Fiber Dreams

I am a cat person. Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. Love them. I pretty much love every furry animal I’ve come across, actually. Total sucker for a fuzzy face and big eyes. Or beady ones. I loved the hamster and hooded rats I had as a youth, too. And the dog we had when I was in high school, a German shepherd/Norwegian elkhound mix that found Mom in the Sears parking lot, was delightful. But cats are fairly easy animals to keep in an apartment, and are a lot more affectionate than your typical hamster or rat. I grew up with cats, in a family of cat lovers. Life just doesn’t feel right when there’s no kitty at home waiting for me, to talk to me, rub against me, sleep on my lap. Even swear at me, like little Deli used to do all the time.

When I was a tiny lass and my parents had just bought their first house, we had a cat that I only vaguely remember. She was a small black cat named Sheba. Mom used to tell me that Sheba was a wanderer, often gone for a day or two or three at a time, until she finally just didn’t come back.

When I was three years old we moved into the house that I grew up in. And got two little kitties, litter mates, cute little boy kitties that we named Alexander and Caesar. Caesar, a classic black and white cat with paws dipped in milk, was a wanderer, like Sheba was, and managed to wander himself across a couple large backyards and into the way of traffic. After he was hit he managed to get himself into a neighbor’s yard, two doors down, where he was found and brought home. We hurried him to the vet, who tried desperately to save him, thought maybe he had, so we brought him home with strict care instructions, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Alexander mourned Caesar’s passing, and wandered the neighborhood calling and searching and calling for his brother. It was so sad. It still makes me tear up a bit, all these years later.

Dear old Alexander, a friendly orange tabby who loved it when we had a house full of company, lived to the ripe old age of 15. He was a marvelous cat. Friendly, affectionate, loving. Got in a lot of fights over the years, enough so that we swore we’d never again name a cat for a famous warrior.

We got Pandora a few months or so after Allie died. He was adorable. Yes, Pandora turned out to be a boy kitty. A Maine coon cat who was fearless until he got into his first fight, then was so timid that he hid from strangers. I don’t think Dave ever got to touch him, and all animals love Dave. Though I had gone away to college, and rarely came home most of dear Pandora’s life, I was there during his early years, so he did remember me. In the mid 80s when I got Deli I’d bring her home to visit, and she and Pandora got along tolerably well. He’d occasionally go off in a huff, complaining about kittens; you could see it in his expression, the way he held his ears and tail.

All the cats I’d had before Deli weren’t my cats, they were family cats. Deli was my kitty, as I was her human. We suffered when we were apart. The worst time for us was when I moved from San Francisco to southern California, and Deli stayed with my parents for a few months. She sat at the end of their driveway every day, waiting for me, watching for me.

Naturally, when I showed up to take her home with me she was pissed off, would hardly speak to me. She was a pistol, that cat. A card a friend gave to me once said it perfectly, “Meow, dammit.”

Like me, Deli was a bit of a mutt. The only thing I know for certain is that she was part Siamese. According to vets I talked with, a characteristic of all Siamese is that unlike all other cats their eyes reflect red; Deli’s eyes did this. It was eerie when her bright blue eyes seemed to turn red. Obviously, with that long soft fur, she wasn’t all Siamese. She might have been part Turkish van, or maybe part ragdoll. She was a tri-colored cat, so technically a calico, though two of the colors were shades of brown. Deli and I were together from the time she was six weeks old until 1-1/2 months before her 20th birthday. I still mourn that irritable little cat.

Ricki came to live with us nine months after Deli died. We adopted her as an adult kitty with a relatively unknown past. As you can see, she’s an orange tabby cat, and she has fabulous eyes that change from green to gold depending on her mood and the color of the things she’s standing next to.

Ricki is a delight. She’s sweet, mild tempered, affectionate, quiet (especially compared with Deli after she lost her hearing). Compared with tiny little Deli, who at her prime only weighed seven pounds and was much closer to five pounds when she died, Ricki is huge. When Ricki came to live with us she weighed eleven pounds. I was used to a cat with a hyperactive thyroid, who lost weight no matter how much she ate, so filled Ricki up with plenty of kitty health-food. And she promptly gained two pounds! She’s been on diet food ever since. It’s working. And she’s much happier. More playful again.

Ricki loves to rub on things. It doesn’t matter what it is, she’ll try to rub on it. Chair legs, sofas, lamp shades, the book you’re reading, afghans. Anything. Mom thinks that Ricki’s just trying to leave her scent on everything. While I’m sure that’s part of it it’s clear that leaving her mark isn’t her only motivation. She rubs because it feels.so.good!

To close I wanted to share a cat poem or saying with you. I know there are plenty of them out there. A simple search found a page of cat quotes. From poetry to proverbs, superstitions to history, it’s all there. I’ll let you peruse the site, or not, as you see fit. If you have ever had a very special attachment to a cat (or dog, it works for dogs, too), be sure you read the one about the Rainbow Bridge.

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