I hadn't mentioned it previously, but since I did mention Leia in the "Tame Fire" post, I should add that we lost a member of the family last week.

When I moved up to Atlanta in 1988, James moved in with our friends Ann and Clay, who had a black cat named Buttercup. A week after Leia was born, Buttercup had a litter of kittens: two black, a tabby-pointed Siamese, and a grey tabby. (I mention this only because when Buttercup managed to have another litter before the needed visit to the vet, she had exactly the same color combination: two black, a tabby-pointed Siamese, and a grey tabby, which led to the comment, "That's not a cat, it's a Xerox machine.") James brought Leia home six weeks later and she grew up with the kittens. For a long time she thought she was a cat and was very confused when she got too big to disappear under the sofa with them!

Both James and Leia got very attached to the little striped grey tabby. Because she was striped James called her "Spot" (or "Spotte" as Ann has always spelled it). So when the time came to give away the kittens, only the black ones found new homes (Mackie went to Sue Phillips and the other kitten to Kay Teems.) The tabby-pointed Siamese was named Camber and stayed with Ann and Clay while Spot was officially James' (or maybe she was Leia's) cat. He said it was the funniest thing when Spot would come up to Leia and bump her head. Leia would obligingly drop open her lower jaw to "her sister" and Spot would scratch her head on one of Leia's canine teeth.

Amusingly, Spot's stripes, which won her her antonymic name, eventually broke up into mottled spots. Ann used to call her the "tweed kitty."

Unfortunately I am super-allergic to cats, had a bird, and James' allergy was doing none too well itself with constant cat exposure. So when we were married and he moved to Atlanta, we left Spot behind "in fosterage." She broke in a succession of dogs, but none was ever her buddy the way Leia was. And Leia looked all her life for "her cat." We surprised a big grey tabby one night during a walk around the apartment; a delighted Leia was sniffing him before he knew she was there. He looked terrified but was about to defend himself when Leia, after a quick sniff, had the expression, "That's not my cat" and trotted off, leaving the strange tabby bewildered.

Well, Miss Spot died at age 18 last week, having had a long happy cat life. I like to think of her somewhere at Rainbow Bridge, finally rubbing her head on Leia's teeth again, and Leia happy because she's finally found her own cat at last.

Labels: pets

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:24:00 AM

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