My Cool Cats

We all know cats are cool. I have owned my fair share of awesome cats in my life. I was getting nostalgic about some of them the other day so I decided to write a tribute. Here are a select few of my awesome cats in chronological order of when I owned them.

Kris

Kris was the first cat I remember having. He was a completely black. I had given him a name with a K because its the same letter that my name begins with. Kris was a very dumb cat. One of my parents’ favorite Kris stories is that they were commenting on how dumb he was when I walked up and loudly declared ‘Kris is NOT dumb!’. Just then we heard a loud thud. We all look over, Kris had just walked head first into a wall.

He may have been dumb, but Kris had a lovely heart. I am an only child, so I didn’t have anyone at bed time to keep me company but my cat and stuffed animals. At night, Kris always slept with me as I was falling asleep. Sometimes he would think I was asleep and get up to leave, but I would whimper as if I were going to cry, and he would always come back. I loved that cat.

Gatita Linda

Gatita Linda means Pretty Kitty in Spanish. I liked that the phrase rhymed in both English and Spanish so that’s what I named her. She was my cat while my family lived in Peru. She was a beautiful svelt calico. She had been a stray, and we took her in. GL was her own cat, pure independence. Sure she slept at our house and ate food there, and got pets and playtime there, but she didn’t belong to anybody. She was allowed outdoors and would wander the entire neighborhood like a puma surveying her territory. The girl that lived next door to us would sometimes catnap GL and cut off her whiskers. Not out of malice, she didn’t understand what whiskers were for and just wanted to make GL pretty. Still, I hated that girl.

I am amazed at how much patience GL had with me. I built a cart out of tinker toys that rolled around, and it had a squirt bottle on the bottom. I had rigged it so that by pulling a lever on the handle of the cart you could squirt the bottle. I would chase GL around with that cart just for fun. I don’t know how she put up with me. She could go anywhere and do anything in the world she wanted, but she would hang out with me.

GL had two litters of kittens while she lived with us. Watching my cat give birth is the closest to the true ‘farm’ experience I care to ever get. The first litter we gave away. The second, we kept two of the kittens. One was a grey poofy tabby that my dad kept. He named him Buba. The other was a calico, like her mommy, but with a black base instead of white. My mom kept that one and named her Xena.

Zeze

Zeze was my cat while living in Honduras. Another stray, our neighbors found her as a tiny kitten with a head too big for her body. She fit in my hand. We took her to the vet and got her some medicine. She had a little iv taped to her paw for a while so that we could administer her medicine. I remember having to do that a few times. But she quickly got healthier, and the rest of her body began to grow to fit the size of her head. She eventually became a beautiful cat.

Zeze was an active little bugger. She would follow me around the house all the time. And sometimes I would chase her. Her favorite thing was to hide under furniture and lunge out at you as you passed. Her favorite spot was behind the dvd player, and she would sometimes poke her little head out as we were watching tv.

I had a Build-A-Bear couch that she used to lounge in. We put it next to the couches in the living room so she could be a part of the family.

My friend’s favorite story about Zeze is how I would call Zeze’s name in a high pitched proclamation of excitement, and Zeze would instantly bolt and run away to hide.

Rocket

Rocket is probably the coolest cat I have ever had. A beautiful tortoise shell cat, we got her from the pound.

Rocket did not like to be held. At all. When you tried to pick her up, her body would go stiff, and if you held her too long she would claw at you until you let her go. She did, however, love sitting in laps. I have never had a cat who loved laps as much as her. But when we got her, she had some sort of PTSD or some other weird mental condition. She would be sitting on my lap, purring, everything right with the world. When suddenly something would click in her brain. Claws out, flinging herself from my lap and the chair and running across the house in milliseconds, with no provocation. If I wasn’t wearing pants, I would get huge scratches on my legs. Sometimes she jumped with so much force it nearly knocked me and the chair I was sitting in over. She didn’t just do it when she was in my lap, but that was when it was most noticeable. The longer we had her, the less this sort of thing happened. But she was always a little off. She saw fairies. It just made her more endearing.

Aside from that, Rocket was an astounding huntress. She was an outdoor desert cat. She caught bunnies, birds, mice, lizards and brought them into our house, dead and alive. The birds were the most entertaining.  We also had several humming bird feeders outside our windows. Occasionally I would see her leaping several feet into the air in an attempt to catch the little birds.

Another funny thing about Rocket, was she had an out of sync meow-er. She would open her mouth like she was meowing but no sound would come out. A short moment later, you would hear a short ‘EER’. It was really funny, but totally adorable. She was also really skinny. I called her 2D cat. (We later found out she had a form of cat AIDs) I used to tease her about how fat she was. She didn’t seem to care.

Jimbo

Jimbo is a fluffy tuxedo-ed princess. She has long fluffy fur, and seems like a decently sized cat, until you pick her up and realize how small and dainty she really is.

One of the prissiest cats I have ever owned, but also one of the most caring. Every other cat that Jimbo has ever lived with, she has treated with the warmth and love of a mother tending to her kitten. She was a wonderful friend to Rocket, and has most recently been a wonderful companion to my mother’s new cat Penelope (Pipi for short, or Penny-enny-elope for long).

Jimbo reminded me a lot of my first cat Kris, except that she is much smarter. When I still lived at home, she would cuddle under my arm most nights as I was falling asleep, fitting perfect in the little crook there. She would lay there and just purr until I fell asleep.

 

My Current Cats: Ezma and Marron

Ezma

A friend of mine was a at a Petsmart and saw a cute fat little tabby cat up for adoption. The adoption fee had been waived, so the cat was free. She was pretty tubby, and old, so she had probably been there for a while. Well, worried about what might happen to her, my friend called me from across town and told me about her. So we drove over, I took one look at her, and figured she would do great. (I always adopt older cats. Kittens have no trouble getting adopted, and older cats have the most interesting personalities.) Her previous name was Abby, but I decided to name her Ezma, (a misspelling of Yzma, the character from Emperor’s New Groove) as a tribute to her weight.

I never once regretted my decision, Ezma is a beautiful personality. She is super sweet and loving, and really silly. She is still very skittish. When I first got her, she was afraid of males, and people with shoes on, and tall people. She has gotten a lot better than she was before, but my roommate told me just today that she dropped literally a paper towel on the ground near Ezma, and Ezma ran away into the basement. So. Still some work to do there. She is also a very jealous and territorial little bugger. She likes to terrorize the (relatively big) dog in the house for no other reason than he exists.

If Ezma were a human, she would be a fat little Russian grandma, bustling around yet

 

always complaining about her ankles while trying to stuff you full of food. She has these short stubby legs, and big round belly, but she runs around like a little ninja bowling ball. She is the only cat I know who loves getting belly rubs. Whenever she really wants attention, she rolls over on her back and presents her vast stomach for pets.

Ezma also has a weird meow-er. She ‘chirps’ or ‘squeaks’. Sometimes she sounds exactly like a dog’s squeaky toy. She will open her mouth, but the only sound that comes out is a short ‘eh’. Its so funny hearing such a pitiful sound come out of such a chubby cat. She can do real meows though when she is really motivated to get my attention, like when she thinks I have a can of wet food in my hands.

Another funny thing about Ezma is that she loves to lick. She would lick me to the bone like a human lolly-pop if I let her. She also really loves licking people’s legs when they get out of the shower. The hairier the legs the better.

Marron

Marron is my boyfriend’s cat, but he stayed with me when my boyfriend had to leave for Texas. Marron is a sweet little cream puff prince. Very regal, full of grace and dignity. Marron is part Siamese, and likes no one as much as he likes my boyfriend. For a long time, his highness would not allow me to pet him for more than a few seconds. Since he has lived with me though, he has warmed considerably.

Now, he jumps up on my desk when I am on my computer, and walks in front of my face, demanding the attention that is his due. He walks up next to me while I am in bed every night and paws at the covers next to me until I arrange them just how he likes, before plopping down under my arm. Now, he can’t get enough attention from me.

Marron is very demanding and very smart. He knows what he is due. He wakes me up in the mornings with meowing and pawing to get pets. And when I get out of bed he is sure to lead me directly to his food bowl for his breakfast. Once I get upstairs, he paws at the patio door to be let outside. He loves being outside, listening to everything going on, and being a cat lawnmower. He then promptly comes inside and pukes up grass everywhere.

One of the funniest things about Marron is his stark contrast to Ezma in terms of skittishness. Marron is the least skittish cat I have ever known. Marron moves for no one and nothing. Unless he is physically forced to, he will stay precisely where he feels like staying. We had to step over and around him as we were moving very heavy furniture out of the house, because he simply did not want to move. The only way I have been able to get him to come back inside in the evenings is to shake a treat bag and lure him inside before shutting the door behind him. And I have to actually give him a treat because if I didn’t he is smart enough to figure out that the shaking of the treat bag is just a ploy.

Marron was apparently named after a delicious dessert, because he is such a sweet little cream puff. However, his name also makes him sound like a Pokemon, saying his own name every time he meows.

 

Honorable Mentions

I have had a lot of wonderful cats in my life. The ones above were just the only ones I remembered well enough, or were remarkable enough to write about. But I would like to just briefly say a few things about some of my other cats, just so I know that they are not forgotten.

Nala – My very first cat before Kris. I don’t remember her very well, but I have a single picture of her perched atop a very very tall wooden pole, surveying her desert territory. I remember I named her after Nala from the Lion King because it was my favorite movie.

Nunu – My stepdad’s cat. Nunu was a beautiful fluffy white queen. I don’t remember much about her temperament, but I do remember that in my young naivete I tried to rename her to Samantha, because I thought it fit her better.

Sparta – One of the few kittens I owned, she was fluffy and grey, and wonderfully lively as kittens are. She had a little red blanket that I would always drape over her while she was sleeping.

Marklar – A huge tabby cat, the largest cat I have ever owned or seen in person. Marklar was a masterful hunter. He was also a very good daddy cat, and would let OG (no relation) sleep and snuggle with him.

Shmee – A black and orange kitten. Very lively, totally adorable. He loved to play.

OG – An youngish adolescent, OG was a beautiful tortoise shell cat. He was svelte and lovely, and totally sweet.

Archemedes – Archemedes was a scraggly looking fluffy tortoise shell colored cat. Despite his name, he was not very smart, and also very uncoordinated. He would try to jump up on chairs and miss. He had some sort of irritable eye problem that would cause his eye to produce a lot more of that eye gunk that cats have than was normal. Sometimes his eye would get glued shut, and I would have to wash away the gunk. Still he was a total sweetie, and the longer we had him, the better his eye got.

Paco – Paco was a beautiful svelte short haired black cat. He was a stray from the desert that we saw wandering outside our house one night. We put out food and water for him, and he eventually warmed up enough to us to let us pet him. We adopted him and let him inside, but he was unfortunately not used to being an indoor cat. He used the litter box, but also sometimes, forgot, and would pee in various locations. It was very frustrating, but he meant no harm.

Homer – The worst cat I have ever had, but still interesting. She was obviously taken from her mother too soon, or had some other situation that caused her to be not quite right in the head. Homer would sit and suck on her own nipples, constantly, non-stop. It was the most uncomfortable thing. We tried to get her to stop, but she just wouldn’t. She was also woefully incapable of cleaning herself. Her fur would get all matted and her

butt….well, it was unsavory. All in all, I am glad we could provide her with a home, but I was glad to be rid of her.

Penelope – I mentioned her briefly, but Pipi is my mother’s current cat. Pipi is not the brightest, but is a gorgeous and very sweet, if not very smart, calico cat. She is a fantastic huntress, and reminds me of Rocket in a lot of ways. She even brought a live scorpion onto my bed once. Yay. We had more than one cat, but I knew it was her because she had a fat lip for several days from where it had stung her. Though Pipi is not the brightest bulb, she is very loving, and still has a sweet little kitten meow.