. And yes, for all of you non-cat people out there, cats really _do_ smile.

When Bonnie wasn’t sitting in boxes, she was busy sculpting them. She could amuse herself for long stretches nibbling off chunks of a box and spitting them out into a pile for her human to clean up. She also enjoyed shredding paper, though fortunately, she seemed to be able to differentiate between paper on the table (off limits!) and paper on the floor (be my guest!).

Bonnie had an intense interest in Newtonian physics. She would sit on a bookshelf and push books off, watching them fall, for as long as she was allowed to get away with it. Once, while I was on vacation and the cats were entrusted to a pet sitter, she got into the kitchen cabinet and tried the same set of experiments on a dozen of my drinking glasses. For years after that, I had to resort to tying the kitchen cabinets shut when I went away overnight to prevent a repeat performance.

Bonnie is the only cat I have ever known who had her very own toilet bowl brush. She used to drag the real one out into the hall to chew on it, which struck me as exceptionally gross, so I bought her a nice clean one to chew on instead. She actually wore out two of them during her lifetime.

Although Bonnie was a very beautiful cat, she was never the natural athlete that her sister Cindy was. Bonnie was always just a little bit chunky – never obese – and definitely more than just a bit of a klutz. One night, the two of us were down in the basement where there is a suspended ceiling. Suddenly, a mouse ran across one of the light panels in the ceiling. Both Bonnie and I saw it. In an instant, she leaped from the floor to the ceiling, leaving claw marks in one of the ceiling panels before falling back to the floor. She looked up at me wide-eyed with an expression that clearly said “I can’t believe I just did that!” I looked down at her in astonishment and said, “I can’t believe you did that, either!” Years later, a pipe above the ceiling broke and I had to have most of the panels replaced but I was able to save that piece of the one where Bonnie left her mark, many years ago.

Bonnie was a proven Mighty Huntress. From time to time through the years, I had a mouse problem in the house but never for very long. Bonnie saw to that from kittenhood onward. Especially one memorable night . . .

It was about 3 AM when I was awakened by Bonnie in my bedroom, alternately trilling and then shuffling something with her front feet. It all sounded a bit ominous so I rolled over and collected my glasses and a flashlight. She was sitting across the room. She’d trill, look up at me expectantly, and then play with the LIVE little mousie between her paws.

I was equally touched and horrified by this gift. I mean, it was very special, but it was . . . a mouse. And alive. This situation clearly wasn’t going to get any better by ignoring it, so I got up, grabbed a Kleenex, went to Bonnie, praised her highly, picked the mousie up by the tail, took him downstairs, and tossed him out the back door, with an admonition to please tell his friends that my house should be scratched off their list.

I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with being termed a “pet owner”. It feels better, somehow, to think of myself as their “advocate” or “guardian”. Bonnie, however, never had any such compunction. Bonnie always _owned_ me, fiercely and selfishly. I was HER human and she often made her sister’s life a bit miserable over that rivalry. She had a boatload of funny little quirks and I will miss them all. All those tummy scritchings and all that outrageously tacky behavior, like curling up around the bowl of kibble to keep her sister from having any. I will miss having my cheek patted gently at 3 AM (or swatted, if she though I was playing possum), by a needy kitty, asking to be petted. I will really miss you, my big grey, lovable lunk.

Cindy 9/27/89 - 2/25/08

Cindy, my beloved little grey friend, was helped to the Rainbow Bridge, Monday, Feb. 26, 2008, after a lengthy battle with chronic renal failure. She went peacefully, and, as much as I miss her, I feel better knowing that her suffering is over. Her last day, Sunday, was spent sampling her various sunny spots around the house. She even gave herself a catnip fit with the old catnip-filled sock in the spare room. I sat with her much of the day and evening and we enjoyed each other’s company one last time.


Cindy took the title “Companion Animal” very seriously. She disliked being held and didn’t even seem to particularly enjoy being petted. However, she always wanted to be with me. One of her favorite spots for years was on top of my computer monitor, usually with a leg or tail artfully draped so as to cause me the most possible difficultly viewing the screen. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t allowed her to spend so much time on that old monitor; it may have been the source of many of her health problems, but that is water under the bridge.


Cindy did not seem to believe that humans could do much at all without direct supervision. Typical Cindy exchange: “Hi! Whatcha doin’? Can I help? I’d really, really like to help. Would it help if I sat right in the middle of it? If I can’t sit there, can I sit right here? I really, really want to help!”


She “helped” me eat breakfast almost every morning of her life. Her most important duty was helping me with the newspaper. She preferred to sit right in the middle of it but I would always try to suggest that she lie on the left-hand pages so I could turn the pages over her as I read. Sometimes, though, she would sit, just out of reach on the table, always with her back to me. Almost like a sentry. I never knew quite how to take this. . . . Was it an insult or was it trust?


She used to enjoy sitting in meatloaf pose -- with all her legs tucked in neatly -- on top of the refrigerator, above my head, where she could look down disapprovingly on all of the action. I always got the impression she was thinking, “If I had opposable thumbs, I would be running this place and I would do a much better job than you, too!”


Cindy was an almost frighteningly intelligent cat. When you looked into her beautiful green eyes, there was a wise old soul looking back. I always had the feeling that I’d have had a real problem on my hands if she did have opposable thumbs; that cat had figured out how things work!


I used to have a kitty fishing pole which would keep her sister, Bonnie, busy for 30 minutes at a time: cast the lure, reel in the kitty, cast the lure, reel in the kitty. (I always got bored long before Bonnie did.) Cindy, though, would spoil the game by charging across the room, biting the line in two and then running off with the lure! I got so tired of fixing it that I finally put the toy away.


The most amazing thing I ever saw her do was the morning when she threw herself down across the stairs when I was making my way down to feed them. I had to squeeze against the wall to get by her and I chided her as I went by. “Who’s going to feed you if I fall down the stairs and break my neck?” When I went back upstairs after finishing my chores, I saw immediately why she’d done what she did: someone had thrown up a hairball on the stairs and she did that so I wouldn’t step in it!


Many years ago, I had been to a class up in Boston and had left the cats in the care of a sitter who was normally quite reliable. It started to snow on the way home, and by the time I left the Mass Pike, it was bad enough that I could hardly tell where the road was. It took me about 6 hours to get home and I felt like kissing the ground when I finally had my car safely in the garage.
I unlocked the back door and Cindy was there immediately. Both of my cats are normally almost mute, but Cindy was far from mute that evening! “Hey you! “ she commanded. “Come here! You’ve GOT to see this. I don’t care if you need to pee like a horse! You come here NOW and look at this!” And she led me down into the basement where their litterbox was.
I have to admit that she had a point. It was a mess. The sitter must have missed a day, or something. So I chuckled to myself as I cleaned it out while being ordered around and cussed out by a tiny grey kitty. There was no questioning her meaning that night!


Cindy was a little clown who seemed to enjoy doing cute things to make me laugh – just as long as she was in on the joke. Once, though, she was sitting on the dining table while I was reading the paper and eating my cereal. (Doesn’t everyone let their cats sit on the dining table??) I finished my cereal and set my bowl to the side where Cindy promptly phromphed her tail into the leftover milk. I started laughing when I saw what had happened but was immediately stilled when I saw the hurt in her eyes. She picked up her tail and started licking it, very casually. I could see her expression change, though, when she found the milk on her tail. “Damn it!” her eyes said, and she jumped down to take a more private (and more thorough) bath in the kitchen.

Cindy’s sister, Bonnie, and I used to like to play “chase” games when she was younger. She loved to stalk and be stalked. One of Bonnie’s favorite hiding places was under the shower curtain on the bathtub upstairs. She’d get between the tub and the curtain, and of course, her big grey kitty butt would be hanging out for all to see. I’d come up behind her, give her a nudge with my toe, and she’d take a swipe at me. We’d continue the game until she took off running for the next bout of hide and seek.
Once night, I came upstairs and saw a kitty butt under the shower curtain. I assumed it was Bonnie and gave it a little nudge. To my surprise, a little grey critter came flying out from under the curtain, whirled around in the hall, and glared at me accusingly. “You kicked me! I can’t believe you kicked me!” It would have been quite funny except for the obvious hurt in her eyes.


Cindy seemed to have a theory that human toenails are removable and she always jumped at a chance to test her theory. The first time it happened, she was just a kitten and I was standing in the kitchen, barefoot, preparing their breakfast. I looked down to see Cindy sitting on my foot. Aw, isn’t that cute, I thought. And then the little scoundrel reached down and tried to pull the nail off my big toe! Yeouch! She never outgrew that quirk, either. I’ve always gone barefoot at my peril around here. It seemed particularly nefarious to be attacked by a little grey shadow in the bathroom at 2 AM, while sitting on the throne, sans slippers.


Although she became a lapcat as she aged, during her early years, she NEVER sat in my lap, and in bed, she would snuggle under the covers only as long as there was at least a sheet between her and her human. Back in 1999, I spent several months in a halo brace to heal a crushed vertebra in my neck. The night I finally came home in a hard collar, sans halo, Cindy crawled into my lap, curled up and went to sleep, purring up a storm. I’ve always been very touched by that.


I have read that animal behaviorists say that cats interpret our petting as they would caresses from their mother’s tongue. So, I’ve always found it touching that, when being petted, Cindy preferred to have my free hand where she could reach it with her tongue, so she could groom me, ever so gently, while I was “grooming” her. That was one of her most endearing quirks, yet it is also one of the saddest. She could never quite bring herself to simply accept all the gifts, freely given: the tokens of an astonishingly deep and loving bond which formed between two disparate creatures, sharing neither language nor species, but who came to know and love each other well. I will miss you, my little grey piece of fluff.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

I brought home two kittens back in 1989. Littermates. Sisters. I wanted them to be company for each other. I wanted them to be best friends, to groom each other and sleep in a little heap. As it turned out, they have barely tolerated each other through the years, but at least it has given them something to do all day. They have always been extremely jealous of each other. In their kitten days, this often manifested itself as a wholesale cat fight in my bed once we all settled down for the night to sleep.

I asked one of my cat savvy friends at work what to do about the turmoil in my house, and her advice was to play with the cats vigorously every night right before we went to bed. That started a ritual of wild games each night for many years, my cats and I, charging about the house from one end to the other, in high spirits, until we all fell into bed, exhausted and ready to sleep. My friend's suggestion was a good one.

In truth, Cindy never really got into the games too much. She is much too prim and proper, and probably too smart for her own good. Bonnie, on the other hand, loved to stalk and be stalked. One of her favorite "hiding" places was between the tub and the shower curtain in the upstairs bathroom. I would walk into the bathroom and see her big grey cat butt sticking out from under the shower curtain draped on the outside of the tub. I would walk over, give her fuzzy butt a little nudge with my toe, and she would take a swipe at me. I'd give her another nudge, she'd take another swipe, and then she'd take off for another round of tag through the house.

So, one evening, when I walked into the bathroom and saw a cat butt sticking out from under the curtain, I thought nothing of walking over and giving it a nudge with my foot. Except this time, the cat came whirling out of the curtain, ran into the hall, and turned and looked at me piercingly with a gaze full of shock and indignation. "You kicked me!! I can't believe you kicked me!" her eyes said. It was Cindy, not Bonnie. I was too taken aback by the genuine hurt in her eyes to laugh.

It's a funny memory, now, but bittersweet.

My First Ill-Advised Love Affair

I started piano when I was about 8, I believe. I did reasonably well at it and could have done much, much better if I'd really applied myself. I was good enough to accompany for the vocal music programs when I got to junior high and high school, and still I accompany for my flute students today.

What I really wanted to do, though, was play the flute in the high school band.

Band started in seventh grade where I went to school. I don't ever remember having the conversation where I was told that I absolutely couldn't be in the band, but I was well aware that my mother thought that band took up too much time, and there was something veiled about money for the flute in there, too. In those days, I didn't really express myself or push my wishes too much, so I quietly acquiesed and enrolled in vocal music instead.

One of my grandmothers felt sorry for me and brought me an accordion from her basement. I taught myself to play and she paid for lessons with Mrs. Yeck for the next few years.

Mrs. Yeck was a wonderful, kind, happy person. I worked hard for her and quickly became the best student she had ever had. She had an accordion band for her students and we traveled all over the place, playing for all sorts of events. Later, she formed a full polka band which played for dances on Saturday nights at Czech Hall. I played piano in the band, occasionally accordion, and several of my school friends were drafted to play trumpet and clarinet amd trombone. It was wonderful fun and we actually got paid $20 a night apiece, which was a princely sum in those days. And, after all of my mother's worries about high school band taking up too much time, she now had to deal with me crawling in from dances at 2 in the morning!

The dance music was fun but what I really loved was classical accordion. In those days, I thought that classical accordion was all about trying to make the accordion sound like an organ or a harpsicord; it was many years later when I finally learned that the accordion is a classical instrument in its own right. Mrs. Yeck fully supported me in this pursuit and even encouraged me to go to the University of Denver to study with Robert Davine the summer after I graduted from high school.

During my high school years, accordion was a passion. I practiced for hours and hours. I loved it more than anything else in the world. That summer in Denver was an incredible adventure; Mr. Davine was also a wonderful person and an inspirational teacher. I will cherish that summer for the rest of my life. It was an awakening on so many levels.

When I got back from Denver, I settled in at the University of Oklahoma, wishing that I could be a music major (and taking theory courses) but resigned to the fact that I would be going into the sciences. I still practiced hard, though, generally in the ladies' restroom in the basement of my dorm (which is a whole 'nother set of stories!).

And then, Mrs. Yeck died. Suddenly, quite unexpectedly. A blood clot after surgery. I was devasted. I loved her. She had totally believed in me. It's still not totally clear to me if I played accordion for myself or for Mrs. Yeck.

I went back to Denver the next summer and once again, had a wonderful time. But it was never the same. I was growing tired of the fact that no one took me seriously -- not even most other accordionists. There was no place to play and no one to play with. Little by little, that next year, I played less and less; my major, chemistry, began to take over my life instead. I was falling in love with research.

I still have my accordion. I get it out once and a while and noodle around. It's hard to believe that I was once so good, and so passionate. I have a couple of Mr. Davine's CDs. They are wonderful and through them, I understand the instrument much more than I did when I was playing.

Mr. Davine died, too, in 2001. I found out one day when I was Googling. I remember the moment of discovery quite well, because it was more than just the blow that once feels at the loss of a good friend. It was an even bigger loss -- the last link to a special, beloved part of my past. My first love, my first great passion. There were so many reasons why the relationship was doomed to fail. But I still feel the loss, and more than a little guilt every time I pass that instrument case in the den.

The Cats Come Home

I waited a long time to have cats.

I was well into my 30s and had bought a house before I considered myself stable enough to have cats. I had seen friends back in college bring home a kitten and then wondered how they could go off and leave it so easily as their plans changed and they moved onward through life. I couldn't even bring myself to be that cavalier with my car!

So, finally, I was grown up enough to have cats! I watched the want-ads and finally saw an ad for free kittens. I went down one evening after work to pick them up and was told that I would be taking two females from the litter of six; I was given no choice in the matter at all. I had requested two, and definitely wanted two; I couldn't image keeping a cat alone, with no one else in the house being a native speaker of "cat".

So, I brought them home, one evening in November, the week after Thanksgiving in 1989. They were about 8 weeks old and looked like tiny little grey rats! I had pictured myself with a pair of white-and-tabby critters, but I ended up with a couple of little Russian Blue wannabes who grew up to be gorgeous creatures.

I had to run off to my night job so I shut the kittens up in the basement while I went off to earn my grocery money as a telemarketer; things were tight around here the first few years in the house. When I got home, I went down to the basement to play with these two little creatures who had suddenly come into my life. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of responsibility and wondered how much more onerous it must be for people who bring home human newborns.

Finally, I had to go to bed but I didn't feel good about leaving the kittens with the run of the house. I also didn't have the heart to leave them in the basement, so I brought them, their litterbox, their food and water up to my room and shut us all in to hopefully go to sleep.

Well, that didn't happen. The kittens bounced around the room for hours and I despaired of ever getting to sleep. At some point, though, I did drop off and when the alarm went off the next morning, I looked down at the foot of the bed where the two little kittens were sound asleep in a little heap. I reached over to pet them and they started to purr. At that moment, we bonded and I knew for certain that I had done something wonderful which would change my life.

Toe in the Water

What an interesting conceit this is: I dump thoughts from my mind and post them for all the world to see! As if anyone cared. But so many have already taken the leap.

I write often and well for my work. I miss writing often and well for the sheer joy of writing. So, perhaps, this will be an outlet for me -- to get back to something which I once did very, very well.

So this is the deal I will make with myself: an essay a day. Trying to create something special from the mundane.