fine whine

Jessica came home from work today to find an entirely unexpected, and incredibly sad surprise: our cat had died.

In the year and months since we first adopted her she'd become a member of our household, and she will be missed. We'd spent enough time with her to discover some of the nuances of her personality and enjoyed just spending the time.

Now we just have pictures, and furniture and carpets covered with her fur. I live without the hair, but I'd like to have recorded more of her liveliness and stuff.

Call it the geek's regrets: had the cat and the gadgets, and hardly ever put the two together.

She loved stalking the elusive laser pointer dot, and would launch herself across the room in futile attempts to catch it. I'd discovered that she would leap up against the curtains of our patio door, and would bounce on her hind legs attempting to reach her luminous prey. Then she would tire, somewhat, and I'd aim the beam lower, giving her an easy 'kill', and would turn it off appropriately. Then, for her troubles, she'd get a cat treat. I'd meant to capture this with my camera, it being capable of reasonably sized movie clips of good quality and length, but I never set it up and took it. The two times I'd shot any video of her at all was just a proof of concept, and have long since been deleted from my memory card for their seeming mundanity (and obvious display of amateur cameraman-ship) at the time. I hadn't taken many good photos of her, or even gotten much practice at bad to decent ones. Her eyes were always facing the flash, or the shutter set too slow, and the results were never quite up to what I wanted out of my pictures.

And the sounds she made. Even before having a cat in the house I'd wanted to hear (and record) the sounds of the odd pidgin bird-language they 'speak' whilst perched on windowsills, watching their feathered friends outside. I'd heard her once or twice making the noises from our windowsills, but any time we took her outside (moments she always seemed to relish with great abandon, or at least she did the grass she'd eat while out there) she would ignore the birds and squirrels and other animals, wanting only to stroll around the yard and nibble on the grass here and there.

For years her former owner had, from what we had heard, kept her inside. De-clawed years before, she had little reason to spend much time outside anyway, but times we'd had her near doors she'd made it obvious that she was interested in getting some fresh air once in a while.

Of course, it was, again, probably the fresh grass that she so eagerly wanted, but either way she wanted out. Within a week of her first bold forays into the back yard, we'd procured a leash and collar, and determined that they could easily be attached to a garden weed-puller to create an impromptu hitching post, around which she would sometimes make a circle, the radius her leash, chowing down on the grass at all points along the circle. Other times she would use her leash to create a veritable obstacle course for Jessica and me as we tried to do gardening or yard work, with the ever moving trip line attached to her neck that would trigger a surprised yelp and quick apologies with a snag of the toe.

But other than then, she was relatively quiet while we were outside, except when she was outside alone and wanted to be let back into the house. Inside she could be loud or soft, depending on her whims and whether we were mimicking her back.

For a time I'd try to preempt her "meow"s with ones of my own, and she seemed as confounded as she was apparently determined to out-meow me. Other times we'd be in one room of the house and she'd be in another, and we'd hear yowling that seemed to be some form of echolocation, as though she relied on sonar to find us. I never once was able to see her making these sounds, so I have no idea how these big, otherworldly noises came from such a small cat.

And then at nightfall, once we were in bed and had closed the bedroom door, she'd often plead with us to open it to let her in, so she could walk around our heads and sleep at the foot of the bed, or lying under it. She wasn't the sort of cat to curl up on top of our bodies, or faces (thankfully); she just wanted to be near us.

Which is a big reason we'll miss her. She wasn't always looking for outright affection and the display thereof, she just wanted to be nearby. And sometimes to rest her head up against one of our legs. And when she couldn't do that, well, she'd cry out. I'd often considered leaving a microphone running at night to try to capture these odd sounds, but never had. Again, the regrets.

I'm going to miss her. We only had her for just over a year, and she'd become part of many a routine and ritual around the house. Playing with, and tormenting her had become an always-present entertainment option, and we had no shortage of new toys to try on her, milk cap rings and ribbons and yarn and laser pointers and flashlights and toys and radio controlled cars, among other things*.

Old as she was, she didn't stop learning. She picked up on a lot of stuff around the house, such as the sounds of every possible food in the kitchen (and treats elsewhere), and how much of a pushover I can be when a cat wants to go outside, or down the basement stairs. I had no reason not oblige her, after all.

The house was happy with her in it, and now it's quiet. Rest in peace, Yantar. We'll miss you.

* One fall day Jessica came home wearing a pair of Holloween cat ears, and as soon as Yantar saw her her back arched, her fur stood on end, and she started hissing. Jessica cracked up as she realized that Yantar thought her to be another cat, and we spent the next hours (and days, and weeks) donning and doffing the ears to see the reaction we'd get. I hypothesized that the ears had the correct silhouette to trigger Yantar's intense dislike of any other cats, and even though Jessica was obviously not cat-sized, the cat-shaped ears were enough to trigger that instinctive reponse. I further hypothesized that she'd likely not get over this reaction, but was proved wrong as time passed and Yantar's response changed to almost meek "meee-ehhh" of some surprise but nothing stronger. She'd gotten used to the ears.