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.