There was once a little kitty. She was black with a crooked tail. She was quite neurotic all by herself and her neurosis should in no way be attributed to the person who fed her and napped with her and petted her on demand. Not at all! They shared a life and so maybe some neurosis spilled over but her fear of cars and traveling was all her own.
This kitty traveled half-way across the country, twice. She really hated highways. She never offered to drive and when the car stopped she’d howl like a banshee. She once tried to escape to an Amish village. She was fiercely opposed to modern methods of transportation and thought the Amish might be her people and a good place to find a home. She was captured and kept from that life and never quite forgave her capturers for not allowing her to fulfill her destiny as a Cat of the Amish.
She really didn’t like tornadoes, either and took thunder and lightening sort of personally; fireworks, too. She had a special shoebox she’d go to whenever the gods of the sky made themselves known. She did like SciFi however and was a big fan of Mystery Science Theatre.
The kitty had many stories to tell. There are many stories to tell about the kitty.
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“something tells me it’s all happenin’ at the zoo….”
my guy sam didn’t like the car at first. so i’d get him in, then off to the diary queenesque place to get him a cuppa of vanilla ice cream. it wasn’t long before he loved riding in the car.
bear. i’m not sure if he liked riding in the car. but he definitely did NOT want to be left behind. so he was always always always struggling to get IN the car.
You’re talking about her in past-tense….
I don’t know that I can be very eloquent and do justice to her spirit today. But I will tell you that she had the biggest heart I’ve ever seen in a dog. It was healthy and strong for her 18 years and, at the end, was about the only part of her body still functioning.
Libby loved everybody and everyone that met her fell immediately in love with her. She put up with me for 16 of her 18 years (I got her at the humane society when she was 2) – even though this couch potato was never any match for her high energy and love of running free.
I don’t know where dogs go when they have to leave us. But today, I visioning Libby running free again – like she used to before her legs gave out. And loving every minute of it!
I guess I’ll start with my first cat. It was Christmas, I was 5, and from what I’ve heard my Dad carried him home from the neighbors house (where he had been hidden)in his shirt pocket.
I got up Christmas morning and found Tibsey under a chair. I just knew I was getting a cat, so I didn’t even look at all the pretty wrapped packages. I claimed him as mine, and my big sister got the litter box and food. LOL
Tibsey used to love to chase people and bite their ankles, especially if it was the middle of the night. Boy did my Hubby get a surprise the first time he went to get our sons bottle out of the fridge at night when we were staying with Mom and Dad. I guess I forgot to warn him.
Tibsey had style, class, and attitude, and lived to the ripe old age of 21. There are so many things I remember him doing, getting hooked on a fishing pole that was in the house, getting ahold of a packet of my Moms thyroid pills, and whizzing around the house like a mad cat, the time we thought he got out of the house and had the police looking for him, when really he had climbed in a cabinet and wriggled his way to the back to sleep, but most of all, I remember what a loving, cuddly buddy he was.
When my Mother died, I became Mom to her cat, a very pedigreed blue persian named “Petite Beau Bleu de Cote d’Azure.” That was his registry name. We called him Beau Bear or Buddha Bear.
Unlike most cats, he loved riding with me in my van. Actually, I’m not so sure he loved riding in the van, but he sure didn’t want to be left alone when I went out.
He went to the happy purring grounds in 1984. I still miss him, yet I smile when I think of him.
Buddha cat, lover of Mystery Science Theatre and Amish traditions! Is she going with us to the Caymans?
My sister’s cat, Sheena, was a reddish, brownish, blackish, whitish calico with an oddly flattened nose. She reminded me a little bit, in profile, of Cleopatra, or Barbra Streisand. When she sat, the way cats do, she looked exactly like the Sphinx, in miniature.
Sheena was not intimidated by people, and would come right up to any newcomer to the house and say, “Pet me! I’m adorable!” She was right, and she knew it.
Sheena was an excellent mouser, and could never quite understand why her owner was less than thrilled when she brought in dead mice from outside and laid them out, with full ceremony, on the living room floor.
Sheena did not care for fish or seafood, not even fresh-caught swordfish. But she never met a chocolate chip she didn’t like. For a Cheeto, she was yours. For two Cheetos, she was yours forever.
When Sheena died two years ago, at age 20, my sister buried her ashes in the backyard. Within the hour, a dove flew down from above and settled on that exact spot for quite a long time.
He passed over the Rainbow Bridge a year ago. He is very much missed.
When I was…ya know, I forget how old I was. Probably seven or eight. Anyway, around that time, one of my aunts found a cat in her yard in the middle of winter. Near death. She brought him in and helped him, but she couldn’t keep him, so she asked my parents if we wanted him. They said okay, and we got a Siamese named Arthur. (I forget who named him.)
I learned to speak cat-ese from him. We let him run outside (which probably wasn’t the best idea, but he was used to being an outdoor cat, I think; he always came back), and I wasn’t exactly the nicest kid to him. But I loved him, and I think he knew it and just put up with the kiddie things I did. He’d always try to cuddle up under my chin at night. I’ll never forget his cold nose.
He died a year or so later. He had feline leukemia, and the vet said it was better to just put him under rather than make him suffer. We buried him in the back yard near the sunflowers.
Even so many years later, I still start to tear up remembering him.
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these stories are beautiful! i’m so sorry i had to leave just as soon as this went up, but this is wonderful to come back to. 🙂
Peace.
named Atticus. When I would meditate, he would come over and put his nose in my hands and sit with me. I called him Buddha Cat sometimes too.