A TRIBUTE TO A CAT

This is not the kind of thing I usually post on my blog. If you are not an animal lover, you should probably stop reading now. And to those who are bravely continuing on, I thank you for indulging  me as I remember a furry family member who left us yesterday.  This is my tribute to a very special cat.

My Memories of Life with a 15 Year Old Marvel 

Harley Shelly the Cat

·        The first time I laid eyes on him:  He and his small feisty littermates were in a cage at the local animal shelter.  All of his siblings came eagerly crawling over to meet me, hoping for some affection. Harley was not the least bit interested in socializing and instead, he attempted a daring escape, fleeing his jail entirely and hiding himself under the large row of cages.  I knew I had to have him.

·        10 year old Isaac named him Harley.  Because if and when he let us catch him, his insistent growling purr sounded surprisingly like a Harley Davidson.  Most of his first week on Roosevelt Boulevard was spent hiding behind the dryer and emerging sporadically with fluffy patches of lint clinging to his ears.

·        Jim was amused by the absolute disgust on Harley’s face when he was retrieved from a terrible appointment with a flea dipper.  They sent him back to us sporting a bandana scarf around his recently treated neck.  Devoid of cowboy aspirations, Harley distinctly loathed that scarf and it took him days to forgive us for the humiliation of it all.

·        As an adolescent cat, he stole rubber bands and stole our hearts, but also systematically drove us crazy by peeing willy-nilly on anything left on the floor that didn’t belong there.  I tried several times to convince coworkers and complete strangers to take him off my hands.  Maybe he was trying to make us tidy by insisting that everything remain where it belonged, but instead it made me INSANE.  In fact so insane that at one point upon discovering he had ‘watered’ the front room carpeting, I phoned Jim who was just landing in a plane at the Philadelphia Airport. I informed him with the hysteria a women who loves a clean house can rise to when confronted with cat leakage on her floor that I was on my knees and about to remove our carpeting with a steak knife.  In a calm and measured voice (as though speaking to a psychotic patient) Jim responded. “Brenda….can we talk about this when I get home?....”

·        It was fascinating how Harley was always sure the chicken or turkey roasting in the oven was being prepared expressly for him. He sat waiting in front of the stove and acted surprised when one of us accidentally stepped on him as we tried to wrestle the hot cooked bird from the oven.

·        I recall with great clarity the time I walked into the dining room when he was a kitten and a very small Aubrey was actually holding him by his ears.  His tiny triangular ears pinched mercilessly in each chubby toddler hand.  He was literally hanging by his ears. I ran over to rescue the poor cat and found him purring contentedly.  From that point on, he was on his own...

·        And then there was the evening our adventurous feline got stuck in the large dirt rabbit hole under the back deck (either out of curiosity or stupidity, we can’t be sure.)  Poor Jim had to pull the cat (which was by this point a ball of growling fur, flying claws, and piercingly sharp teeth) out of the hole by his back legs.  Obviously this resulted in severe bodily harm to the poor rescuer who stated emphatically that the next time Harley chose to get stuck down a rabbit hole, he would be more than happy to fill in the dirt around his fuzzy little behind.  (Okay, maybe my bleeding and furious husband didn’t say it quite that nicely….) We rarely let Harley outside and that little rabbit hole incident marked the last chapter in the Harley the Adventure Cat series.  He was forever relegated to window sitting and admiring the birds through glass. Given the muddy smear on his record, potted plants were as close to nature as he got.

·        One of my favorite memories was the afternoon Harley crept with impressive stealth over to the fireplace and suddenly stole about one-third of a large chocolate muffin from a paper plate.  He fled so quickly with his prize; he was nothing but a streak of fur and muffin.  The muffin was never seen again.

·        It was interesting, the way he loved females and was wary of nearly all men except for Jim, Isaac and my father.  His fear of heater repair men and other male visitors to our home drove him back behind the dryer again and again (though his enormous size in his middle years made it difficult to squeeze into the hiding spot he loved as a kitten.)

·        We found it remarkable how he would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down. I loved the fascinating satisfied hum (which was a fabulous combination of purr and chew), which he sang joyfully while munching on his food. 

·        The sound of a spoon being removed from a drawer, a pill being crushed, the ecstasy and tear of a can opener, or the simple movement of a bowl on the floor brought him flying into the kitchen with great speed.  But these sounds were rarely needed to summon him as he was nearly always already IN the kitchen asking annoyingly for a morsel of food (or sometimes displaying noteworthy control as he forced himself to wait patiently at the corner of the cabinets, his furry face filled with expectant hope. It was pathetic. His enthusiasm for eating was not only reserved for food.  When it was not mealtime, he was on more than one juncture seen grazing for delicious lint particles on the carpet of my bedroom floor (even once trying to lick the scent of bacon from my unsuspecting jeans on a Saturday morning.)

·        It was heartwarming the way he clearly adored his owner Isaac and his “sister” Aubrey.  If either were in the room, he only had eyes for them. And of course, his insistent and contented purring and kneading when he conquered the laps and chests of his family members will always be remembered.

·        Then there was his absolute disdain for the newcomer Jasmine, Aubrey’s Lynx Point Siamese with enormous blue eyes.  The two lived together in our home for about nine years. We hoped they would eventually come to admire each other.  But their relationship was more like the pesky and athletic little sister who persistently instigated trouble with her older brother vs. the intolerant brother who looked like he would fracture a hip if he attempted a leap and who growled in disapproval when the little sister came near his “stuff.”  (In his old green eyes, WE were apparently his stuff.)  Her elegant scheming wiles did nothing to charm him.  She flaunted herself as the queen of the castle and Harley viewed her as a bothersome usurper.

·        He couldn’t keep his paws out of my hair (and his fists from pushing down on my shoulders) when I sat on “his chair” <MY CHAIR!> to read.  Sometimes sniffing my shampoo from his position on the top of the upholstered chair wasn’t enough for him and I would have to stop him from tasting strands of my hair.

·        I loved how he “assisted” Aubrey with her geometry, sitting by her side on the couch, sending mathematical vibes of support to her thigh with his paw.

·        He was wild about watching all the festivities surrounding Christmas.  He loved the fresh cut tree and drank water from the tree-stand (despite frequent warnings to knock it off.) And on Christmas morning he enjoyed watching gift opening and could hardly wait to get tipsy with his latest catnip acquisition.

·        It was pitiful the way he lost the hair around his eyebrows from hyperthyroidism before his thyroid levels were restored to normal with medication. His altered facial expression looked perfectly pensive as though worrying about the economy or contemplating important matters like world peace and tuna fish. 

·        He was a big fat chicken when we had pet rabbits.  He was at least twice their weight yet he ran away with gusto, leaping high into the air to get away from them when they hopped over to innocently check him out.

·        And finally, I will never forget the way he had me wrapped around his little white-mittened paw.  Even after repeatedly peeing in places he was not permitted to pee, he somehow melted my heart when he came to sit with me and look at me affectionately.  There were more moments than I can count when his look of adoration drove me to stroke his pointy head, scratch his snowy white chin, and sing him his favorite song.  The Beatles performed it first, but the cat liked my version better.  “Oh Harley, please believe me….I’ll never do you no harm…”  He loved “his song” and pinched his eyes shut in approval.  (Being the cultured cat he was, he also thoroughly enjoyed a rousing rendition of “Senor Don Gato”, always appearing relieved when the love struck hero Don Gato came back to life after his terrible fall from the rooftop.)  Check youtube for the song if you are not as cultured as Harley.

RIP Sweet Harley.  Your family adored you and you will be sorely missed.

February 9, 2012