RIP...the sound of breaking hearts...

“We’ll take that one. The orange tabby.”
From the dark recesses of the back wall under a sign labelled ‘kittens’, we heard an incessant “Mraaoow. Mraaoow. Mraaoow. Mraaoow. Mraaoow. Mraaoow.” As if to say – "Hey! Don't Go Yet!  Come see about me!"

“Wait a sec…may I hold that one? The stubby legged little Kitler?”

She was so affectionate. All full of purrs and promises

“We’ll take this one.”

We brought her home, let her loose in our penthouse Goose Hollow apartment…and she…never…ever….shut…up! Ever!

Except for the time we decided to take her to the library, when she took a silent shit in Kevin’s lap. Then *I* couldn’t shut up…in fact, I am still laughing about it now...be grateful I didn't have a camera with me.

On the Big Trip 2003, at a riverside campsite in Riggins Idaho, we thought we had lost her for good. After a family sized pizza and several rounds of beer served in mason jars (one of my favourite drinking vessels), we returned to find the screen door of our 5th wheel trailer a jar and The Cow nowhere to be seen. As dusk fell, we combed the shoulders of the highway and the banks of the rushing river by torchlight, frantically calling her name.


At last we gave up and collapsed into a pile of mutual sobs, when from the shadows beneath the trailer we heard a soft ‘mraaoow?” and The Cow Emerged, soggy with cat piss and quite full of her self. She immediately received hugs, beatings, and a violent bath:




Because we had a cat in Baja, it seemed an obvious pre-conclusion that we would certainly want another. And so when a skinny little blue-eyed Siamexican kitten was rescued from a feral litter, it was assumed that we would naturally adopt him. The Cow issued a vocal sharp clawed veto and exhibited her typical smug stubbornness, and he soon took up residence elsewhere:






“What about The Cow?” was the most difficult question in our decision to move to Australia. She was well into her 14th cranky year, and immigration regulations would require a 2 month stint in quarantine – seemed a cruel penance for a grand old lady who was so recently enjoying her rest on the oak covered mountainside of our home in Shingletown. The decision to leave her to her retirement abode was made easy by the generosity of Robert and Holly, who loved her like their own, gave her daily beatings, and indulged her incessant meowing with patience and adoration.



And it was them, not us, who cared for her in her final hours…and for that I am eternally grateful, and perhaps, as eternity stretches out, I will be able to forgive myself for not being there with her....

  

SHIT.