To All the Fuzz I’ve Loved Before
Animals are fascinating. I love animals, but I also realize that’s like saying “I love music.” Who doesn’t love animals?
I love all animals. I would say I’m predominantly a cat person though, due to two factors:
1) Both of my parents were cat people. I actually think this is somewhat rare. It’s entirely possible that had my parents been dog people and raised us alongside dogs, I would be a dog person.
2) I had a paper route as a child. I think I was probably 8 when I got my paper route. I’m 5'2" as a grown-ass woman. You can probably figure that as an 8-year old, a terrier could take me down. Pitt bulls, rottweilers, dobermans, dalmatians, etc., would all snarl at me and nip at my fingers through the mail slot as I slid their Pittsburgh Presses through to the enlightened public. The occasional dog would get loose. My sister (with whom I paper routed) and I both survived, but not completely unscathed. That said, I completely understand the human-dog relationship and have huge respect for it. I, myself, have bonded with many dogs in my time. I get it. I just prefer to live with the animals that max out at, like, 15 pounds and can’t reach the mail slot.
Anyway, I think humans have a huge task. As the “superior” species, it’s our job to take care of the animals. And the plants. And the Earth. I hope we’re all up to the task. I just wanted to share the fuzz love I’ve experienced in my life because I know so many have experienced much of the same, be it cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, guinea pigs, parakeets, or what-have-you.
I also think it’s incredible that animals truly each have their own personalities. Sure — most dogs love tennis balls. Sure — most cats love bags. But beyond that, some are shy, some are loud, some are needy, some are independent. They have little personalities, each unique. I find that incredible. And thus, all the fuzz I’ve loved before:
Honorable Mention: Frank*
*This is not actually a picture of Frank. I knew Frank before everyone had a camera built into their phones. This is my best Google image search. Frank had a little less white on him, but had that same very serious expression.
Frank was not our cat. My mother’s friend, Carol, had found Frank as a stray. Carol did not like cats, but took him in until she could find a home for him. Not surprisingly, he charmed the shit out of her and ended up being her very best friend. Any time she went on vacation or traveled for work, my family would Frank-sit. As we were petless at the time, Frank would come live with us for the duration. This was the birth of the crazy cat lady I am today.
Frank was a delight. He loved my whole family, and he was very smart. He figured out that it wasn’t just the door, but the door knob that was the key to his freedom. Thus, he would reach up and grab it periodically, endlessly disappointed when the portal wouldn’t open.
He preferred my dad. My dad would joke that when Frank was staying with us, there was a constant parade through the house: Bruce, then Frank, then the girls (Paige and me). It was true. We couldn’t get enough of Frank. Frank couldn’t get enough of Dad.
Samantha*
Aliases: Sam, Sammy, Sammy baby, Snnghh-ham, SCUD
*This is also not actually a picture of Samantha. I think I have one somewhere, but it is on actual paper, and buried in a box somewhere. I will update this post if I ever find it. For now, this Google image search cat will have to do. For the rest of the cats, I have actual pictures. Hooray!
I was young when we got Sam. She was a joint birthday gift. My birthday was in January; my sister’s was in March. When I was maybe 7 or 8, my parents proposed that we could either do normal birthday stuff, or split our birthdays and get a cat in February. We were going to choose the cat anyway, but as it happened, a friend of the family found a stray behind her husband’s pizza shop right around that time.
Sam was something else. Sam was LOUD. She liked to scream, just for fun. She screamed alone, she screamed to others. If you talked directly to her, she would scream louder, out of sheer excitement. She would scream running up the stairs. She would scream running down the stairs. She would scream bloody murder when she heard the can opener. She was that weird friend who just talks all the time and really loud for no reason.
My mother, who had gone back to graduate school at that time, would lock Sam in the bathroom when she was doing school work because otherwise, Sam would just scream at her, trying to be nice.
The other side of Sam was that she was an absolute sweetheart. Sam had a really unique gift, besides just the ability to scream all day every day without getting tired. People say that animals are perceptive, and although Sam was in no way intelligent, she was absolutely perceptive. Any time she heard someone cry, she would run full speed to that person and just purr and nuzzle (and scream, of course) until you had no choice but to smile. She absolutely, without question, understood negative human emotions, and wanted to fix it.
She died suddenly of kidney failure when I was probably 11 or so. Because we didn’t know how old she was, it probably shouldn’t have been a shock. She may have been a lot older than we guessed. Our whole family was devastated, even though we could now hear ourselves think. Sam was truly a (very loud) family member. She would storm into a room and plop herself down on a board game, a puzzle, homework, bills, or whatever. Thus, in the ’90s, at the height of Operation Desert Storm and “SCUD” missiles, she earned the name “SCUD” because “— you never know when or where she’s going to land.”
Molly**
Aliases: Molls, Molls McGuinness, Molly Mittens, Molls McGhee, Miss Molly Mittens Preencess Kittens, Molly McMittens, Molls Balls
**This really is a picture of Molly! Hooray for the digital age.
I had wanted another cat ever since Sam had died. My mother finally caved after a few years, knowing that my sister was going away to college and that I would be lonely. We went to the Humane Society on April 10, 1996. We returned home with a tiny black puff ball, who immediately ran into the cupboard under the sink and didn’t come out for weeks.
I remember turning to my mom at one point and saying, “What if we got a dud? She just hides all the time.” My mom told me to wait it out. So I did.
Needless to say, Molly eventually emerged from under the sink. I called her “kitty” for a long time. I couldn’t settle on a name. I decided on “Lucy,” but she just didn’t quite look like a Lucy. Paige called from a Denny’s in Florida while on her senior band trip. “Ask your friends if I should name the kitten Molly or Lucy,” I said.
Molly was the verdict. And so Molly she was.
And Molly she remained... from 1996 until 2015.
Molly had a cute, chirpy little meow.
Molly brought me a disgusting, half-eaten chicken wing from the garbage one night, and plopped it on my pillow, purring in my ear with pride.
Molly became a bratty “teenage” cat, and did the opposite of everything I said, all the while strutting around with her big fluffy tail in the air.
Molly hid from strangers, which was disappointing, because those who knew her knew she was awesome and sassy and talkative.
When I adopted Molly, it dawned on me as an 8th grader that I could be almost THIRTY by the time she died. I was 33.
Molly was there to greet me on college breaks, weekends home, and summers. She was there when I came home to say goodbye to Dad.
After college, I moved back home (like you do when you have mountains of student loan debt). I saw that Molly and my mom had bonded while I was gone. When I looked for my own place and found one that didn’t allow pets, I decided to let my mom keep Molly because a cancer patient needed a pet more than I did. And I could visit them both at any time. And I would probably get a pet-friendly place eventually. And anyway, Molly might be too old and frail to relocate her in a car trip across town.
But then my mom got too sick, and pets might be bad for her immune system. Molly would have to go to a shelter, or go live elsewhere. I wrote a letter to my landlord explaining the situation. They responded — Molly could come live with me.
Thus began the era of the Claire and Molly bachelorette pad. In an era when I was working full-time at a job that I absolutely hated, took grad school classes, tried to maintain a long-distance relationship three time zones away and spent most nights at the hospital visiting my mom, I could come home every night and be greeted by my little black puff ball. We’d watch Jeopardy (pretty much the only show we could get with rabbit ears, couldn’t afford cable), cook something quick for dinner, and snuggle up for bedtime before repeating the work, school, hospital routine over and over again.
Molly was there when all of it changed. When I got my Master’s, when I left the job I hated and got one I liked, when my long-distance relationship became a domestic partnership, when I made my last visit to Shadyside Hospital.
Molly decided she liked Josh even more than she liked me.
When I adopted Molly, I was 14 years old and had two parents and a sister who was a senior in high school.
When I finally said goodbye to her, I was 33, an orphan, married, a home owner with two degrees, and an aunt of 13 nieces and nephews.
Even though Molly was 19 when she died, and that’s a life well lived for a cat, I cried for weeks. It was hard to get off the couch. 19 years is a long time. I would come downstairs in the morning, and be greeted by nothing. Josh had left for work long ago, and there was nothing else living in the house. My love of animals in general nagged at me — so many cats in shelters needed homes. Obviously none of them could ever compare to Molly, but at the very least I could give an animal in need a place to live, and maybe the house wouldn’t feel so empty when Josh was at work.
Somehow I had manged to marry another cat person, creating another cat-centric partnership, much as my parents had. When we started to visit shelters in the area, I knew I didn’t want us each to pick a cat. I didn’t want “his and hers” pets. I wanted two pets that we could both agree on.
I had just started working at Oneview. The weather was still bad in Pittsburgh, so Josh wasn’t working. He took that time to visit shelters and report back. Between petfinder.com and Josh’s visits, we shortlisted some finalist cats. I visited several of those finalists.
There were a handful we wanted to see at the Animal Friends of Westmoreland. Josh had spoken to the volunteers there who recommended a little quiet lap cat named Rosie, who had been rescued from another local shelter that had closed due to poor conditions. Rosie came highly recommended, and our friend Christine also told us to adopt her after seeing a photo. When I went to visit her, she was sleeping and had zero interest in talking to me. Josh, however, was sold.
I looked around at the other cats, some of whom we had shortlisted (although I kept an open mind). I saw a fella whom I had seen on the website, named Cinco. He was kind of hiding in a cage. A volunteer took out a laser pointer, and while all the kitties went nuts chasing it, Cinco tried but was beaten to it by all the younger, smaller, more outgoing kitties. Cinco gazed longingly at the laser dot, afraid to intrude on the game in play. Poor dude had been metaphorically picked last for kickball. I recognized a kindred spirit and outstretched my hand. With only a bit of hesitation, he toddled over to me and nuzzled my hand. It was a done deal.
So even though I went in with a “we both pick both” mentality, Josh picked Rosie and I picked Cinco. We renamed Rosie “Rita” because I have a cousin named Rosie and that’s weird. Also, “Rita” sounded like it went with “Cinco” a bit better. Cinco was named such (by the shelter) because he had been dropped off there on January 5. We adopted them on March 5, so it seemed fitting to keep Cinco’s name. He remains Cinco to this day. That said, we have since concluded that “Darryl” would be a better name for him. It is now his middle name.
After getting to know them, I can tell you that Rita is far and away one of the cutest cats I have ever seen. She is tiny and feisty and she has giant wide eyes on a teeny tiny face like an anime mouse cat. She also doesn’t speak. It’s not a disability — she can meow. We hear it very rarely. She just opts not to. Even her meow is tiny when we hear it. From a tininess, daintiness standpoint, there is no cuter cat. She is nothing like Cinco or Molly or Sam. None of them were tiny or dainty.
Cinco is large, lumbering, clumsy and talkative. He loves to tell stories and has a strange pterodactyl-like meow. He is very different from Rita, different from Molly, different from Sam. He’s a bit nervous like Molly, but still loves to meet new people (albeit after a few minutes of watching from afar), and will sometimes even throw the veggie tray on the ground at a party, just for fun. He also throws himself on the ground for seemingly no reason. He is a hoot. And he still loves the shit out of the laser pointer.
It seems only fitting to now formally introduce them.
Rita
(Aliases: Rita-pants, ree-pants, squeedunk, rita-squeeta, tiny-face, Rita-squeeta-tiny-pants)
and
Cinco
(Aliases: Cinco-puss, Cinco Darryl Burger King III, Lil’ Storm Cloud, Stink-o, Stink-o-puss)
Here they are together:
Nowadays, I don’t know whether to say I hope to rescue many many more animals or very few. I hope to rescue many because I feel like that does the most good, but at the same time, it means we go through them at an alarming rate and it means our time with each is limited. For now, I choose not to think about that. I choose to spoil these two rotten.
What fuzz does my future hold? I don’t know. But I do know my future holds a lot of fuzz, and that fuzz will be spoiled.
Josh wants to get a Corgi at some point. I am open to this. I do not want to shop for a Corgi. If we find one at a shelter, I’m willing to consider. Who knows. Maybe there’s a Corgi in our future. There are definitely more cats unless something tragic happens and our cats outlive us.
Saying goodbye to Sam and Molly was so hard. Sometimes I panic when I realize I’m going to have to do it again. Twice. Likely many more times. But I remember, even when I was curled in a ball on the couch covered in tears and snot, I thought to myself, “I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.”
Animals are really special. We laugh at the animal things they do. We laugh harder at the human things they do. Let’s take care of them.
