Késsinnimek - Roots - RacinesCAT TALES
by Louise Dubrule
by Louise Dubrule
When you have a young, energetic kitten in the house
in December, two words strike terror in your heart:
‘Christmas tree.’ We’ve just come through the
holidays with TWO kittens, and you can imagine what an
adventure this was. Our tree was climbed several
times, many packages were explored, and every
decoration was examined with great interest. Some of
my best Christmas treasures remained packed away this
year, just to be on the safe side.
One of my earliest memories includes a cat. I must have been about three, sitting on an armless rocking chair in front of a window in the main room of our farm house. I had the big Sears Roebuck catalog on my lap, and the farm cat jumped up on the open book. I was happy to pat the cat, and she promptly fell asleep. I remember sitting there with the book and cat, feeling my legs go totally numb. I continued to pat the cat, unwilling to wake her up. Mama finally came to rescue me, calling me “La petite mere au chat” (little cat lady). The label stuck, and I’ve always had cats in my life.
Don’t get me wrong: I like dogs, most dogs anyway. Big ones frighten me for some reason, so I admire them from a distance. The only exceptions to that rule are the Harlequin Great Danes that we see at the hospital when their owner brings them to visit the various wards. They are true gentle giants.
Anyway, I’m a cat person. When I was very little, the barn cats provided kittens to play with, and one little black kitten came into the house for a short while. When we moved to Richford, I was allowed to have a full-time cat. There was the tuxedo (black and white) who let me dress him in doll clothes and parade him in the doll buggy. I rewarded him by sharing my ice cream cones with them. Then there was a big gray tabby, and a tortoiseshell that Mama rescued from an abusive home.
My foray into the world of crime was due to a long-haired orange striped kitten that I found on a family trip to Megantic, and I smuggled him across the border by hiding him under my skirt. This guy grew into a very large tom whose favorite perch was on the TV, bushy tail hanging in front of the screen.
Now there are cat people, and there are dog people, and sometimes they can coexist peacefully. Luckily for me I married a fellow who was fond of cats, though he had a dog as a boy. Still, Moe is wary of little yippy dogs, for one bit him in the face when he was a youngster. Our first cats together were brother and sister team, Mike and Suzie. Then came twin yellow tabbies, Clem and Clyde who made it their business to bedevil the neighbor’s dog in tandem. Poor Cookie never did figure out that there were two of them.
We picked out Lucky as a rescue at the Animal Shelter. He was a sleek black kitty with an injured paw, but he recovered and was a fine pet though it took a while before he learned how to purr. A run-in with a motorcycle left him with a wired jaw that was twice as strong when it healed. In fact, he could turn on the bathroom sink faucet when he wanted a drink, though he never shut it off. He needed a companion, and a co-worker gave me a snow white kitten we named Pud. That one slept nestled in the rubber plant and the plant leaned more and more until it fell over and died.
About this time, our first daughter, a tiny preemie, was born, and we were advised to find another home for the cats. Before Michelle and I got home, Moe found a lady on the west side of the Franklin Mountains who was willing to take both cats, and everyone was satisfied with the outcome. When Michelle was nearly two years old, I heard a cry at our bedroom window and upon investigating, I discovered a familiar black cat who ran through the open door. It didn’t seem possible, but here was Lucky. He confirmed his identity by hopping into the bathroom sink and turning on the faucet. We called the lady who had taken him and Pud and learned that Lucky had run away within the first week, and in the intervening months, he’d made his way home. If he came over the mountain, as the crow flies, he traveled some fifteen miles but he had to climb to an altitude of 7000 feet. If he came the long way around the mountain, he walked close to thirty-five miles. In any case, he appeared none the worse for the trek. Michelle was grown up enough to be happy with her Halloween-like cat, and baby Monique grew up with him without problems.
Our next cat, after our return from Germany, was another black cat. This one, named Inky, was a long-haired female and she had been abandoned at birth by her mother. We suspect that she was marked by this trauma for she was a bit psychotic. When she was still little, she disappeared for two days and we found her high up in a neighbor’s blue spruce tree, badly tangled in kite string. She was duly rescued but we never knew how she got into such trouble.
When it was time for a replacement, we went to a rescue organization and picked out two kittens out of a roomful of playful babies. Michelle chose a long-haired red tabby that she named Erik the Red, and Monique chose a fluffy gray tabby who was dubbed Sir Gandalf the Gray after the R.R. Tolkein books she was reading at the time. Both turned out to be unique characters.
Eric was less than bright, sad to say. He
investigated places that were dangerous and we had to
keep a close eye on him. One winter evening, he came
into the den and jumped up to sit on the Franklin
stove that had a fire glowing within its belly.
Monique does a comedy routine that purports to tell us
what was going through his tiny brain:
“ At which point he jumped off the stove, and he was
quite unhurt.
Gandalf developed into a magnificent specimen of Maine
Coon and we had a breeder tell us that he was glad we
weren’t going to show him in any competition in which
he had animals. As a kitten, he came in with a leaf
in his mouth, and Monique patted him and praised him
for being a big brave hunter. Gandalf went outside
again, and within minutes he returned with a whole
twig with three leaves in his mouth. Thus, he became
Gandalf the Brave. Truthfully, he was probably the
sweetest-tempered, most patient and tolerant cat we’ve
ever had.
Pyewacket became part of our household when Michelle
saw him get hit by a car right in front of our house
and she rushed out to get him. Luckily, he was struck
just a glancing blow. Again this was a shining black
male who got along well with the other two big guys.
There were others who came in for a short time on
their way to another home: a Siamese mix named Arwen;
Cricket, a little black rescue from the Vet’s office;
and a little gray tabby with epilepsy that was the
offspring of a neighborhood stray.
At last, Gandalf was the only one left, and one day we
received a phone call from a friend who had found a
declawed Himalayan-type cat that had been dumped.
When we went to take a look, Moe offered to let her
try out his recliner, and she came home with us.
Named Mit-su, she proved to be an unwed mother who
rewarded our hospitality by presenting us with three
tiny kittens five weeks later. When the babies were
less than 10 days old, Mit-su died suddenly and I was
left with these three orphans to raise. Replacement
formula and eye droppers became my tools of the trade
as I fed the kittens every three hours around the
clock. A warm, damp washcloth took the place of a
mama cat’s tongue after the feeding; and soon it was
time for another round of feedings. I bought a
playpen to keep them corralled, and it worked out
well. I was as amazed as anyone that they all
survived. One kitten went to a good home and we
kept a long-haired tuxedo (Tux) and a smoke
medium-hair with a two layer coat and a white
moustache (Moustaffa). Gandalf was protective and
patient with the kittens and Tux followed him
affectionately.
Moustaffa proved to be a terror as a kitten, always
in trouble: one day I found him on the kitchen counter
where he’d knocked the cover off the flour canister,
and he was up to his shoulder in the flour, fishing
for God-only-knows-what. He grew up to be the biggest
cat we’ve ever had, finally topping off at a whopping
35 pounds. Picture a cocker spaniel in a cat suit!
As he grew, he kept falling off the window sill so we
put a small book shelf to extend the windowsill.
Eventually, we replaced that single bookshelf with a
microwave shelf, and that worked just fine. Each
spring he began to shed his undercoat and to prevent
painful lumps of ‘felt’, the Vet shaved him except for
his head, feet and tip of his tail. On one occasion
we had an appliance repairman here with his helper and
he saw the strange apparition that was Staffa with his
new haircut. “Good grief!” he exclaimed. “What is
that?” Moe, without batting an eye replied “That’s a
rare black African pygmy lion.” The repairman nodded
sagely and said to his helper “Oh, I think I saw those
on a National Geographic special on TV.”
Meanwhile, Tux stayed little and delicate. When she
was barely six months old, she ate a small ball of
crochet cotton and it took emergency surgery to free
her knotted innards. It was a long recovery, and she
needed a special diet for the rest of her life. She
was worth it.
This brother/sister duo lived with us to a ripe old
age, and when at last we had an empty house, we
decided that we’d had enough of pets and we talked
about being to able to pick up and leave at a moment’s
notice without making arrangements for an animal. Our
resolve lasted less than week. While I was putting my
groceries in the car, I heard a plaintive cry in the
supermarket parking lot, and this grimy, scared kitten
came running to me. Without a second thought, I
brought him home and he became Moses. All right: a
voice crying out in the wilderness (desert) should
have been John the Baptist, but he was a foundling
anyway. When he was cleaned up and checked out by the
Vet, it was obvious that Moses was a Ragdoll cat and
he grew up to be a very large, very intelligent animal
who played hide and seek and ‘fetch’ with great
enthusiasm. It was a blow to lose him.
It is a fact that if a cat is unhappy at home, it will
simply leave and find another home or fend for itself
as a stray. Such is the case for Tiger Lily who left
a neighbor’s house with her two young daughters,
Munchkin and Tubby. For five years they appeared
regularly on our patio, waiting for a handout, or they
sat on the windowsills looking in. After the loss of
Moses, we invited Tubby in and after a couple of brief
visits she came in and made herself at home. Nearly a
year later, she brought in her mother and showed her
where to find the sandbox, the food dishes and the
best places to sleep. Tiger Lily had had a tough time
as an outdoor cat on her own, even to losing the tip
of her tail in some accident. Now called Mama Kitty,
she is still with us as the grande dame.
Meanwhile, I’ve been feeding other stray cats and Moe
put up little houses to shelter them in the winter or
during the infrequent rain. We watched two black
siblings grow up though we couldn’t put a hand on them
In April of this year, the female had six kittens in
one of the houses just outside of our front door. By
now this female needed a name and she became Pearl
Bailey and her brother had to be Bill Bailey, of
course. The kittens disappeared overnight when they
were eight days old, most likely the victim of a big
stray male. Pearl didn’t seem particularly upset
about the loss of her first litter and continued to
spend most of her time in our backyard with her
brother. Imagine our surprise when, six weeks later,
she appeared with four kittens in tow. Obviously,
Pearl had moved them to another location. Two had
succumbed somehow, but these little ones appeared in
good health though they were wild as March hares.
Now, nearly eight months later, two of those kittens
have become permanent members of the family after
being altered and getting their shots. They spend
their time playing with a basketful of fur mice and
running amok throughout the house before finally
napping. Boston Blackie is ebony black with faint
stripes when viewed in the right light, and Miss
Marble is an adorable long-haired tortoiseshell who is
very timid and not terribly bright. Boston is the
playful, inquisitive type who is always on the move,
and Mama Kitty has tried to tell him who is boss,
reinforcing the message occasionally with a rap right
between the eyes. It doesn’t do much good, however:
he’s bigger than she is.
I have a framed drawing that Monique did of a group of
cats playing with yarn in and around a big armchair,
and if you know our family history, it’s possible to
identify all the animals. The drawing has a caption
that reads “With cats it’s never a still life.”
Ain’t it the truth!
Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
Copyright © 2003 & 2004 & 2005 & 2006 & 2007 Norm Léveillée
© Tous droits réservés
Created 1 Feb 2003