I was all set to use “Throwback Thursday” and the coming of
Halloween to reminisce about Halloween days of old. But then I logged on this
morning and found out that today is National CAT Day, and … how could I not
tell you about all my pusses? So – I offer up two separate posts for the price
of one. It’s economical. It’s practical. You’re welcome.
We all know about Oliver, my little man of fur… his swagger,
his hairballs, his dance moves, his bathroom habits. This little orange tabby
appeared suddenly on my back porch the summer of my divorce, waiting by the
door like he was waiting for us. I had no idea where he came from, we’d only
gone across the street to the store for a half hour. Ava leapt out of the car
and ran to him while I screamed at her don’t
touch it! But it was too late, it was love at first sight and she scooped
him up and can we keep him? It wasn’t
an immediate yes, but he found a way to mew his way into my heart too. Oliver
adores Todd but I’m not entirely sure the feeling is mutual, the principal
offenses being fur on the bed, multiple attempts at homicide – which I have yet to witness myself… not
that I’m calling anyone an exaggerator
or anything…….. just sayin’ – and last weekend’s urinary indiscretion on our
bathroom rug.
Yet – he is remarkably tolerant of all of Ava’s attempts to
humiliate him, he’s very friendly with houseguests willing to share their bed,
he’s impossibly adorable, and he can catch mice with his teeth. Not Todd – I’m talking about Oliver!
My first cat was also a stray – found on a weekend with my
dad and I scooped her up and called my mom and said, can we keep her? Please? I don’t know why she said yes, but she
did. Mitzi stayed with us through two moves, a handful of costume changes, and
one makeup application – though shortly after our second move when I was in 6th
grade she ran away. She was gone for 6 weeks. I cried every night. And then one
day she came back, like nothing had ever happened. She stayed a while after
that, but disappeared again and never returned.
My mom remarried when I was in 4th grade and my
stepdad had a cat, Horlacher, named after a beer. She was a beautiful black and
white – now known as a tuxedo – medium-haired cat. When they divorced, mom got
custody of “Hor,” as we lovingly referred to her. Hor (yes – pronounced whore) lived to the ripe old age of 22,
and not without incident. My mom, by this time, was living next to her restaurant.
A consummate drama queen and apparently in a desperate search for the rainbow
bridge, Hor would drag her ailing frame through the restaurant courtyard and up
to the front gate where she would sprawl into a deathbed pose as guests were
arriving on a busy Saturday night. One night three different guests came to me
and mentioned “this, uh, cat lying outside the front gate...” (I kept carrying her home, though why I didn't think to shut the GD door, I have no idea.) We often joked about how she had planned to
outlive all the animals she had to share us with, but that she gave up after
our dog refused to die under a variety of impossible circumstances.
Also during the era of Mitzi and Horlacher came a calico
maniac my mom decided to name Zibidah. Apparently I pronounced my middle name
Zibidah (Elizabeth) when I was too young to pronounce anything more complicated
than da-da, and she thought it was cute. I have no idea where “Zibby” came
from, but I’m sure it wasn’t earth. She used to scale the stucco walls of our
house and appear suddenly at the second floor bathroom window, which was only
cute during the daylight hours. And then she got knocked up because I guess my
parents forgot that spaying an outdoor cat is a “must-do”… and I experienced my
first live animal birth with her SIX kittens.
We lived in the country on a fairly large property and farm,
and so we kept most of her kittens, whom I named Beecer, Mildew (a tortie), and
two others I named Ellie and Onesey because my stepdad suggested we name them
Last Ones. And, though I didn’t know it then, he drove the whole box of kittens
to a field to get rid of them – only to rush back for them out of crushing
guilt. I don’t know whether he ever regretted it, but I do remember a
tremendous amount of profanity in the stairwell after he stepped in a pile of Milly’s liquid cat poo during the
spaying period for all six females Zibby
had.
Fast forward almost 20 years and I was married to my first
husband, who insisted that his two cats come to live with us in our
no-pets-allowed condo. These two were the cream of the crop– purebreds with
pedigree – a gorgeous Persian named Lucas and a mentally-impaired Himalayan
named Baily. These two were like brothers – they slept curled up around each
other and would chase each other around the house at 3 a.m. like two hogs
rushing for the trough, and Baily would clean Lucas by licking the back of his
head, which created a stanky odor akin to a pair of woman’s underwear on a
90-degree day in Mexico. Lucas was a lap-cat who loved to be carried around on
my shoulder like a baby, and Baily wanted nothing to do with anybody but my ex.
Lucas was my first introduction to shit sticking to fur, and it was through him
that I learned the fine art of cat bathing. Unfortunately, he suffered kidney
failure just a month after Ava was born and we were forced to put him down.
Baily lived a bit longer – long enough for Ava to fall in love with him and he
allowed her to hold him from time to time.
I frequently entertain the idea that Oliver needs a buddy,
but Todd has suggested that such a decision might indicate an unwillingness to
stay married.
********************
Halloween when I was a kid was a riot. I used to go with
Holly and her sisters, with brown paper grocery bags, and we’d walk up to two
miles through the countryside collecting candy from strangers. We would
actually walk into these stranger’s
houses – can you imagine??! And, not only did we come home alive, we came home
with grocery bags filled to the top with candy. Our moms were waiting back at
the house where we threw ourselves on the floor and dumped those bags out,
throwing those razor-blade poisoned apples in the trash, and casting the
popcorn balls and McDonald’s gift certificates aside while savoring all the
chocolate.
My mom was big on sewing my costumes for the school parade
in my earliest grade school years – one year I went as a clown (this was long
before Poltergeist ruined clowns for me forever) and one year I was a lion
in a homemade fur suit that could’ve kept
an entire Eskimo family warm. I don’t
really remember most of my costumes anymore (except the year I went as a
dominatrix to my then-boyfriend’s gorilla – nothing to tell here, move along)
but I do remember one memorable year when my stepsister thought it would be
creative to go as a “rock.” It was definitely creative – and apparently very
convincing – she donned a black trash bag and crouched down at every door with
us… and got nothing. The only thing
worse than no recognition on Halloween is no
candy.
Now the tables are turned and I’m the mom, and the pressure
as always is down to the 11th hour as Ava and I work out the details
of her costume in the limited time we have before 6:00 on Saturday. In a way, I
love that she has enough faith in me to want to create a costume rather than
buy one, but this way of thinking could prove disastrous if there’s no dry run.
And, meanwhile, I’m deciding what I want to wear on our quest for sugar… since
I equally love dressing up. Todd and I pulled off a last minute Sandy and Danny
ensemble two years ago, which was a riot (and more so because people I met for
the first time that night didn’t recognize me weeks later in my natural brown).
But I think the most memorable costumes are my mother’s.
She once went as an alien prostitute, wearing a bustier and a giant rubber
mask, and just stood silently in a corner of her best friend’s bar. Another
year she went there dressed up as a man complete with mustache and… he didn’t
recognize her. All night. Two years ago she paid tribute to another very close
friend who passed away by dressing up as him. I can’t even begin to do this
justice unless you knew him, but it was uncanny and creepy and hilarious all
rolled into one fun-sized, chest-hairy package.
And so, a new Halloween is just around the corner and as
usual I am unprepared. We have the candy to hand out, but Ava’s costume
requires a few things we have yet to buy… (hello, Walmart!). I’m still deciding how to dress myself, but I have
an epic prank planned that I cannot WAIT to see go down and I will post video
if I can capture it.
********************
In
Other News ….
November 1st this year is daylight savings time,
my favorite time of year because doesn’t everybody love the sun setting at
4:00? And for those of you who don’t experience Type 1 diabetes, it also
heralds a blood sugar nightmare as we shift all our basal rates according to
this stupid ritual nobody benefits from anymore and hope for the best.
November 1st also marks the beginning of Diabetes Awareness Month and there are
a number of agencies out there working hard to educate the masses. You can
expect to hear from me more frequently on this subject. Also, November 14th
is World Diabetes Day and we have
some big things planned. More on that later.
Miscellaneous…
Horlacher beer was a Pennsylvania brewery which operated for
over 100 years between 1873 and 1978.
The average lifespan of a cat is 15 years. The longest living
cat was Crème Puff, who lived to age 38 in Austin, Texas. That’s 168 in cat
years!
According to Bloody-disgusting.com, the top 10 worst
Halloween candies are: Necco wafers (these weren’t that bad, were they?), Dots (weak-tasting, stuck better than
denture cream), Cow Tales (never heard of them), Sugar Daddies (remember these
rock-hard caramels on a stick?), wax lips/bottles (just eww), Good & Plenty
(for the love of God, why can’t anything be chocolate?), Peeps (I swear my generation never had the Halloween
version of these), Red Hots (I happen to love cinnamon), circus peanuts (admit
it – they were nasty but you had to eat at least one).
This post – one of my longest – contains 1,889 words. And if
you now know that, thank you for taking the time to read. J
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