And a couple days later I went back. The cat I wanted to see again was named Misi, a one year old calico who had miscarried three babies and who had been brought in allegedly because the family was moving and couldn't take her. Misi would be spayed later, but when I met her, she was cowering in the back of a cage, clearly the model of a nervous post-pregnancy cat--and, I now know, a drama queen calico to boot.
But her calico markings were striking and she looked nothing like the recently-deceased brown tabby Maine Coon Camden. After I stood outside her cage long enough, she came over and rubbed her whiskers against my fingers. When the vet assistant opened the cage, the cat was willing to be held. She looked to look around; she was nothing if not alert.
Between the first and the second visit, I had decided that maybe I would adopt two cats. Which two I had no idea. I do remember a couple grey and white sister cats together in a cage, but their eyes were rheumy. Kittens I did not want, but two almost-adults sounded good since, hey, I worked all day.
After I held then-Misi, I asked the assistant what cat she would recommend as a second cat, and without hesitation she said, "The Dude," who was already so big that he was in a double cage at ground level. He was big, he was smoky orange, neither of which I had planned on, but she assured me no, not all male cats spray, and sometimes a male and a female cat are a better pairing than say, two females.
He was an armful even then although his records say he was only 8 1/2 pounds. He had big bones, and he seemed cautiously obliging to be held like a baby or to be plopped in my lap as I sat in a chair. He had a good purr. (It never occurred to me to test drive him--so to speak--with Misi, but given her calico drama queen personality, she might not have easily approved of any other cat, really.)
So I filled out the paperwork, and, as things worked out, I brought then-Misi home a few days earlier than the then-Dude since he developed a case of the sniffles and had to stay a couple extra couple days to get better. Misi came home and seemed to adapt well enough.
The following week, I went back to pick up The Dude but neglected to bring the cat carrier since I left right from work. No problem since the humane society had a cardboard one for him (and me). He looked fine, and there were smiles all around except for The Dude, who, within the first mile, had clawed a hole in the cardboard carrier. As I shifted into traffic, I saw an orange paw reaching for the glove compartment.
But we made it home and he reverted to his calmer self once he was out of the box. The papers from the humane society pegged him right: "This animal has a friendly demeanor and has demonstrated good health during his time at the shelter...We hope he adjusts well in his new home and that your vet confirms good health at his post-adoption re-evaluation. Thanks--good luck with this fine fellow!"
The first night at home, there were no fights even though we did not get much sleep. The Dude had been named wisely: he was mellow. He let Misi (renamed Moonbeam because she was so lunar, so calico nutty) do the theater. He wasn't a look-at-me, look-at-me cat. Not the least bit ostentatious. I changed his name to Doodle, and he proved to be a next-to cat, not a lap cat, and he snoozed next to Moonbeam and later near to new sister Swishy. He liked the top platform of the cat tree and he moved with ease from the top of the roll top desk to the top of the six-foot bookcase. He was big but fleet of foot. He was always happy to play with a wand toy, at least for a while, but mostly he just wanted to hang. He met me at the door regularly enough, but he only once decided to try to go out one slushy winter day as I was hauling in bags of groceries. Doodle got down the couple stairs into the driveway into an inch of slush and then bolted full speed to the distant other side of the house, as if screaming, "Wet feet, wet feet!"
When I came home after being away, Doodle was the slowest to forgive, but when he did, he was the coziest. Doodle was an introvert--one difficult to ignore at almost 16 dusky orange pounds. He loved to be brushed, and he hated the 7 minute ride to see the vet once a year; he yowled on the way there but assumed the loaf position in the carrier on the way home and then bolted upstairs. He had a oink nose and a cute smile (and no, he did not spray). He was big but he was healthy, and he was a sensitive dude: if I dropped a metal dish in the kitchen or if a door slammed in the wind, he came to see what happened and to say a hello meow, although whether he was protesting or trying to calm me I was never sure.
Doodle's usual place on the coldest winter nights--and we had a lot of these this year--was next to me on the bed, which was fine except, cat-style, since he trusted me, after his nose-touching, he often lay on one side and faced away from me. Granted, his back end was discreetly covered by his tail, but still. Sometimes I tried to turn him sideways so at least his paws or his back were closest to me, but usually when I gave up and rolled over and slept on my other side, he didn't seem to mind.
Doodle was my favorite cat the way every cat I have had has been my favorite cat.
Over the years, the cats managed to do kitty time-sharing, which is to say they had their favorite places to sit but also took turns in their way: the bed, the cat tree, the couch. They managed their own routine.
Then one day after breakfast--after their breakfast, too--Moonbeam followed me into the bathroom, Swishy went up to the spare room window, and Doodle stretched out on the foot of the bed. I did the dishes, did some work online, and then went upstairs to put on sweatpants to go to the gym.
Doodle was on the bed, on his side as usual, but when I went to greet him, he wasn't moving.
He had been to the vet not six weeks previously.
First, disbelief. And then it was awful.
Once I could get myself together enough, I called the vet to say I needed to bring in Doodle. For better or worse, the person who answered the phone at 11:55 told me the office was closed between 12 and 2 but I could bring Doodle in at two. Over the phone I arranged for cremation and a post-mortem paw print (which made little sense, but I was not my most cogent, so okay). I said Doodle and I would be there at two.
I sat with Doodle for a long while. Moonbeam sat and watched from the hallway; Swishy slept through it until I got Doodle downstairs. Like Moonbeam, she sat and watched from a distance.
After a while I had to decide how to move sweet Doodle. He had been sleeping on an old flannel pillowcase, so that was the first layer of what ended up being a kitty burrito. More than other cats, he liked cozy places. I didn't have a cardboard box (which he would not have liked anyway); I wasn't going to carry him in my duffle bag even if he fit: he was 16 or so pounds and pushing 3 feel long. At the end, telling myself again and again that he liked cozy places, I wrapped him loosely in bath towels and pinned them in a couple places. Once I got him downstairs, I slid Doodle burrito into a couple clear plastic bags lest any bodily fluid escape in the 7 minute drive in a friend's car.
To the veterinary clinic's credit, Doodle and I went to the front of the line when they opened at two. In the examining room, a very young vet tech handed me a form and said, "This just says that Noodle hasn't bitten anyone..." and there was another "Noodle" before I sobbed and corrected her and she looked totally abashed.
While she went out of the examining room to process my credit card, I slid Doodle in his kitty burrito out of the plastic bags, and, because I didn't know what else to do, I started to unwrap the burrito just to take a last peek, a last quick look at his pink nose.
Doodle wasn't much of a joker--he was too mellow for cheap cat jokes like trying to trip me or hiding his toys--but he was a sensitive dude with a cat smile, and I like to think he would have appreciated how fitting it was that without intending to, I happened to open the back end of the burrito first--derriere with tail modestly down--before I finally got to his pink nose.
A fine fellow indeed.
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