Bruce and I had gotten Miss Kitty as a kitten back in July of 2001. She was our first acquisition together, as we got married that following November 2001. I had just moved to Marysville and Staggenborgs had advertised kittens on Partyline. We went out to their house and there was a cream colored, Siamese marked kitten. She was gorgeous, and I had to have her. She was a great kitten, who got into all sorts of trouble, like hiding behind the cookbooks on the microwave cart, or hiding behind the gas cooking oven, when it was on!!
We were still living in Bruce's little bungalow for the first year of marriage. There was a heat vent in the small bathroom in this little cut out corner, and Miss Kitty loved to curl up there, right in front of it, and take naps. We found it interesting when we would find a banana all the way from the kitchen to IN the waterbed back in the bathroom with suspicious feline teeth marks, or even a bag of hamburger buns.
Miss Kitty's favorite toy at this time was Mr. Mouse. Mr. Mouse is long since gone, as it was really just a cheap little cat toy, but she loved Mr. Mouse. She knew Mr. Mouse by name. You could tell her to go get Mr. Mouse, and pretty soon here she would come with Mr. Mouse in her teeth. She would play a game with the mouse all by herself by having the toy on the floor, sitting on it, 'hiding it from herself,' and then acting surprised when she got up to discover the toy underneath her.
It was also while we were still at the old house that we discovered Miss Kitty's "puny" tummy. She always seemed to have a little trouble with digesting her food. She threw up more than any other cat I knew. We tried many different types of cat food, finally settling on the expensive Science Diet. It never did cure, and she always did have some periodic problems.
We got a second kitten while we were at the old house, too. We got Maddie from the Staggenborgs, too. Maddie is a gorgeous tiger/tortoise shell cat, who is a half-sister to Miss Kitty. Maddie and Miss Kitty bonded very well together, but unfortunately Maddie never has bonded with the humans in this household. Maddie will walk (or run very quickly) a long distance in order to not come close to a human. Miss Kitty had a pal though. She became Maddie's second mother, with Maddie even "comfort" nursing Miss Kitty for many years. While it was kinda weird after a long enough period of time, it was also very sweet to see how close those two cats became, and stayed.
When we moved to the new house, they both made the transition as well as could be expected. A very big change in all our lives came in 2004 when Allison was born. Miss Kitty did not take kindly to this new addition into the house, taking over "her" bedroom, and coming into "her house". We had some bathroom issues on a very expensive area rug, and a huge territorial issue in the bedroom closet upstairs when we were cleaning it up before Allison was born. However, after a short period of time, things soon returned to normal.
Miss Kitty never did really end up bonding very well with Allison. Allison wasn't necessarily the quietest, calmest toddler in the world. Plus, like any young child, she went through the learning phase of how we softly, gently pet cats and not hit or pull hair or tail. Miss Kitty never really did trust Allison, even up to the present time. They had recently been able to call a "truce" and Allison was trying harder to be calm and gentle, but Miss Kitty liked her own space.
Miss Kitty was definitely my cat. She would almost immediately come out of "hiding" when Allison went to bed, and would jump up on my chest and rub up against my face and lay on my chest for awhile in the evening if I were sitting in a chair. One of her favorite things to do, which I will miss terribly, is when I would go to bed or even just to lie on the bed or couch, she would jump up on me and lay on me, on my side, on my stomach, on my chest, it wouldn't matter. And then the "slurping" would begin...she would like to knead my neck with her paws, and clean my chin with her tongue...ending with a strange but loveable way of just holding her mouth against the bottom of my chin in like a long kiss when she was finished. We would just lay there, me sometimes not appreciating it at the time as I wish I now would have, thinking "oh, this is weird" when in fact it was probably the highest sign of love and bonding from this very special fe-lion.
I have had many cats over my lifetime, many cats that I loved and were fond of, and enjoyed. I can honestly say, however, that there has never been a cat quite like Miss Kitty before. She was a very special cat with a very distinct personality that is going to be hard to follow. I miss her terribly already. If you are reading this, and you've either never had a pet, or never had a really close bonded relationship with a pet, it is probably hard to understand, but Miss Kitty was not "just" a cat. She was a friend. She was as special and close to me as any person in my life. I have a very sad hole in my life right now. A hole that tears are flowing from right now.
On a side note, I had not seen Mr. Whiskers since we returned from our weekend away. I was afraid that he had figured his meal ticket was gone since his food had probably been empty for a couple of days, and he had moved on. Bruce said that while I was on the phone with him, telling him what was going on, as soon as I said that Miss Kitty was gone, Mr. Whiskers came popping up the driveway, ........coming home........
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