Peggy’s daughter, Allison, recently lost Remy, her longtime companion, a beautiful yellow and white long haired cat that unfortunately spent the last couple of years of his life on only three legs. We all shared in her pain at losing a family member almost as much as if he were ours. Trust me, tears were shed by most of us.
It also helped me realize that my life is basically ruled by two cats. It used to be three, but I, too, lost one not too long ago.
I had always been a dog guy. One of my earliest recollections was playing with Rusty, our old cocker spaniel in front of the fireplace. I was 3 or 4 years old. After that, we always had a dog as I was growing up and I’ve had several during my adult years.
That changed in 1994 when my mother gave me a seal point Siamese for my birthday. Since I am a fan and avid reader of Lillian Jackson Braun’s ‘The Cat Who. . .’ books, I named her Koko after the chief investigator cat of Braun’s literary masterpieces. Actually, her personality is more like YumYum, the dainty female in the books, but mine became Koko.
Shortly after that, at my old warehouse downtown, a stray grey and white street cat walked in one day and said, “I’m here. Where’s dinner?” I named her Squirt and she promptly had two liters of kittens under my desk. Peggy took one kitten from each of the liters. Later, the first of those, had a liter and I adopted one of hers. So really, Brat is the grandson of Squirt. Keeping it in the family, I guess.
After I closed the warehouse, I moved Squirt out to the farm where she joined Brat and Koko. But Squirt always was my companion, slept with me and stayed on my desk if I was working. If I was watching TV, she was on my lap.
I still miss her unending loyalty and devotion.
As she’s gotten to be an old lady, Koko has more or less become my sister’s cat. Basically, she doesn’t like my cigarette smoke. But she is still mouthy and let’s you know exactly what she wants. While she loves to be a lap cat, a little rub of her ears gets her motor going and she has a purr that will rattle the windows.
Brat has grown up to be a mountain lion or about the same size. He strectches out to about 4′ and weighs better than 20 lbs. without an ounce of fat. But, he has no meow-er. He squeeks. But, for a squeeker, he has a pretty good vocabulary. While he sleeps with me some, he prefers stealing one of the dog’s beds. An avid bird watcher, he is usually found on the kitchen cabinets dreaming of an escape and chasing birds and squirrels. Hourly, he comes into the cave just to check on what I’m doing. Usually, he shows his disgust and stalks off. And I can’t go to the bathroom or take a shower without his supervision. Freaks me out a bit.
Ironically, Brat tries to be the dominant male, but Koko kicks his butt all of the time. He is usually nursing a scratch, bite mark or missing fur from the dainty little Siamese.
By the way, why do cats prefer bathroom water to kitchen water? I have to keep a drip going because they can’t lower themselves to drink out of the water bowls the other animals use.
Both Koko and Brat have their own food and their own eating place. Although Brat likes to steal some of Koko’s food, much to her consternation.
It’s even worse at Peggy’s. She has four.
We finally had a decent game at Liberty last week, followed by two more that were terrible. I have one more game that I’m doing on Friday night and then I have to cancel out the last Women’s game as I’ll be on my way to Texas.
It looks like the Firefly Funnel Cake Fandango will be making an appearance in Nashville and one in Dallas before heading to Austin. We’re working on a Firefly glaze for the funnel cakes to honor our title sponsor, Firefly Vodka. And SXSW should be a ball. I think Jason is going to make some changes to these pages and we will probably be driving pictures, videos and content from the trip to this blog. So starting next week, keep checking back. You can keep up with us daily here as well as on Twitter and Facebook.
I’ll keep you posted.
