For a Good, Sweet Kitty

Our cat, Kiwi, had a lot of personality. She was the mouthiest cat I've ever met, but also the only cat I've ever known to crave/demand so much human attention. She became sick with kidney disease this past year and died on January 2nd, 2009. She was likely 18 years old.

I got her from the Humane Society in April of 2001 and the people that surrendered her said she was 11 years old with a long tail and liked to lay in the sun. I picked her out because she was social and talkative, and at the time I lived by myself in a studio apartment. A couple of weeks after I brought her home, I called a friend to ask if I could come over to escape Kiwi's constant talking. We contemplated dialing the phone for her so she could prank call someone else.

After the studio apartment, I moved into a co-op house where she had many more people to talk to. She became an outdoor cat after many days of demanding at the door that she be let outside. At first she would just follow people around the garden in the yard, but she then became bolder and bolder as the summer went on. Kiwi's most infamous story was the time I got a call from the Barrymore Theater in Madison. Someone checked her tag and called to inform me that Kiwi had talked one of the theater owners out of a chicken dinner and then waltzed up on stage to meow at the crowd that had paid to see the heavy metal band that was performing. I'm not kidding. She was on stage with the band 2 or 3 times that night. Her risk-taking behaviors increased in late summer/early fall when she was found lying in the middle of our side street just daring someone to tell her to get out of the road. Eventually, she got picked up by animal control and had to spend the night in kitty jail. When the authorities brought her home she was grounded to the indoors for the rest of her life. This probably annoyed my housemates to no end, but it shortly turned to winter and then Kiwi and I moved into our own place again.

We moved to a third floor apartment with only a door to a hallway that she could easily be caught in. She got used to the idea. On Gilman, she enjoyed the sunny south-facing windows with views of other rooftops and the chimney swifts. Kiwi came with me when I moved into my first apartment with Ben in Madison, but she had a difficult time adjusting to him being on her side of the bed. Eventually she disrupted his sleep enough that we had to find her a different place to sleep at night.

Kiwi always hated car rides and would scream and pant until the car stopped. We had to drug her to bring her to our new home in Beloit. She slept most of the way, but would wake to pitifully try to dig her way out of the cat carrier. She quickly became accustomed to the new house and enjoyed greeting my yoga students after class to try to get as much attention as possible before they would be allowed to go home. Once, on a sunny spring day, we put her outside in our tent so she could get some fresh air. She didn't like the idea and promptly peed in the tent. Kiwi was always a great mouser (even without front claws) and she caught at least 8 mice last winter in the basement. In the past two years she'd taken up studying math on Ben's lap while he graded homework on the couch.

Kiwi was always good to the children that visited us. She didn't actually like being touched by them or even near them, but would tolerate anything like a true martyr. Once, our nephew cornered her by the couch and laid his head on her soft fur and she put up with it until she could escape. The picture below was taken just last month for our Christmas card and shows just how much she'd put up with.



She was a good and sweet kitty to all who knew her and will be greatly missed.

Dear Grandma

Most of my friends have heard me refer to Crabby Grandma S. She earned that title well if you saw her frowning in most of her pictures. I got used to her response when asking her to go to a movie or her favorite place, Kmart, "...........Well,.......(big sigh)......I s'pose......" Grandma was a tough, very private and fiercely independent person that was hard to get to know (if you asked her two questions she'd accuse you of being "nosey"). In the years since my maternal grandparents passed on, I made an effort to take her out to movies and for dinner or ice cream whenever she would allow it. She never learned to drive and still walked or took the bus everywhere, no matter the weather. She'd occasionally accept rides to the store or to the doctor's office, but she'd often turn them down. She hated having her picture taken, but I was one of the lucky people that could get away with it. I'd have to set up the photo and then tease her that it wouldn't be over until she smiled. I'd then be informed that I was a pain in the ass, but she would smile and even laugh a little.

Grandma was famously hard to shop for. She had strong likes and dislikes, she already had everything, and then the task was complicated by a birthday that fell three days after Christmas. But, if she like your gift, her highest praise was that she'd hide it away, never to be seen again because she wanted to keep it nice.

She'd save her best smiles for her great-granddaughter, Haille, and her granddaughter, Brianna. Last Christmas she watched them play for hours, laughing with them from her spot on the couch.

She was very practical, but she also liked pretty things. She had at least fifty pairs of orthopedic shoes, most of them from rummage sales, but she also had about forty purses that might or might not match her outfit. When I was little, I always received a pack of underwear for Christmas and a necklace or locket. My mom would later have to explain to me why a pack of underwear is a very nice gift while she clasped the locket around my neck. Once I married, she'd give me pillowcases and dishtowels, but she'd also include something hand-embroidered or a pretty Christmas pin.

She loved clipping recipes. We've found thousands in her home. Some taped into little notebooks or journals, some piled on the kitchen table with the magazines and bills and some tucked in between couch cushions and in the coffee table. But she always stuck to the tried a true fruit and marshmallow salads for family gatherings.

Grandma loved a good romance story. I took her to all of the movies with "wedding" in the title: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Wedding Singer, Wedding Crashers, Runaway Bride, Wedding Planner, Made of Honor, etc. I'll never forget taking her to see Titanic in the theaters. Everyone knows how Titanic ends, but she was so invested in the characters that she kept gasping over and overfor the last hour of the film, and I thought I'd have to give her CPR in the theater.

She spent a lot of time thinking about her family. She clipped coupons even more than recipes and had envelopes for every family with the things she thought they'd need. I think she started saving tampon and maxi pad coupons just for me when I turned fourteen. She also collected clothes at rummage sales for every member of the family. It was always entertaining to see what she thought we'd like or what she thought might fit us. In my teenage years I remember getting a lemon yellow terrycloth jumper that was three sizes too small and the next visit I'd get an extra large sequined Christmas sweater. The rummage bags from Grandma were always a treasure hunt.

I'll miss all of these things and more about Grandma. When I wasn't allowed soda at home, she'd offer me a glass at Christmas visits just like all of the adults. When my brother and I slept over at her house, we had instant oatmeal for the first time for breakfast and we were allowed to watch TV while we ate it. She had a light up fireplace with a lightbulb and a rotating brush drum under plastic made to look like burning coals. She also had a hanging lamp with a water wheel in the center that turned with oil and the filaments around the lamp dripped with oil like it was raining. She used to collect rotating, color-changing fiberoptic flowers that glittered under the glass. All of the light sets on her Christmas tree blinked to a different pace and I could watch that pattern for hours. I'll miss her sneaking me candy from her purse, I'll miss telling her to button up her winter coat, I'll miss her stories about her country music stars, and I'll miss helping her with her seatbelt (she never mastered those).

This loss was very sudden, partially because she was so independent and wouldn't accept help, but, she wouldn't have wanted it any other way. She wouldn't want us to see her sick. She wouldn't have wanted to go to the hospital because they'd be "nosey." She took care of herself all of her life and preferred time spent alone. She refused to tell us her age and still colored her hair regularly to look younger. We found out later that she would have turned 79 years young (and stubborn) in another month. So, we wish you well, Grandma. May heaven be filled with gossip magazines and coupon flyers and rummage sales and blue light specials.

Love always,
Your Granddaughter, Melinda