My Life in Cats
Audrey, Johnny, Harlan, Annie, Hattie, Bob, Rascal
How much space can a scraggly little five-pound cat take up in a house? Seemingly a lot. I feel as though this is my first official day without Hattie, a cat-less house, if you will. It’s a strangely silent house. We have had at least one cat in the house, and up to four, since we moved into our own apartment in 1984.
I canceled my cat litter order. It was Skoon by the way, which I highly recommend. To cancel your account you have to check one of a list of reasons. Curiously, they do not list ‘death of cat’ or even ‘no longer have a cat’ as an option.
They do list ‘cat did not transition well’ but I’m assuming they mean to the new litter. I’m counting on Hattie having transitioned just fine. I forget what I chose but it was not satisfying.
I miss my girl.
We got our first cat, Audrey, as sort of a foster cat, back in 1984. We were living at 710 West Church in Champaign. It was a huge apartment, almost the whole first floor. I think it was Susan Brandabur and Roy Axford that lived there before us maybe. Somebody we knew, that’s how we ended up there. It was a wonderful huge apartment. Granted, the front bay window leaked, it snowed in the dining room and mushrooms grew in the bathroom but it was wonderful nonetheless. I pulled layers of kitchen wallpaper off to find great 1940/50’s ivy wallpaper underneath. And it had a HUGE fireplace so when it got too cold or drafty we just pulled our mattress into the living room and slept in front of the fire.
Enter Audrey. A beautiful cat who had a checkered past we didn’t delve into too deeply. Like many after her, and no doubt before her, she adored Ernie and only Ernie. Although she seemed to like me at the end of her life, even if my sister Judi did term it dementia. She had a habit of falling off things, tables, ironing boards, stair railings and balconies. When we lived in Ypsilanti we would often hear a thump in the night only to find Audrey coming upstairs, slowly shaking her head. And there was the time she fell off our fourth floor balcony in Chicago onto concrete but was miraculously ok. She disliked us having people over and when we did, would sometimes follow them around the apartment hissing at them. Some people found this quite unnerving.
We got her here in Champaign in 1984, moved to Ypsilanti with her in 1985 and then to Chicago in 1987. While in Chicago we figured she needed a friend. Well, actually I wanted a cat that would like me. I wanted to get a short haired boy cat and name him Johnny after Johnny Thunders. Instead we ended up with a delicate little girl cat with long fur but Johnny still worked as a name.
We moved back to Champaign with both cats in 1994. At some point in the five years before we bought our house, Audrey passed. But one February day, one of those crazy early warm days, a big grey cat hopped over the fence in our back yard and came and hopped into my lap. Smart cat. He hung out around the house for awhile until on one rainy, windy night we let him in the house. Nobody seemed to be looking for him so Harlan became our third cat. He seemed like a big fierce boy but really a wimp at heart. He was deathly afraid of Judi’s (little) dog, Wally, and would sleep on my pillow when they visited.
He and Johnny moved with us into this house in 1998. Johnny passed when Leo was just a baby. Harlan became a somewhat grumpy old diabetic guy. I think I was the one that loved him the most. One time Owen and Ernie took Harlan in to our (then) vet, and that’s where they saw Hattie and Bob.
So then it was three. Eventually Harlan went but then when my mother passed in 2010 we inherited her cat, Annie.
Then, one spring day about ten years ago, Ernie was building a trellis for me and we had to go to Lowe’s or Menard’s for something. Owen said he’d come with us. As we drove north on McKinley we noticed a little smudge in the road in front of us. We couldn’t tell what it was as it was so tiny. Thus we came home with Rascal.
Then crotchety little Annie passed and Rascal moved out with Owen, as he never had eyes for anyone but Owen.
It was awfully hard when Ernie lost Bob. You don’t get that kind of devotion often in life. I must say however, Hattie kind of came into her own. She loved being an only cat. She was sometimes loud, sometimes demanding, and we loved her all the more for it.
So now, in the first time in (cringe) 40 years, we will try living without a cat. Can we do it?
Onward.