So Abbie the Cat's yahrzeit was a few evenings ago, and I posted this portait, made sometime in 2003 or earlier, in honor of that:
Tonight I told the story of when he was a stubborn young thing and developed a Serious Case of escape artistry because he Yearned for the Outdoors. This was back around 1999, 2000, and he was two, two and a half years old, a strapping young lad nicknamed Chunk-Style, among other things.
You had to be extremely careful with the front door in Reading, because you were reckoning with a cat whose will was so great that he pushed back a brick and bent the sheet metal of the dryer vent in the basement so as to hop on through and have an es-cape. His sister Martha, a sleek little shadow cat, preferred to hang out on the heating ducts in the basement, making loud banging sounds and then hiding up in the shadows when you came running, but she often accompanied Abbie when he got out because heck, it beats making loud banging sounds and hiding up in the shadows again.
And the thing was, indoors he was a gargantuan boss, but outside he was a creampuff. Absolutely didn't have the stomach for it. He leapt out one winter, landed up to his ruff in a snowbank, and was instantly revolted, all what the Hell is this and what the hell is it Doing Here?
He also had no intestinal fortitude for dealings with Others. One whiff of a neighbor animal and he was cowering on the front porch. Martha, on the other hand, once chased a huge tabby under a shed and kept it there. So I'd have to go scoot Martha back and then pick up ol' Sy Benson, the quivering tower of Jell-O, and haul him home. The life of an outdoor cat was certainly not the life for them.
But he kept at it, the persistent little behemoth. The worst was when he declared the front door his Sworn Enemy and, whenever he caught wind of someone heading outdoors, would leap up, beeline to the unused fireplace in the living room, and pee in it. Every time. There he goes. Because he knew it would get a response. Because he knew you'd have to drop what you're doing, shut the front door, and tend to the 20-pound tuxedo cat defiantly pissing in the fireplace. While making the most contemptuous eye contact, the lil' anjil. When he held a grudge, he Held a Grudge. We kept the Nature's Miracle and paper towels on the mantel as decoration, and eventually he grew out of that fad, but for a while it was miserable.
He led a relatively quiet indoor life for several years, as we moved several houses, and his wanderlust resurfaced just twice. The last occasion was when he snuck down into the basement and stayed there overnight, emerging with some rough scratches that required stitches and a bath and needless to say he took the stitches with much more grace and good humor than the bath.
There's already a bandage on my hand. He was Not going in that tub.
In early 2008 he really Got Out, taking his leave when someone was taking out the trash. He was gone for about a week, I think, and while I came down with some kind of flu, folks just went looking for him. People searched in different time zones and New Zealand, even, just to make sure he hadn't turned up there. Which was a really nice gesture when you think about it. Local people postered and searched, and we got plenty of calls regarding large tuxedo cat sightings, including one "wicked lodge tuxedah cat", but it just turns out Somerville and environs is rich in large dark-colored cats.
Abbie eventually turned up in the next-door neighbors' garage. They'd gone away on vacation so he went in and had one himself. The neighbors came home, he saw himself out, he'd lost 5 pounds which on him was Very Apparent, and the first thing he did upon returning was plant his face square in his food dish. Then he got a collar with a shiny red name and number tag which he should have had in the first place, and new signs were placed on the front door both inside and out. There was even some contributed poetry.
So that was Abbie the Cat, the force of nature, now six years gone and still sorely missed. There's a wild garden over his grave and this year flowers.
Tonight I told the story of when he was a stubborn young thing and developed a Serious Case of escape artistry because he Yearned for the Outdoors. This was back around 1999, 2000, and he was two, two and a half years old, a strapping young lad nicknamed Chunk-Style, among other things.
You had to be extremely careful with the front door in Reading, because you were reckoning with a cat whose will was so great that he pushed back a brick and bent the sheet metal of the dryer vent in the basement so as to hop on through and have an es-cape. His sister Martha, a sleek little shadow cat, preferred to hang out on the heating ducts in the basement, making loud banging sounds and then hiding up in the shadows when you came running, but she often accompanied Abbie when he got out because heck, it beats making loud banging sounds and hiding up in the shadows again.
And the thing was, indoors he was a gargantuan boss, but outside he was a creampuff. Absolutely didn't have the stomach for it. He leapt out one winter, landed up to his ruff in a snowbank, and was instantly revolted, all what the Hell is this and what the hell is it Doing Here?
He also had no intestinal fortitude for dealings with Others. One whiff of a neighbor animal and he was cowering on the front porch. Martha, on the other hand, once chased a huge tabby under a shed and kept it there. So I'd have to go scoot Martha back and then pick up ol' Sy Benson, the quivering tower of Jell-O, and haul him home. The life of an outdoor cat was certainly not the life for them.
But he kept at it, the persistent little behemoth. The worst was when he declared the front door his Sworn Enemy and, whenever he caught wind of someone heading outdoors, would leap up, beeline to the unused fireplace in the living room, and pee in it. Every time. There he goes. Because he knew it would get a response. Because he knew you'd have to drop what you're doing, shut the front door, and tend to the 20-pound tuxedo cat defiantly pissing in the fireplace. While making the most contemptuous eye contact, the lil' anjil. When he held a grudge, he Held a Grudge. We kept the Nature's Miracle and paper towels on the mantel as decoration, and eventually he grew out of that fad, but for a while it was miserable.
He led a relatively quiet indoor life for several years, as we moved several houses, and his wanderlust resurfaced just twice. The last occasion was when he snuck down into the basement and stayed there overnight, emerging with some rough scratches that required stitches and a bath and needless to say he took the stitches with much more grace and good humor than the bath.
There's already a bandage on my hand. He was Not going in that tub.
In early 2008 he really Got Out, taking his leave when someone was taking out the trash. He was gone for about a week, I think, and while I came down with some kind of flu, folks just went looking for him. People searched in different time zones and New Zealand, even, just to make sure he hadn't turned up there. Which was a really nice gesture when you think about it. Local people postered and searched, and we got plenty of calls regarding large tuxedo cat sightings, including one "wicked lodge tuxedah cat", but it just turns out Somerville and environs is rich in large dark-colored cats.
Abbie eventually turned up in the next-door neighbors' garage. They'd gone away on vacation so he went in and had one himself. The neighbors came home, he saw himself out, he'd lost 5 pounds which on him was Very Apparent, and the first thing he did upon returning was plant his face square in his food dish. Then he got a collar with a shiny red name and number tag which he should have had in the first place, and new signs were placed on the front door both inside and out. There was even some contributed poetry.
So that was Abbie the Cat, the force of nature, now six years gone and still sorely missed. There's a wild garden over his grave and this year flowers.
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