2007-06-05

Santiago.

I gots the PMS real bad.

Everything is making me weepy and inappropriately sentimental. And every ten minutes or so I've been torturing myself with this picture:



That, chickens, is a Maine Coon kitten. And I will absolutely DIE if I don't get one, like, soon. Immediately. Yesterday.

I love Maine Coons. I have never met one that wasn't just a big, dumb, lovable goofball. The weekend before last we were in Essex, doing that whole thing that you do in Essex, which is poke around antique stores looking for old Moxie bottles, and while digging through a box of postcards, I saw this ENORMOUS Maine Coon.

It was like that scene in "West Side Story" where Tony and Maria notice each other across the crowded gymnasium and everything around them blurs, because - really - they're the only two people in the room...in the WORLD...as far as they're concerned. And so it was for me and Thorny, only except Thorny really didn't give a rat's ass about ME, truth be told. He just kind of flopped over on his side and let me grab big fistfuls of fuzz while cooing at him like the stoopid dumdum kitty dummy that he wuzzywuzzyWAS. You know, any port in a storm. Whatever. He left me as soon as he figured out that there were fresh crunchies in the back office.

I had a Maine Coon as a teenager. Santiago came into my life when I was around 15 or so. We had lost our beloved Mittens not long before, and there had always been at least ONE cat in the house for as long as anyone could remember, and so I found an ad in one of the local papers, seeking a home for a "Persian-like" cat with a good disposition. After speaking to the woman who placed the ad, my mother took me over to have a look at the cat. The woman told us that Santiago had belonged to a guy who lived nearby. He evidently received the cat as a present from a girlfriend, and when that relationship ended, he lost whatever interest he'd had in Santiago, who was pretty much left to fend for himself. The woman took him in, but her other cats were fond of attacking him, so Santiago had to be isolated in a little room on the first floor. My heart was already breaking for the little guy before she even opened the door to the room, but when I saw him staring morosely out the window, I fell completely in love. I knew a thing or two about staring morosely out of windows, of being isolated because the other kitties hated you. I tiptoed over to him and held out my hand. He sniffed it, then gave it a headbutt. We were two misfits who'd found one another in a cold, cruel world. As the mental violins soared, I vaguely remember my mother telling the woman that Santiago wasn't a Persian, he was a Maine Coon, look at the huge paws and the big head. "What's with his tail, though?"

Santiago was big and pewter-colored, with a leonine, almost regal face and bright green eyes. His tail, however, was scrawny and nearly hairless save for a Seuss-like tuft on its tip. The woman shrugged, guessing it had something to do with the fact that up until recently, Santiago hadn't been treated especially well. Malnutrition, maybe. But that was all in the past. Santiago had an uneventful ride to his new home, placidly accepting as he was of this new turn of events. I was thrilled beyond belief. Mittens was sorely missed, don't get me wrong, but in Santiago I found my scrawny-tailed soulmate.

As he got used to being "top dog" around the McColgan house, with no other critters to smack him around, Santiago (or "Ti," as we eventually all called him) let his freak flag fly. He was like a bitchy old queen in a caftan. Truman Capote with a perpetual hairball. I loved him madly. My favorite thing was to sit on the front steps reading and watching Ti prowl through our usually unmowed lawn. With his pewter-colored fur and green eyes, it was really something to see. I believe that Ti could hear jungle drums resonating through his giant fat head. He slept with me almost every night, usually next to my head. I missed Ti dreadfully when I went away to college, and would actually make my mother "put him on the phone" when I called.

I had started graduate school, and had moved back into my old bedroom. Ti was very happy about this arrangement, sitting on my desk as I wrote, being my silent and loyal companion when my heart got broken later that winter. But we soon noticed that Ti wasn't acting quite his usual self. His sides were swollen and distended. We took him to the vet, and he was diagnosed with feline lymphoma.

I didn't want him to spend his last days in a cage, so we took him home, where he and I slept forehead-to-forehead like we'd done so many nights before. I cried and told him that it was okay if he had to go, but that I would miss him. I told him how much he made me laugh, what a bitchy, pissy little fag he was and what a good friend he'd been to me for the past nine years. And I told him I loved him. And then the next day we brought him back to the vet to be put down.

My heart still aches a little when I think about him and his pissy ways and his ridiculous tail. I am a friend to all cats as a rule, but Maine Coons just break my heart. Let's have that picture again, shall we? Do, let's.

lisamcc at 8:54 p.m.



3 comments so far
Melanie
2007-06-06 13:27:01
I love the little black-edged ears. I miss having a kitty.
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Spooney
2007-06-06 14:17:57
Jeebus, what are trying to do? I think I'm PMS'n now.
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Lexi
2007-06-06 23:09:17
Just what I fucking needed today; sitting in my studio sobbing like a little bitch for Elvis and Donvoan.
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