Requiem for a stinkbomb
Jun. 30th, 2010 02:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaI first met Tabitha when she and her owner, Melissa, moved into ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
speedlime's house in Washington DC as roommates. The first time we made eye contact, she hissed at me. Then she sidled arthritically over and dared me to pet her.
I did. Stroking Tabitha was a very strange sensory experience. Her medium-length orange fur was extraordinarily soft and fine, but underneath you could feel nothing but protruding bones. My knowledge of cat anatomy became much more thorough from the time I spent petting her and feeling sharp shoulder blades, ridged pelvis and knobbly vertebrae under my fingers. If you desisted, thinking the pressure must be painful to her, she would scream at you till you started again. That rag-and-bone body contained one hell of a voice.
She liked Petra's house (except the bathroom, which she disliked so much she'd sit outside it for long periods and howl.) She made herself at home, put some weight back on and proceeded to subjugate Petra entirely to her will. If Petra or Melissa came home from work and did not immediately report to the couch to be sat on, the yowling from hell would be unleashed. If they left town for the weekend the couch would be stinkbombed. Eventually the couch was semi-permanently covered with a blue plastic tarp. Petra began calling her Stinkerbelle. I think it was me who contributed Agent Orange to her list of names. Melissa, her actual owner, was much more charitable-- but she'd spent more years under Tabitha's clawed thumb than we had.
Tabitha managed to embody all the worst things about having a cat and still make us all love her. She snarled and yelled and foully stank us all into submission. Then she sat on us and purred.
When I first met her, it was clear that this was a cat on her last legs. Two years later, I'd become convinced she was indestructible and would bury us all. She was only a scrap of fur and bones, but she was sustained by pure anger. No human or beast ever raged against the dying of the light like Tabitha did.
She took her final trip to the vet last week, after having slowed down and stopped eating. She was at least eighteen, possibly more. Farewell, Tabitha, you ancient, irascible, reeking, arthritic, toothless, deaf, demented, foul-tempered orange thing. I miss you.
EDIT: I've uploaded the few photos I could find to Photobucket so you may behold her in all her orange glory.
speedlime's house in Washington DC as roommates. The first time we made eye contact, she hissed at me. Then she sidled arthritically over and dared me to pet her.I did. Stroking Tabitha was a very strange sensory experience. Her medium-length orange fur was extraordinarily soft and fine, but underneath you could feel nothing but protruding bones. My knowledge of cat anatomy became much more thorough from the time I spent petting her and feeling sharp shoulder blades, ridged pelvis and knobbly vertebrae under my fingers. If you desisted, thinking the pressure must be painful to her, she would scream at you till you started again. That rag-and-bone body contained one hell of a voice.
She liked Petra's house (except the bathroom, which she disliked so much she'd sit outside it for long periods and howl.) She made herself at home, put some weight back on and proceeded to subjugate Petra entirely to her will. If Petra or Melissa came home from work and did not immediately report to the couch to be sat on, the yowling from hell would be unleashed. If they left town for the weekend the couch would be stinkbombed. Eventually the couch was semi-permanently covered with a blue plastic tarp. Petra began calling her Stinkerbelle. I think it was me who contributed Agent Orange to her list of names. Melissa, her actual owner, was much more charitable-- but she'd spent more years under Tabitha's clawed thumb than we had.
Tabitha managed to embody all the worst things about having a cat and still make us all love her. She snarled and yelled and foully stank us all into submission. Then she sat on us and purred.
When I first met her, it was clear that this was a cat on her last legs. Two years later, I'd become convinced she was indestructible and would bury us all. She was only a scrap of fur and bones, but she was sustained by pure anger. No human or beast ever raged against the dying of the light like Tabitha did.
She took her final trip to the vet last week, after having slowed down and stopped eating. She was at least eighteen, possibly more. Farewell, Tabitha, you ancient, irascible, reeking, arthritic, toothless, deaf, demented, foul-tempered orange thing. I miss you.
EDIT: I've uploaded the few photos I could find to Photobucket so you may behold her in all her orange glory.
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no subject
on 2010-06-30 02:05 am (UTC)It's true, though-- she was everything awful that a cat can be and I still adored her. I wish the house weren't so quiet now. Luckily, I think Melissa recorded a few minutes of yowling, so we can have something to remember her by besides the mystery floor stains.
no subject
on 2010-06-30 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-06-30 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-06-30 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-07-01 11:26 am (UTC)I'd never thought of cats adopting Secessionist poses before, but you're right, they do; a languid cat drapes itself with positively Klimt-like flow . ..