A Big Birthday for Blackie
Woman in the Middle | February 20, 2016A pregnant tortoise colored cat with a collar on began hanging around our house way back in 1999. The collar should have meant she was somebody’s cat but she wouldn’t leave. Then, twelve days after my mother died, we awoke one morning to discover a newly deflated cat outside our front door. She had had four little boys in our front planter the night before. Suddently we had cats. That was seventeen years ago today.
December 2005 Blackie in his prime, with Eldest Daughter
The mother cat was a delight, until the kittens got to be a certain age and we still had two of them. After trying several times to run them off, she just up and disappeared one day. She was spayed and healthy and we hoped she found a good new home where she could be an only cat. Meanwhile, we had Blackie and his brother Cheeks.
FYI, new kittens really take your mind off your woes and we were eternally grateful for the distraction. Cheeks and Blackie played, and entertained us. They were very good cats and soon learned to stay off the kitchen counters and away from the parakeets. One of Eldest Daughter’s funniest memories is the time Blackie, a teenage cat at the time, got tangled up in a plastic bag. When he moved it crinkled. That scared him and he started to run. It crinkled even more, and he ran some more. He ran all through the house, plastic bag flapping behind him, until we cornered him in a bedroom, dying with laughter, and got the bag off of him.
Cheeks was with us until he was eight, when he died suddenly of a congenital heart condition. Blackie was rushed to the doctor to make sure he didn’t have a similar problem. Other than having a hard time getting an x-ray of his heart through all the fat, Blackie was fine. He really came into his own after that. Without a brother to hang out with, he turned to us humans for love and affection.
Blackie was always a laid back cat. The dog never chased him because if you don’t run, you can’t be chased. He never rubbed up against you and tried to trip you to your death. When we moved to our current home, which is next to a golf course and a lot of coyotes, he adjusted in a heartbeat to his new life as a completely indoor cat.
All of our daughters’ friends remember our big black cat. It is a little hard not to remember a cat that, in his prime, was tall, long, and 22 pounds. He looked like a small panther prowling through our house. By the way, we tried really hard to keep his weight down, but it was impossible. But he was so big he carried his weight reasonably well. He could still fit through a cat door meant for cats “up to fifteen pounds.”
He liked to leap/scramble up and walk along the top of the six foot tall block wall at our previous home. It was quite a sight to see the black panther strolling along up there. Hubby and I would shake our head every time at the truly giant cat we had let into our lives. He looked like some wild animal from a South American jungle up there!
Blackie was never a regal cat. More often than not he look confused if anything. For the vast majority of his life his main thought has been food and meowing loudly in an effort to get us to feed him. His food was kept in a cupboard near the phone at our other house. Friends got used to hearing Blackie meowing in the background while I was on the phone. After all, if I was near his food I should be giving him some!
When we had people over, it was also very common that he would meow loudly at anyone who headed towards his food cupboard. Inevitably, we would be asked “Why is your car meowing at me?” “Because you are walking towards the magic cupboard!” we would tell our friends.
I say Blackie would meow loudly when he wanted food. Actually, Blackie’s meow really only has one volume and that is loud. Loud and kind of irritating. There is a wee bit of fingernails on a chalkboard to his meows. That probably served him well over the years as he demanded food to keep that large body of his in tip top overweight condition. Believe me, it is a very hard meow to ignore!
I always knew Blackie would be with us for a very long time. Still, though, I am a bit surprised to be able to say Happy Seventeenth Birthday, Blackie, Black Attack, Mr. Blackster, Kiki, Bububu Blackie Face! (We tend to give nicknames to our pets!)
In the front yard at our other house, 2006
December 2005 Curled up with the Christmas Presents, after they were unwrapped.
Awww!
Oh what a wonderful story, I liked and of course I like Blackie