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Seven years later, cat's offspring still give birth to joy

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 22, 2005

Let us put aside the cares of the world and turn to a topic which, though it may be utterly uninteresting to some (who are free to move on to serious news if they wish), will be of at least passing fancy to others. I propose to speak of cats.

In the autumn of 1998, some readers may recall, I fell into the company of a certain Emily. I did not know upon admitting her to my home that Emily had already tasted of the world and was looking for a haven to complete her mission, namely, the manufacture of new cats, six being the final number.

From my perspective this was a cat surplus. I resolved to reduce the number of kittens in my care to two, not by harsh means, but by a diligent finding of loving homes.

Over the ensuing seven - seven! - years, I have often been asked for an update by a small but vigorous minority of questioners. Here I comply.

The cats Abou and Clarence are with me. They could not be more different. Abou (Abou ben Adhem, may his tribe increase) is a sleek, black-and-white prowler who owns the neighborhood. He is known to all because, on our nightly walks with the dog Harry, he insists either on leading the parade, tail erect, or else bringing up the rear, with periodic signal-meows to usher us along. Dogs run from him. All prey fear him.

Clarence, in contrast, weighs a third more than Abou, despite their shared lineage and diet. He is content to pass his days on the sofa staring out the front window, and his nights sleeping heavily atop my wife's right hip, punctuated by reminders that his food bowl is empty. He is fascinated by beer. He gets acne in hot weather. Both cats love the dog, Harry, utterly and he them in return, wagging his tail in greeting when they come inside; they rush to rub against him.

The cat, Scottie, shares residence with Robert Jenkins, this newspaper's travel editor. Objectively, I must declare he is a fine-looking cat.

Jenkins reports: "He was named by our sons after actor Scott Bakula. He's our dog-cat, most affectionate cat ever. Kneads my beard, drools. ... He hops up to the top of kitchen cabinets, peers smugly. He crawls into my lap each morning, usually rises up to my chest while I try to read the paper."

The cat Erin, originally the runt of the litter, lives with a friend of our chief editorial assistant, Alicia Olazabal. "When Erin first came home," she reports, she was surrounded by the dogs and immediately became Inki, the Welsh terrier's, "puppy.' So any time she greets anyone, she licks them. She's also a talker and loves to sit out on the deck with Deborah and take in nature."

The cat Simone has a Madonna-like beauty mark on her face and lives with our national editor, Bill Duryea, who says: "She is the family's ambassador to the neighborhood, has been ever since we got her. She roams every day in search of delights at doorsteps we can only imagine.

"We get hints of her reputation when we accompany her on walks. That's when people who are obviously friends with her learn her name for the first time. But each night she returns to sleep on our oldest son, William's, bed. Of all her friends, William's her best."

As for the sixth cat, a black-and-white named Sinbad, I have lost touch with him, but hope that he has enjoyed the same quality of life as his brothers and sisters, and shares their utter self-confidence, ownership of all around him, and joy in life. For them all I feel a certain small pride, if not of authorship, at least of original association, having attended the moment of their birth.

And what of Emily? Nature saw to it that she could not stand having her sons in the same house and she grew hostile. She took to spending more and more time at a nearby retirement home, spurning me, her original and loving benefactor, in most fickle fashion for the laps of new admirers. In the end she refused to come home at all. When we moved a few years ago I sadly declared her Not My Cat and let her stay. But, you know, I still think about her now and then.

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 00:58:15]