22 years ago, Maggie, Michael Tang and I were on our way downtown to see the Ringing brothers circus when I went to check the back yard shed, hoping that a local white cat that had bedeviled me all summer was not moving in for the winter. She wasn't a stray, having a collar, but she loved to hang in my yard and pretty much ignored my persistent harassment for her to leave.
As I approached the shed, I heard mewing and was shocked to find two little balls of white fur looking up at me from a can of grass clipping. I thought that they might not last the cold night and, after finding some gloves, brought them inside, barricading them in the dining room with the idea of setting them out in the morning for mom to find. Worst Case Scenario was that I could give them to a good home. I never had a pet that didn't live in it's own environment before and wasn't about to start.

Mom never showed so we went to by kitten food and litter for them while we waited for someone to claim them. I was impressed that when presented with the litter box, instinct took over. as they were so new, we went to the length of buying little milk bottles and hand feeding them kitten milk. Being the worlds worst salesman, I found no one to take them and had determined that they would never see the shelter. I now had two cats, something I had no experience with.

But they were awfully cute, pure white with one having a hint of a smudge on the forehead. They also were two different personalities, the smudged one had a bit of a temper, comparatively speaking. From what I read and by cursory examination, I determined that they were a boy and girl, so I named them Chiri and Marid after the main characters in George Alec Effingers's Buyadeen novels I was then reading.

I took them down to Bethayers Animal Hospital for a once over and the vet, Dr. Geza Incze laughingly pointed out that I had gotten the sexes backward "This one is a fine healthy boy, you can feel his testicles!". I declined and let them keep their names, promising to come back in six months for spaying and neutering. Meanwhile they became part of the family. We awarded them Maggie's birthday, Nov 6 as the best guess when they were born.

They had the run of the house, spurning the kitty bed for the human bed and walking around with an armful of kittens became the norm. They fell in love with sleeping with us, sometimes I would pass out on the couch with a chest full of kitten, passed out on me. They also were quite acrobatic and willing to use their claws to achieve their goals. After weaning, it was necessary to employ a super soaker pistol to discipline them from jumping onto dangerous places like the kitchen counter tops. That didn't stop them from trying to climb Maggie's nightgown as she was cooking seafood, and for a while I had to stand guard until she was done. They both loved shellfish, but the girl Marid was always interested in trying whatever you were eating. Very cute unless she liked it, then you had to either fight her while eating or, the more common solution, set some aside for her. One of her favorite snacks was dried spicy squid, yes, she loved spicy food. That earned her the nickname "Trashcan". Chiri would take a cursory sniff, but was mostly uninterested.

Marid was the feisty one, her smudge disappeared over time, but she never stood for any mess, responding with a swipe of claws to anything that upset her. Chiri was much more sanguine and easygoing. A real softie, but all male with a strong will. Marid would run at the sound of the gun being shaken but Chiri eventually would stare me down as I shot him as if to say "Sure, Big Man picking on a cat with a squirt gun. Soak me down if it helps your ego." So much for the gun... They also responded to catnip differently, Marid barely being affected while Chiri would lose it as soon as you opened the container. Chiri also doped out that the laser dot was controlled by me and wouldn't play after a while, again staring at me as if to say "You're wasting your and my time with this". Marid, on the other hand, was always amazed and would continue to jerk her head, trying to re-find that superinteresting dot, long after you had stopped. I retired that "toy" shortly after trying it, her response was just too heartbreaking.

Marid grew to be a real people lover, demonstrating that she thought that humans were the best walking, lounging surfaces ever. If there was a way of walking on you or relaxing on you, she would find it. Chiri was more of a leaner, walking up to you and then falling over sideways against you. Chiri was also more sociable and curious about visitors. Marid was a bit of a scaredy cat, watching warily from the stairs until she felt comfortable enough to come down. I called Chiri the "DogaKitty" for his strangled bark-like yelp and his love of licking hands. He also was a fierce protector, performing an alert behavior whenever he saw something in the back yard through the picture window. It was not uncommon for him to have a howldown/staredown through the picture window screen door with any neighborhood cat coming to check out his sister. He was also so smart that he would often race upstairs to Michael's room to look out his window for a better view.

Chiri also was an outdoor lover and loved to escape into the back yard, so I let him go there frequently. I had to watch him, he was big on escaping and checking out the neighborhood. Many times I had to go hunt him down after he noticed my inattentiveness. He also caught his fair number of birds, never killing them and once brought one upstairs to the bedroom and guarded it proudly until I noticed what it was and took it down to set it free.

His love of the outdoors eventually did him in, as he liked to eat crabgrass and then was made sick by it to the extent of almost dying a number of times from being unable to pass it properly, a problem Trashcan never had when she was brave enough to venture outside. It is suspected that his final mistake was shredding and eating some of the fiberglass replacement screen that I put up one summer after his traditional rending of the metal screen with his claws. He almost made it to 18, even with having had a couple of tumors during his rich full life.

After I came home from having him put to (eternal) sleep after a disastrous encounter with a Bethayers technician after I had brought him in for his final diagnosis, two days before my birthday, Marid seemed unable to grasp that he was no longer around. She became much more vocal and clingy, often demanding that you stay in the same room as her and eventually rarely leaving the upstairs. Sometimes I had to fight to keep her off me with her always winning. Her personality also moderated, she became more sweet and loving, always coming up to thank me after eating and pretty much living in the bedroom. She also moved up to sleeping on the bed next to my head, making me suspect the the sight of the other cat in the mirror headboard brought her some comfort from loneliness.

I planned my own life around her, never liking to be away from home for more that a couple of days and always relieved that when I came home, I would hear her yowling and see her at the top of the stairs, looking for me to come right up for the usual punishment/forgivness cycle. The punishment part got shorter and my relief at seeing her grew as she got older. For longer trips, her caregivers laughed at the fact that it took a while for her to warm up to them and her causal vocal disdain toward them (Not Rock? Hmmph!) when the door opened and it wasn't me. That didn't stop her from caging some petting from them if they were familiar to her. Everyone loved her strong personality, for her it was always "my way or the highway".

She was a strong little cat, never having any of the problems that her brother had and always in excellent health. I joked that food and water went in one end, poop and pee came out the other with a whole lot of noise in between. She was able to climb the stairs and a couple of times last month came down when I was doing something to physically push me back up to her private domain to serve her. I carried her back up, but once, having said her piece, proceeded to climb back up the stairs with me grabbing her half way and taking her up in my arms. She always hated to be carried and would be struggling to get away when you neared what she thought was your destination. Another time, as I went to get water from the kitchen, I returned to find her already back upstairs and in her spot on the bed.

She passed away, suddenly in her sleep on the night of Nov 7/8, while I was in Florida, tending to an ill family member. A caregiver discovered her on her side of the bed, as if sleeping, with a small amount of food eaten and a freshly used litter box. She was looked in upon daily, so she must have went suddenly. I mourn the fact that I wasn't there for her final hour, but she went out in a way that I can only be thankful for with no sign of suffering. She was 22 and 2 days which is well over 100 in human years. She never knew anything but love, never knew fear (although she hated going to the vet), had a great loving brother and family and was always spoiled. I spent our last day together in the bedroom, spoiled her with her favorite, shrimp, and asked her old skinny self to hold on for the week I would be gone, but it seems that God wanted an angry loving cat to join her brother upstairs.

I'm gonna miss you Girl, and I am so grateful for the lesson of having you.
Tail hug my Boy for me and tell him I miss him too.