And Marcella at 76
Sometime well after I’d acquired Tuxedo and Tiger Tiger, I did the math. And realized that when they reach 15, I’ll be 90. What was I thinking? I don’t even see myself at that age.
Of course, I didn’t know what I was getting into last July when the Lewis and Clark Humane Society held an adopt-a-palooza. Simon had died three weeks before. The house was unacceptably empty. I was intrigued by a Bozeman friend’s acquisition of two kitties. The Humane Society promoted the advantages of adopting two or more together: company and entertainment for each other. And the unspoken reality—more homes for the hundreds of kittens who would arrive on their doorstep all summer.
So that day came with reduced adoption fees. Two kittens for the price of one. Lines out the door. Bouncing kids, cautious parents. Businesses sponsoring cats. Friends “buying” cats for friends. I didn’t even get past the front room–lined with cages—and a ten-week-old pair of cutie pies.
The two I spoke for weren’t siblings but had been cage buddies. Mouse and London Fog to the Humane Society staff. In a fit of banality, I christened them Tuxedo and Tiger Tiger. Tuxedo, of course, is wearing one. Four white spats, a white bib, and a long streak of white down his tummy. Tiger Tiger is a mackerel tabby—whose fur is an intricate blend of fish-bone patterning and tiger stripes, black, gray, and caramel. Why two Tigers? The William Blake poem:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
I’ve taken to making up my own last two lines of the verse – doggerel, different each time. Tiger Tiger is not impressed.
Tuxedo is an imp, a scamp, a rapscallion who walks cowboy bowlegged. There is no surface in the house too high for him. He can take off from the middle of my bed and land six feet down the corridor. Going after a toy mouse or a moving snake, he doesn’t just run and catch, he pounces. Once he is sure I’ve settled for the night, he comes to sleep in the crook of my knees. His fur is expensive black mink and his body oddly muscular. He is not at all willing to sit on my lap, but is a champion leg rubber. He’ll follow me, meowing for attention. And then fling himself down in front of me – on his back, sharing his long streak of tummy white – asking for a belly rub. And if I say “up up,” he’ll hop onto the bed and repeat the trick so that I can rub his tummy without getting dizzy in the process. If I end our belly rubbing session too soon, Tuxedo will put his paws on my chest and stare at me intently.
Tuxedo’s best trick of all–hard to believe every time it occurs: he fetches. In the right mood, he’ll find one of his hybrid bird/mice (created by someone who captured the best attributes of both species) and bring it to me—lots of leg rubbing to get my attention. And when I throw it, he brings it back. Repeatedly. Recently, he’s begun fetching those light-weight practice golf balls.
Tiger Tiger is soft—body soft and fur soft. Silky. And personality soft as well. He too is not a lap cat, but a snuzzler. He comes right up on my chest, tucks his head under my chin, and begins cuddling and nuzzling—well, and licking and kneading. Snuzzling. We share kitty kisses—or Eskimo kitty kisses with a little nose rubbing. There are days when he comes for snuzzles three or four times. And days when he stays on the back of the sofa bird watching. He’s the cat most impatient for treats and human food. For escaping to the garage. He’s been slower to leap to high shelves. And when he was little, just plain cautious. I find it easy to worry about his well-being in the face of Tuxedo’s bullying. But when the two buddies began play-fighting, Tiger Tiger is usually the aggressor.
I’ve spent a small fortune on toys for the boys. Many of them battery-operated or USB port energized. When the kitties were small, toys that wiggled or spun distracted them from dangerous or destructive behavior. Many devices missed the manufacturer’s promises. And the kittens grew bored with some. Over the long haul, the most captivating toys have been the cheapest: long sticks with feathers and bells or those bice—those bird/mouse combinations. In fact, the boys love freebies: ribbon, a length of rope, dishwashing scrubbies, Q-tips, a swinging cord attached to window blinds, a fly outside the window, magpies getting suet, a flash of sun reflected by glass onto the wall. This morning, I found the two of them engrossed in catching a baby spider running around under my glass bathroom scales. They succeeded in moving the scales and reaching their prey.
Of well-spent cat money, I count the floor-to-ceiling climbing post at the top of the list—though it required multiple rounds of reinforcement from Bryan and Peter. The next best purchase was a Litter Genie.
Tiger Tiger and Tuxedo remain closely bonded. Tiger Tiger figured out how to open all my lower cabinet doors—bathroom and kitchen. Tuxedo watched and became equally adept. If Tiger Tiger—from his perch on the back of the sofa—spots a juicy bird, Tuxedo will come running from other rooms. Let one knock a pan off the kitchen counter and both of them will scamper away—and then peek around a corner at me, sharing the guilt. They’ll cuddle up together on my bed in the afternoon, grooming each other. Or both amble out to the living room and take up posts in my vicinity but not right next to each other.
I’ve never quite bought unconditional love in a human arena. Fierce love. Protective love. Joyful love. Love deep enough to see past a hundred flaws and insults. Unconditional seems a stretch. You may feel differently. But I’m besotted with the boys. Kittens or big boys now—they attach no human meaning to a big bouquet of silk flowers or the marble bookends or the begonia plant that dates to Dave’s apartment on Hoback Street. The house is their jungle gym. How on earth could they distinguish between a whirligig commercial toy and the green peas I just dropped on the kitchen floor?
I have friends who recommend a shot of water—to help them learn “right from wrong.” In another life, I might have succumbed. Instead, I now belong to the “praise good behavior” school of thought, the “let’s distract them” methodology. And for sure, the “pick your battles” framework. I find it a wonderful blessing that my best friends tolerate the boys investigating dinner from the unfilled chair at the table.
Most of this past year’s training was mine. That begonia plant is the only living one in the house. The ferns in the fernery and the cactus on my desk came from China. I try to remember to put the dishwashing scrubbies beyond the boys’ reach. I have a lidded cup for the water I drink all day long—otherwise I’d be sharing.
Two cats, of course, amount to more than two. They are a more complex, funnier, more maddening and more intriguing blend. Dare I say, a bit of a family. Not rivals to the grandkids, but still now home to me.
So I am one more old lady who loves her cats. The boys infused this year of aging, this year of an endless, ugly winter with laughter and wonder and love. Amanda when she was little spent hours studying her kitty Cat-rina. Also a brown, black, and grey tabby. I do the same, now, with the boys. Even more comforted by their quirks and their beauty. Perhaps most of all, I am made whole by their attachment to me. The belly rubbing that they request. Tuxedo’s pure joy when I throw him the mouse. Tiger Tiger’s snuzzling when a warm, soft ten pounds of cat helps me forget my uncooperative knees.
If these two cats are that wonderful, I think about the rest of the creatures on this planet that I don’t know as well. The intricate miracles of sunlight and thunderstorms and super moons and osmosis. The beings on this earth that I’ve not yet had the privilege to meet. And might never. Bless the boys who spark those wonderings, those awarenesses–antidotes to the limits and losses of aging.
Here’s to cats! Here’s to wonder! ©
