I never was a cat person…

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animals, cat, family history, feline, newspaper, pet story, photography, Siamese cat, story

Until about two years ago, when my uncle brought home an unimpressive wad of lint and tried to convince my aunt and I that it was a kitten.

He was scrawny and impossibly small the first time I saw him, not to mention disgusted by his new surroundings. Antisocial to boot, we had to continuously fish him out from behind the sofa until he got used to us. After a week or so of contemplation and several discarded first choices, we decided to name him Simon. It fit, and thus began the glorious but all-too-short reign of the best cat I’ve ever met.

By the time he reached his first birthday Simon was nothing short of gorgeous– with a long, shaded Siamese coat and shockingly blue eyes. No one would ever have guessed he was just the son of a homely alley cat who chanced to have her kittens under my uncle’s parents’ garden shed. He was the pauper whisked away to princedom, and from day one in his new life he got nothing but the very best.

It gave him a ridiculously overblown sense of self. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a more narcissistic creature. We couldn’t resist him, and he absolutely knew it. He toyed with us at will, never missing an opportunity to ensconce his beautiful self on top of the armoire and watch apathetically as we begged for his attention. He was more vain than any A-list celebrity, and we were his adoring fans.

Of course, you cat people probably know that the detached part of the feline nature typically has a flip-side. If we met him on his own terms, Simon was more than happy to retire in one of our laps and fall asleep in front of the television. And he had some of the most endearing quirks. Perhaps the most memorable and endlessly amusing was his obsession with paper.

Thursday night when my uncle dropped the local paper on the coffee table, Simon was nine shades of delighted. As soon as one of us discarded the sports section, he was on it; the claws would come out and he would demolish whatever beaming football player happened to be gracing the front page. After successfully punishing the black and white print, he would curl up on it and doze for hours. Nothing pleased him more.

Another quirk was his undying fascination with water. He was an absolute water enthusiast. We couldn’t entice him to drink from a bowl, rather had to leave the bathroom tap at a slow drip so that he could visit his private fountain throughout the day. He also loved the dishwasher, though he never fully understood why he could not remain inside it after the door had closed to see what all the racket was about.

Feet under blankets disgusted him. Feet visible to the world were fine, but when we covered up with a blanket our feet became mortal enemies. He was also an avid people watcher. He could spend hours on the balcony, just his face peeking over the edge to watch the activities of his humans. Simon was a spy. A chaser of the mop. A fearer of the vacuum cleaner. An object of unconditional affection.

Once, I left my rather large math textbook open on the dining room table. I completely forgot about it and went to bed. The next morning, as I tried to locate it, I remembered with horror that I had left it well within reach of Simon’s paper-shredding claws. Expecting the worst, I dashed into the dining room to survey the damage. But I didn’t find a mathematical massacre– merely a large Siamese cat curled up on my textbook, sound asleep. The smell of all that paper must have knocked him out.

Simon died last winter of a heart defect. It was very sudden. My aunt promptly took him to a clinic, but the diagnosis was grim. Apparently the defect was something he had been born with, like an inevitable ticking clock. Simon’s time ran out, and far too soon.

There is no talk of getting another cat. It just wouldn’t make any sense. The strength of Simon’s presence in our life, the notability of his personality, would simply over shadow a new kitten. It was such a sudden thing, no one had any time to prepare for it. It still feels kind of strange, brushing my teeth without someone twitching his tail as he spies on me. I know my aunt wishes someone would come and harass her duster when she cleans the house. We even let the subscription run out on the newspaper.

Nobody has the heart to read football scores that haven’t been shredded.

Out Of The Blue, Clear Sky

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animals, farm life, gaited horses, George Strait, horse photography, Horses, love, western pleasure

George Strait summed it up about right for me with this verse,  “You swear you’ve had enough/ You’re ready to give up/ On that little lie they call love/ When out of the blue, clear sky…”  

He goes on to sing about how love tends to strike when we least expect it; a theory that just last weekend I tested and proved to be true. Love doesn’t discriminate, and it doesn’t care what you’re wearing or what you’re doing when it gets a mind to come down on you. I know, because when I fell, I was dressed in blue jeans, my worst boots, and a t-shirt. I didn’t have any makeup on and I was standing out in the corral.  That’s when I saw him.

Being dark-haired and stocky, he didn’t appeal to me at first sight– I have always been a sucker for the leaner, blonder variety– but as soon as I spoke to him I felt a spark. The twist? This mysterious gentleman just happens to be a horse. My aunt’s horse, but a horse nonetheless, and one that I may keep company with anytime I so wish.

I have, in the past, been given a hard row to hoe when it comes to horses. I love the critters, but I have no manner of luck when it comes to buying them. My first was a stout little mare, Morgan crossbreed, aged 21 years. My Aunt Marybo advised me against purchasing her, for fear that as quick as I got attached to her she would give up the ghost. I tried to keep that in mind when I went to see her for the first time, but all those warnings flew straight out of my head when I laid eyes on that sorrel mare with the crooked blaze. MeMe and I spent no more than a year together before she got down and had to be euthanized. Oh, how I cried for my dearest friend. Today I still have a lock of her hair, but what was once flaming auburn has now faded to brown.

What came after MeMe (in no wise a replacement, but at least a distraction) was an ornery yearling colt I named Tomahawk. He was bred by a man down the road from our shop, and I had my eye on that little horse from the moment he hit the ground. Every time we drove by the field of the man who owned him I would jokingly remark that my colt was progressing quite nicely, and whoever I was with would laugh and agree. Back then I thought owning him was out of the question, as he was a handsome foal out of the most handsome mare in that field, but I thought wrong. As the colt grew and became increasingly aware of his status as a stallion, he became a nuisance to his master. One autumn day, the horse breeder came calling at our shop, proclaiming the glory of one young stud colt he really needed to sell– bargain price. My father, being the horseman to end all horseman, was thoroughly enticed by the offer and with a little encouragement from me, agreed to go take a look at the troublesome colt. Within the day, that strawberry yearling and I were staring at one another through the slats in my grandpa’s corral, both with slightly startled eyes. The dream colt was really mine! I begin to break him this summer, so stay tuned for that.

Though my Tomahawk and I grew close enough to almost read each other’s thoughts, one cannot ride a colt. This left me up a creek without a paddle, but not for long, as I soon persuaded my folks into buying me a saddlehorse to ride while I was waiting for my baby to grow up. It came in the form of a dappled gray Missouri Fox Trotter mare, beautiful as the day was long and twice as mean. Of course, she wasn’t mean when we bought her, but the perfect portrait of equine gentility. Turn a horse that has been stabled all her life out on a big pasture, though, and see what you get.  On top of everything else, she was one of those horses who prefer men over women, as she was raised and trained by a man. Just for the record, I am very much not a man– and so very much to her dislike. In the end, the gorgeous Kassie Sue (nicknamed ‘Morgana le Fey’ after King Arthur’s wicked half-sister) was sold to a more ambitious and more male member of my family. Good riddance, gray lady.

This has left me without a horse to ride, which is well-nigh unthinkable since my other mom aunt spends most of her time trail riding and I have had to stay home because I lack a mount. That is until she bought Pusher, a five-year-old Tennessee Walker gelding. He came from an elderly man who rode him every day, this treatment having made him an extremely sound horse who behaves more like he’s fourteen than five. He is black with four white socks and a snip on his nose; quite flashy. Most importantly, he is a cool-headed gentleman with manners to rival the most dignified lieutenant in the British navy. I’ve always secretly believed in love at first sight, but no– no, this is different. This is better. This… is love at first ride. 

I’ve always harbored this belief deep inside of me that you should be able to talk to the horse that you’re riding. Call me crazy, but Kassie and I had nothing in common where as MeMe and I used to chat up a storm. Tom and I can talk, too, but put me on my aunt’s red gelding and I can’t find a single thing to say to him. It might sound strange, but it’s true, and that’s one of the first things I noticed about Pusher. I talked, and he listened. Heck, he might’ve even answered me a couple times, all I know is we were communicating. Of course animals can’t talk like we humans can, but they do speak, and who is to say our spirits don’t use a sole universal language? That’s just my belief.

Well, there’s not much left to be said other than Pusher is an amazingly observant and sensitive horse (who doesn’t care for the camera). He may not be mine, but I refuse to let that keep me from talking to him. Now go download “Blue, Clear Sky” by George Strait and hug your horse!