Goodbye
We should have known Ceebee would be a hell-raiser, making her entrance to our home at 5 weeks, in a knapsack on the back of hubby's bike. Yes, you read that, 5weeks. Siamese mothers sometimes turn on their young, and after seeing what our little darling did to the nipples we used to bottle feed her, well, I couldn't say mom-cat was totally wrong. Our bottles were certainly glad when she graduated to a saucer:
This was a tiny cat. Aside from the aforementioned hell on wheels trip home, she used her size to her advantage. We soon had to put a bell on her, as she was so tiny and stealthy that she became an accomplished escape artist in no time. My best Ceebee 'find' was out by the elevators, on the carpeted wall (yes our apartment was decorated in the worst part of the 70's), at eye level. How tiny you say? Here she is with her best bud our holland lop:
(Sorry for the weird crop - it is a *gasp* film picture)
She followed him around, imitating everything he did. As a kitten she had the hop down pat, but watching her trying to clean her ears the way he did was a treat (note difference in ear directionality)
Once she realized she wasn't a bunny, she would thunder around the apartment sounding like a herd of elephants. Up one side of the couch, down the other, through the dining room and kitchen, pounce into one bedroom, on the bed, out to the other room, into the bathroom, lather, rinse, repeat. She would often stop mid-run to check out the sights from her favorite perch:
Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the after effects of her lion act on the shower curtain, but here she is taming those unruly curtain pullstrings. You'd think she'd concede defeat, but she fought this one to the bitter end.
This activity level made it easy for her to settle into the union-mandated cat day; 22.75 hours sleep, and the rest equally divided between eating, cleaning herself and roaming around scaring the crap out of us.
Did I mention the sleeping?
Ask anyone who knew her the first 13 years of her life. She was nuts. Affectionate only to hubby and myself, our little 6lb cuddle cat, she was cute enough to sucker anyone else in. Even after repeated warnings from us, visitors to our home would still bend down to pet the little cutie as she flopped at their feet.
She'd let them get one, maybe two good pets in then, Whammo! she'd be flipped over on her back, front paws wrapped around their hand, one or two fingers in her mouth up to the knuckle, and her back paws would be flailing away, kicking with all her might. Needless to say, she only got to pull that trick once on most visitors. We had a few friends who liked to taunt her, and man that cat had a mean hiss! She finally settled down about a year after Chet arrived. I guess she realized how much more attention he was getting by sitting there *not* attacking our guests. The transformation was overnight, but unfortunately her reputation preceded her. She would climb up on our guest's chest and snuggle in while they sat frozen in place for the next couple of hours. Good, good times.
She was a typical Siamese, mouthy, protective, and she somehow thought herself a little bit of a Doberman. She'd get up in the middle of the night to do her rounds, running around like a lunatic, 'wrough-ing' at the top of her lungs. Of course she fashioned herself a bit of a singer too, so she'd save her best howls for the most acoustically opportune locations - our stairwells, the bathtub, I'm sure if she could figure out how to get into the cold air returns she'd be in heaven. All our floors are hardwood, and we used to have several throw rugs scattered around, but quite frankly I got sick of fishing them out from in behind the toilet that was at the end of our hall. It seems she loved to surf them in there. She'd spend the entire morning moving a carpet down the hall by repeatedly running at it and skidding it as far as it would go.
When she was about 2 she developed a nasty and life-long addiction to the heating pad. As many of these stories start, it was as the result of an injury. Shortly after being fixed, and while still wearing the collar of shame, she tried to jump up on the counter and fell on her spine. After she lost 1/2 her body weight (she was only 6lbs at her fighting weight, so any loss was drastic) the vet realized that she couldn't bend down to eat. Prescription? Isolation in a cage, on a heating pad being spoon fed. I'm certainly glad that she didn't continue looking for the hand feeding, but I spend the next 17 years being nudged off the heating pad any time it came out.
The only thing better than a heating pad was a newborn! Lucky for her we co-slept with V for the first 6 months, so it was like a spare heating pad was always at the ready:
We said good-bye to our sweet Ceebee cat Saturday the 22nd. She'd continued to go downhill since Wednesday and she wasn't eating. She was barely drinking and could hardly hold herself up. After a morning spent snuggling and explaining to V that Ceebee had too many owies and her body wasn't working anymore, we brought her to the vets that had cared for her her entire life. And although that's an experience I'd never wanted, they were wonderful to both of us.
I still look for her before I flop down on the bed, and expect to see her in the window, sitting on the back of the couch when I come home from work. V still lists her as one of the family she loves. She was such a little and and such a huge part of our family. We're all missing her terribly.
This was a tiny cat. Aside from the aforementioned hell on wheels trip home, she used her size to her advantage. We soon had to put a bell on her, as she was so tiny and stealthy that she became an accomplished escape artist in no time. My best Ceebee 'find' was out by the elevators, on the carpeted wall (yes our apartment was decorated in the worst part of the 70's), at eye level. How tiny you say? Here she is with her best bud our holland lop:
(Sorry for the weird crop - it is a *gasp* film picture)
She followed him around, imitating everything he did. As a kitten she had the hop down pat, but watching her trying to clean her ears the way he did was a treat (note difference in ear directionality)
Once she realized she wasn't a bunny, she would thunder around the apartment sounding like a herd of elephants. Up one side of the couch, down the other, through the dining room and kitchen, pounce into one bedroom, on the bed, out to the other room, into the bathroom, lather, rinse, repeat. She would often stop mid-run to check out the sights from her favorite perch:
Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the after effects of her lion act on the shower curtain, but here she is taming those unruly curtain pullstrings. You'd think she'd concede defeat, but she fought this one to the bitter end.
This activity level made it easy for her to settle into the union-mandated cat day; 22.75 hours sleep, and the rest equally divided between eating, cleaning herself and roaming around scaring the crap out of us.
Did I mention the sleeping?
Ask anyone who knew her the first 13 years of her life. She was nuts. Affectionate only to hubby and myself, our little 6lb cuddle cat, she was cute enough to sucker anyone else in. Even after repeated warnings from us, visitors to our home would still bend down to pet the little cutie as she flopped at their feet.
She'd let them get one, maybe two good pets in then, Whammo! she'd be flipped over on her back, front paws wrapped around their hand, one or two fingers in her mouth up to the knuckle, and her back paws would be flailing away, kicking with all her might. Needless to say, she only got to pull that trick once on most visitors. We had a few friends who liked to taunt her, and man that cat had a mean hiss! She finally settled down about a year after Chet arrived. I guess she realized how much more attention he was getting by sitting there *not* attacking our guests. The transformation was overnight, but unfortunately her reputation preceded her. She would climb up on our guest's chest and snuggle in while they sat frozen in place for the next couple of hours. Good, good times.
She was a typical Siamese, mouthy, protective, and she somehow thought herself a little bit of a Doberman. She'd get up in the middle of the night to do her rounds, running around like a lunatic, 'wrough-ing' at the top of her lungs. Of course she fashioned herself a bit of a singer too, so she'd save her best howls for the most acoustically opportune locations - our stairwells, the bathtub, I'm sure if she could figure out how to get into the cold air returns she'd be in heaven. All our floors are hardwood, and we used to have several throw rugs scattered around, but quite frankly I got sick of fishing them out from in behind the toilet that was at the end of our hall. It seems she loved to surf them in there. She'd spend the entire morning moving a carpet down the hall by repeatedly running at it and skidding it as far as it would go.
When she was about 2 she developed a nasty and life-long addiction to the heating pad. As many of these stories start, it was as the result of an injury. Shortly after being fixed, and while still wearing the collar of shame, she tried to jump up on the counter and fell on her spine. After she lost 1/2 her body weight (she was only 6lbs at her fighting weight, so any loss was drastic) the vet realized that she couldn't bend down to eat. Prescription? Isolation in a cage, on a heating pad being spoon fed. I'm certainly glad that she didn't continue looking for the hand feeding, but I spend the next 17 years being nudged off the heating pad any time it came out.
The only thing better than a heating pad was a newborn! Lucky for her we co-slept with V for the first 6 months, so it was like a spare heating pad was always at the ready:
We said good-bye to our sweet Ceebee cat Saturday the 22nd. She'd continued to go downhill since Wednesday and she wasn't eating. She was barely drinking and could hardly hold herself up. After a morning spent snuggling and explaining to V that Ceebee had too many owies and her body wasn't working anymore, we brought her to the vets that had cared for her her entire life. And although that's an experience I'd never wanted, they were wonderful to both of us.
I still look for her before I flop down on the bed, and expect to see her in the window, sitting on the back of the couch when I come home from work. V still lists her as one of the family she loves. She was such a little and and such a huge part of our family. We're all missing her terribly.