My Little Piece of the World Has Changed
Saturday was October 20, 2007. I had to have my cat put to sleep. She was
15-1/2 years old - not bad for a cat - they age like dogs about 7 years to
every one so that made her 108.5 years old.
This was very traumatic for me as it would be for anyone. She seems to have had a stroke so her
appearance was one of a creature with no control of her body and in a great
deal of pain. I was horrified for her
and needed to do whatever I could to help her.
Unfortunately, within an hour of finding her like that the Vet confirmed
that the best course of action was euthanize her.
May she rest in peace under the crabapple tree
with her blanket and her favorite toys. We put her mitten and her mouse next to
her head since they were her favorite (that is when she would lower herself to
commonality and actually play!)
Her name was Larry, or Chipper alternately. She
was named after Chipper Jones of the Atlanta
Braves.
Well - actually - that is not the whole truth
and nothing but the truth Your Honor.
Her real name was Shitbird
You see Larry and her name came to be like
this..................
Fifteen years ago my friend took in a cat -
Pooky - much to the dismay of her husband, as most guys are he was a DOG
PERSON.
Turns out, Pookie was preggers!
That was not good for Pooky or her offspring in
the eyes of my friend’s husband. (he is not a bad guy - he just was concerned
about a stray animal coming into the home) Fortunately, my friend persuaded her
husband that all would be well and Pooky had a small litter of three kittens in
the relative comfort of a beautiful bay front home.
I immediately offered to take one of the
kittens. There were two black ones and a gray one. I wanted a black one. Since
I didn't live in the area any longer, my parents (CAT PEOPLE) did the honors.
And 6 weeks later 'Samantha' came home to her
summerhouse - my parents home.
They took her to their vet for all the
appropriate initial inspections and shots. (Bless them; as I was not exactly
rolling in the money)
I could not get away from work (even on
weekends) for a couple more weeks. While waiting to meet me Samantha spent her
time exploring the den, sleeping amongst a pile of speaker cable and being
utterly loved by my parents.
My boyfriend, now husband, and I finally got to
meet her.
We took her home with us to my apartment where
she was an instant hit with my roommate. Its hard to not like a kitten - they
are little balls of fur with big heads and eyes. And they want to PLAY at all
times.
I lived on the second floor and the stairs were
inside the apartment.
Samantha would barrel down the stairs the
minute she heard a key in the lock and meet us at the door. Problem was she was
at most 6 - 8 inches long fully stretched out - getting back up those stairs
was quite a feat!
She never gave up - and we did let her go for
several steps each time so she would learn but we always picked her up after a
few and brought her the rest of the way up.
She was a hoot as a kitten running to
everything to see what it was, everyone loved her and she seemed to love
everyone back. Always making sure she
was wherever we were.
Seeing herself in the mirror for the first time
- she hissed. Then she promptly decided she was bigger and badder than that
other cat and ignored it from then on.
Which was good because her next trick was
sitting on my shoulder while I applied make up for work.
She loved my husband - always coming to him
when he would come over, charming him every chance she got. (He is also a DOG
PERSON)
She was just always jumping and bouncing and
flying around and so my husband just one day called her:
'Shitbird'
And it stuck.
Unlike her original name 'Samantha', this cat
actually answered to 'Shitbird'!
Samantha was gone - but what was I going to
tell my parents? And the Vet?!?!?!?
Now, I had never heard that word before. But I have heard it since, in a movie. Don Johnson referred to Mickey Rourke as
'Shitbird' in the movie 'Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man' - Yeah, I saw
that movie. (On video though - not like I actually went to a theater to see it)
So - Shitbird it was and we continued on in our
life, my future husband, Shitbird and me.
Until yesterday.
I’d like to share with everyone some of the
things that are whirling through our heads as we grieve.
This is no “Marley and Me’. I am not a professional writer – but these
are highlights of our life with Larry the Shitbird as best as I can tell them.
I hope you laugh a little along the way – we
really did for fifteen years:
Sucking Her ‘Thumb’
One day she did something that we have never
seen before or since. I prefer to believe that she is the only cat in the world
who did this so please don't ruin that for me by telling me that she was not
unique - I need to believe this right now.
This is one of my favorite memories of her.
When she was about 4 months old, I was lying
around on the couch and she jumped up on me and laid down on my chest. Her face
was very close to my face. And she looked at me and started to purr. The next
thing she did was the cool, unique thing. She stuck what on a human hand would
be her thumb into her mouth and started sucking on it!
She did this for more than an hour, purring
away.
She did this quite often with both my husband
and I for much of her youth. She stopped at about five years old and she did it
once in the last year.
I was fascinated by this act - to me it was
such an act of complete comfort – showing us that she felt so safe with us. I
asked a vet about it and he said he felt she may have been weaned too young.
Which could be true.
I am not sure why she stopped sucking her
thumb. Maybe she just grew out of it like children do. I hope it wasn’t because
she didn't feel safe anymore. I hate to think that because I loved her so much
and tried to do whatever I could to give her a good life.
I do think that her stopping may have had
something to do with a houseguest we once had. After we had this houseguest
Shitbird was no longer a friendly cat to anyone except my husband, my mother
and myself.
Now I can't believe that our guest actually did
anything to Shitbird, she had a cat of her own.
But this is the weirdest thing.
Early in the morning I heard this horrible
growling / howling noise. I couldn't imagine what this was - it was loud and
woke me up.
I opened my bedroom door to see Shitbird
directly in front of the closed bathroom door. She was the source of the
growling and howling - she looked like something out of Pet Cemetery.
Inside the bathroom, terrified to come out was
our houseguest! She had been stuck in the bathroom for about a half hour before
I woke up.
Here was this cat that up until now sucked her
thumb while lying on my chest and now I couldn't get near her! I could not pick
her up or shoo her away from the door. She more than didn't like our houseguest
- she HATED her and I am fairly certain wanted the woman dead!
We had to throw a towel over Shitbird to wrap
her up and get her away from the bathroom. She didn't calm down until after our
houseguest left.
Our houseguest said nothing happened - she didn't
accidentally step on the cat or accidentally shut her tail in the bathroom door
- the cat just cornered her in there and wouldn't let her out.
I don't know if she was telling the truth
because like I said - the cat was fine with people up until then. If anything
did happen I am sure it was an accident and this woman was just frightened or
embarrassed to tell us.
I do have a secondary theory: This woman really
smelled like mothballs! She stored her
clothes from season to season and used mothballs – I am sure she couldn’t smell
it on herself but we could since we didn’t use them and if I could smell them
on her then a cat would just be immersed in the camphor smell. Which sounds pretty gross to me but I don’t think
I would try to hurt a mothball smelling person – but then again I am not a cat.
Has anybody every heard of that? Do mothballs cause a cat to wig?
Anyway - Shitbird was now officially a mean
cat. The reason, incarnate, that people
hate cats lived with me.
The Killer Cat
If anyone other than my husband, my mother or
myself came near her they paid with blood. We always told everyone to leave her
alone but of course there was always someone who wouldn't listen.
There is always someone in every crowd isn't
there? And it is usually a man. Tell a woman that something may try to take a
piece out of her if she touches it and guess what? She doesn't touch it!
Even at our last party this summer one of the
husbands' had to harass the cat to see if we were telling the truth.
See Shitbird was a beautiful, all black
domestic longhair - she looked like a Persian without the mushed face. She was
beautiful and looked so soft (she was very soft). It was very tempting to want
to touch her.
And she was all of eight pounds so these folks
did not believe that she could take them out just because we said so!
They also refused to believe the former 'blood
donors' who were in attendance at the party and had to go for it.
Good thing this guy had quick reflexes because
I heard that growl
again, you know the one from above, and if he didn't move quickly I knew he was
toast! He apparently had good reflexes
because he escaped without harm.
So how did Shitbird become Larry you ask?
Well, we were just going about our normal life and one day discovered
something.
Our nephew could talk!
Oh boy – we were not really being as careful as we should in front of
the little guy and oops we were calling the cat by name. Well he was learning how to speak and as
children do he was repeating what he heard.
Or at least he was trying to. And
out of his mouth fortunately did not come ‘Shitbird’ but ‘Chipper’. I am grateful to my father-in-law who was
right there when this happened and he didn’t miss a beat – he started calling
for ‘Chipper’ too. Disaster diverted and
‘Chipper’ was born
So we ran with Chipper, the cat still responded to it since it was so
close to Shitbird, especially if you say it fast
Go ahead – try it out, I’ll wait………………………………………………………..
See – not bad, Huh?
And – Added plus! – hubby is an Atlanta
Braves fan and loves Chipper Jones.
So all was good.
One day while watching a game I
asked a stupid question. I know it was
stupid because I was told so! I don’t
really fancy baseball, so I don’t have a clue.
I said to hubby – “Why are they calling Chipper ‘Larry’?”
When he was done explaining that people don’t really name their
children ‘Chipper’ and that Larry is
really Chippers’ name he continued with explaining that the opposing fans try
to irritate Chipper at the plate by calling him by his given name.
So I got a brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) I decided when Chipper was irritating us we would irritate her right
back by calling her ‘Larry’.
My husband spent a little time trying to explain that the cat wouldn’t
get it but I was not interested in that line of thought.
Clawing at the carpet?
‘Larry!’
Harassing the dog?
‘Larry!’
I was told I was being silly.
BUT – he started calling her Larry too.
Well let me tell you, scratching the carpet and bothering the dog were
Larry’s favorite pastimes – she really couldn’t be bothered with a scratching
post or other toys.
Why when there was a whole house of carpeting and a living, breathing,
potentially bleeding thing to play with?
Larry was really the bane of the dogs’ existence so we were using the
new name a lot!
And eventually she answered to Larry so we ran with that.
I wonder if Larry was ever confused by all that name changing? Or if she was just a combination of irritated
and amused by her crazy people.
Oh you didn’t read incorrectly I just mentioned a dog up there.
We have a dog too, a 110 pound, eight year old Rottweiler named
Buffett. Yes, after Jimmy.
I think Larry and the dog had a love/hate relationship.
My husband brought Buffett home one day. She was smaller than a five-pound bag of sugar
and probably weighed less than that. It
was a bad day for Larry.
Larry was NOT amused.
She took one look at the puppy and hissed at her. She then looked at my husband and hissed at
him, and turned and slinked into ‘her’ room.
(Which is my office – which is pretty lonely right now).
I figured since everybody had all their parts and there was no blood we
were ahead of the game.
Over the years their relationship evolved into an understanding of
sorts.
Buffett understood that Larry could take her out and Larry understood
that she would take out Buffett if only she could be certain to not get stomped
on in the process!
Buffett always wanted to play and Larry was always not amused. Buffett jumps up and down quite a lot when
she wants to play so I am pretty certain that Larry was very worried about
being stomped on. Being stomped on is
not fun for me so I would guess that it didn’t look like fun to Larry.
Larry hardly ever wanted to play with anyone or anything from about age
two on. So this was a breeding ground
for trouble.
She was strong and mean so she usually won out – in her mind anyway.
I am VERY sure she was aware of her power over the dog. I swear I could see her smiling gleefully
whenever I would catch her with the dog cornered.
Larry cornered Buffet whenever she could. Once when Buffy was about six months old my
husband and I lost track of her and started and search and ‘rescue’ mission
through the house.
We found her. We looked in our
spare bedroom, sitting in the corner, staring at the corner as though she was a
child who had been told to ‘go stand in the corner’. We called her and she would not move a
muscle. On the third calling of her name
she turned ever so slightly to look over her shoulder to the opposite corner.
And she very quickly, in the blink of an eye looked back to ‘her’ corner and
resumed the impersonation of a statue.
We were momentarily perplexed.
Then we walked further into the room and saw the problem.
Larry was sitting in the opposite corner just staring at Buffy, with
her tail twitching ever so slightly.
And I swear to you she looked so proud of herself! And she was definitely smiling at her
accomplishment of cornering a dog that at that time was at least 7 times her
size.
We yelled, ‘Larry! Leave Buffy alone!’ and Larry meowched, (that is a
word we made up to describe Larry’s meow when she was irritated – it was a
‘meowch’ – to say that ‘she was meowching’ was akin to saying ‘She was
bitching’) at us, tucked her ears back to express her disgust for our obvious
like of this other creature and slinked off to her room.
We still laugh about that – it’s very funny to imagine a large, fierce
looking dog being cornered by an eight-pound puffball!
Larry generally just hissed and growled warnings at Buffy when she got
too close. If she did take a swat Buffy
was always able to get out of the way very quickly. Since the swats never actually landed this
was all a big game to Buffy.
That was until one night a few years ago.
I guess Larry was feeling very threatened this particular night or at
least very ‘meowchy’. She was under our
bed and I can only assume needed to leave our room to get to ‘her’ room.
Well Buffy always comes to bed when my husband and I do. Sometimes she joins us on the bed – (that
experience is another blog) and sometimes she lies on the floor.
When a 110-pound dog lays on the floor she takes up a lot of
floor.
As I said Larry was under the bed and Buffy was on the floor –
effectively blocking Larrys’ escape.
I guess Larry couldn’t take it any longer and she wanted out. Poor Buffy was sound asleep and all of a
sudden:
‘Yelp!’
Larry landed her one and only swipe ever on the dog – right on Buffys’
ear, and I think a vein. Blood splatter
everywhere! – on the wall, on the rug and fur flying as Larry escaped the
bedroom.
I think my husband and I were more upset than the dog. Buffy was just confused looking – she was
kind of asking with her eyes:
‘ Why am I awake and what is dripping from my ear?’
We couldn’t believe that the cat got the dog; especially when in our
minds the dog wasn’t even trying to engage the cat. She never struck out at Buffy before or since
without being provoked in some way. When
we calmed down we realized that. Up
until we calmed down we were a little concerned for the dogs future
health.
All is well that ends well. In a
few minutes Buffys’ ear stopped bleeding and she was on our bed curling up with
us snoring away as though nothing happened.
Larry was in her room – presumably meowching to herself.
Buffy still tried to engage Larry to play pretty much every day in
spite of the blood loss of this little event.
But things were not all roses and daffodils every day.
A few years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor – no cancer or
anything but it did require removal.
This required a crainiotomy; which takes a little bit of time to recover
from, due to the hole in your skull!
This event, I believe, was what changed some things between Buffy and
Larry. Buffy became more protective of
me while I was recovering. She
absolutely would have nothing to do with Larry being on my lap or too near
me. There was this huge jealousy thing
going on. Buffy had to have me all to
herself. And she still does. More often than not she positions herself
closest to me when the family is hanging out.
My husband swears that she greets me more gleefully than she greets
him. If I go out and leave her, there is
whining and waiting by the door going on the whole time I am gone.
This event and its effect on Buffett created a few behavior changes in
Larry as well.
First was the ‘Hit and Run’ or more precisely the ‘Run, Hit and Scoot’
This behavior consisted of ‘running’ out from wherever she was when she
heard the back door open to wherever my husband and I were at the time. The door opening meant that the dog was
outside, YEAH for Larry!
She would jump in our laps or rub against our legs – ‘hitting’ us up
for lovin’. Not that we didn’t give her
attention any other time – we certainly did.
But all you cat owners know that cats want what they want on their terms
so – this is how she did it.
And at the sound of the door opening again – she would ‘scoot’ back to
her room to avoid the dog.
Being a cat and wanting things on her terms she did have a variation to
this behavior. She would sometimes
belligerently remain with us when the dog returned. There would be some exchange of growling and
hissing and meowching before Larry made more of a disgruntled ‘slink’, rather than scoot, back
to whatever she considered her domain.
The other Larryism that developed was just named by my husband as we
were reminiscing and grieving our loss this weekend. My husband said to me
“I already miss ‘Poopis Interurptis’ “
I just laughed until I cried.
‘Poopis Interuptis’, you see was Larry’s habit of joining us in the bathroom.
Buffet will NOT push open a door no matter what is on the other
side. Not for anything – juicy steak,
favorite toy, Larry near Mommy, NOTHING.
Larry caught on to this pretty quickly.
She began scratching at the bathroom door when one or the other of us
was in there, until we let her in. So we
developed a habit of not latching the door if it was just us in the house.
We would go in, close the door to just before it would latch and two
little taps later in would come our little Larry. She would be purring and she would just waltz
right up to the toilet – absolutely no concern for our dignity and pretty much
demand via meowching some petting and scratching of the butt! Do you believe this?
Oh and she actually like her tail being pulled just a little bit at
these times – I kid you not.
The other bathroom habit she had involved when I would take a
bath. She would wander in using the same
entry method used for poopis interuptis and seat herself on the edge of the
tub. Her goal was to lick some water
from the faucet or out of the tub (eeew!) so no bubble bath for me out of
concern for Larrys health.
When she was done she would announce her need to leave with a loud hiss
at the door since Buffy was always just outside said door waiting for me.
Oddly enough though - as much as
it seemed that Buffett didn’t want Larry near me, as much as it seemed that
perhaps Buffett had grown to be very jealous of Larry – if I was trimming
Larrys’ nails, not a favorite event for Larry, Buffett was there – barking at
me as if to say – Why are you hurting my ‘sister’?
In more recent years Larry and Buffett came to an understanding of
sorts regarding who could be in what room when.
They shared all the rooms except Larry’s room fairly equally. Buffy would not go into Larry’s room which
gave Larry a place that was completely dog free.
They agreed to share the front room – Larry had her basket, under a
chair and the floor next to the bed while Buffett had the bed. Larry had the bed if Buffett wasn’t using it.
In the living room Larry had under the rocker, in front of the wine
rack or on the ottoman while Buffett could be wherever else she wanted
In our bedroom Larry had under the bed, usually my side, or right at
the door while Buffett had on the bed or just next to it (the bloody ear
incident seemingly forgotten by both).
If Larry needed to leave and Buffett was asleep Larry would very
stealth-like tiptoe over Buffett and out the door. Buffett was none the wiser. If Buffett was awake there was always a
little vocal exchange but no blood.
Larry also liked the hallway – Buffett tolerated that but gave as wide
a berth as she could when passing by a lounging Larry.
The kitchen – that was fair game.
Buffett begs so if my husband and I are there so is Buffett. Larry would not let anything get in the way
of her getting some fresh tuna. If there was can opener noise Larry was going
to determine for herself if that meant tuna!
They usually gave each other wide berth so they could both be there at
the same time. Tuna was the only people
food she would ever eat. No mayo
please.
On the Thursday before she died I was home from work not feeling
well. I made some tuna so she did get to
have some of her favorite food that week.
My husband also let her outside to sit on the patio on Friday – something we didn’t do often because she
was an indoor cat. But she really loved
being outside so she did get to do that too.
And she spent some time in my lap on Friday night too.
She was under our bed on Saturday morning, on my side. My husband checked on her before we left to
run errands. She meowed at him and
pushed him away with her paw – this was normal for her when she didn’t want to
be bothered.
When we came home a few hours later we were alarmed that she was not in
the hall to greet us as was her habit so my husband looked under the bed again.
‘She doesn’t look right’
I came in and looked at her. I
retrieved her as carefully as I could from under the bed. It was apparent that she could not lift her
head or stand. She was limp except for
her legs, which were sticking straight out.
She meowed at me and looked at me.
I picked her up and placed her on our bed. I called the vet and he told me to bring her
right over.
As I said in the beginning it was clear to me and clear to the people
trained in animal care that there was nothing that could be done to save my
little Larry.
I stayed with her while she received the injection, my husband couldn’t
bear it. I continued to pet her until
the vet assured me she was gone. And I
continued to pet her for a bit after. I
carefully placed her in the box we used to bring her in. We didn’t want to use her carrier – she hated
the carrier and I couldn’t see doing anything to make her feel worse so we used
a box with her blanket in it.
The vet and the vet techs couldn’t have been any kinder. They were so compassionate, so much more so
than many doctors for people seem to be.
I will be forever grateful to them.
We brought Larry home. We went
to her room and placed her in a shoebox with her blanket and all her toys. I cried over her for several minutes. My husband cried too. And Buffett stood at the door to Larry’s room
not entering, as she knows she is not allowed to come in unless we invite her.
We invited her in, my husband stood back. Buffett came over to me, I had the shoebox
casket with Larry inside on my lap.
Buffet looked into the box and sniffed Larry and licked her side just
once. She sniffed her for about a
minute.
Then she looked up at me. She leaned into me and placed her head on my
shoulder and stood there for a minute, essentially hugging me. She backed away and looked at me again and
then turned to leave the room and go to my husband.
I believe Buffett knew how sad I was and did what she could do to comfort
me.
We all went outside and buried Larry under the crabapple tree. After that Buffett went to my husband and
‘hugged’ my husband.
The next morning when I let Buffett out to do what dogs do in a yard I
saw her standing over her ‘sisters’ grave in an obvious protective stance.
I do believe she loved that cat.
Our animals are truly amazing creatures aren’t they?
There are probably a million more things I can’t remember right
now. I am tired with grief and can’t
think of them. I hope I never forget how
soft she was, or the sound of her purr.
The sucking noises she made while she lay on top of me just relaxing
when she was younger.
Or how she just really was the ‘Queen Bean’ of the household and made
sure we all knew it.
My husband wants to get more dogs.
I like dogs too and would love to have another one. I love Buffett just as much as Larry. Larry can’t be replaced.
But I think I am a cat person at heart and I think I am going to need
to get another one someday.
Someday.
Lily