So Long, Merlyn.
Sad news: Merlyn passed away early Tuesday morning. Diane was with him, and he went peacefully. I, unfortunately, had to get Babygirl to school and catch my bus to get to work on time.
He was pushing sixteen years old, and his health had been a bit rocky for most of the past eight: this was the fourth, maybe fifth serious incident since we moved to our present location, and while not as dramatic as his heart condition or the possibly-a-cancer close call he had a while back, it was bad enough.
Diane is holding up fairly well (after a few days to recover). I'm still waiting for it to really hit. Avalon is finally relaxing a little, since she's finally grasped that he isn't just hiding somewhere out of sight waiting to pounce. ParkerAnn keeps telling us how much she misses him and wonders when he'll be coming back from the kitty doctor. She's getting the idea, slowly but surely, that he's just not coming back (which is heart-wrenching right after she's suggested that we ought to buy Merlyn a new cat toy or two for when he gets better).
He was ever and mostly Diane's cat, probably for food-related reasons. His core personality struck me as akin to Brad Pitt's stoner in True Romance (Floyd) or perhaps Jeffrey Lebowski: laid back, unconcerned with the stuffy pretense of dignity in favor of a more relaxed approach to life, and a healthy love of catnip. Somewhere in the process, he acquired a middle name (entirely my fault). Diane suffered these touches of quasi-paternal influence with fairly good grace, but insisted that when I borrowed his persona to voice some of our answering machine messages that I had to give him a more dignified approach than the surfing stoner who came to my lips the first time.
I'll just end this with a few pictures of the little guy.
The Cat Abides
"Do you like my hat?"
"This is my box. Go get your own."
Merlyn Cornelius Agnew
1995(?)-2011
He was pushing sixteen years old, and his health had been a bit rocky for most of the past eight: this was the fourth, maybe fifth serious incident since we moved to our present location, and while not as dramatic as his heart condition or the possibly-a-cancer close call he had a while back, it was bad enough.
Diane is holding up fairly well (after a few days to recover). I'm still waiting for it to really hit. Avalon is finally relaxing a little, since she's finally grasped that he isn't just hiding somewhere out of sight waiting to pounce. ParkerAnn keeps telling us how much she misses him and wonders when he'll be coming back from the kitty doctor. She's getting the idea, slowly but surely, that he's just not coming back (which is heart-wrenching right after she's suggested that we ought to buy Merlyn a new cat toy or two for when he gets better).
He was ever and mostly Diane's cat, probably for food-related reasons. His core personality struck me as akin to Brad Pitt's stoner in True Romance (Floyd) or perhaps Jeffrey Lebowski: laid back, unconcerned with the stuffy pretense of dignity in favor of a more relaxed approach to life, and a healthy love of catnip. Somewhere in the process, he acquired a middle name (entirely my fault). Diane suffered these touches of quasi-paternal influence with fairly good grace, but insisted that when I borrowed his persona to voice some of our answering machine messages that I had to give him a more dignified approach than the surfing stoner who came to my lips the first time.
I'll just end this with a few pictures of the little guy.
The Cat Abides
"Do you like my hat?"
"This is my box. Go get your own."
Merlyn Cornelius Agnew
1995(?)-2011