Mishu, again

I always was a dog person. My last dog, an American Eskimo named Nanook, kept me company for 15 years... throughout grad school, internship and my early career. Nanook was special and very intelligent. She had a way of crinkling her nose into a smile when she was happy. It made her sneeze. Somehow, after Nanook, I couldn't think about owning another dog. Then, my eyes were opened to the joys of cats after a rather unusually interesting calico cat named Simcha (pronounced...Sim-ka) shared our home from 2002-2010. Sadly, Simcha had to be put down after getting a blood clot at age 8. She had, at age 6, spent a week in intensive care at Kansas State Vet School clinic after contracting a rare opportunistic fungus that generally only happened to dogs. She was only the third cat on record to be so afflicted... She nearly died, but valiantly pulled through, and the experience made her wiser for the next two years. It seemed that Simcha just kept getting smarter, to the point that she seemed to take on an almost human-like persona, with her own possessions, habits, spaces, games, sense of humor, eccentricities and sensitivities. Simcha pretty much had an equal say in what went down in the house. At times, it seemed she was in charge. She had her own plastic drinking cups, and wouldn't stoop to drinking out of a common cat bowl. She got ready for bed with numerous rituals, and had her nighttime companion...a green rubber ball that she would get out only at bedtime to sleep with. She had certain postures to indicate what game she wished to play, and one way or the other, the human involved was going to stop what they were doing to play the game. Sometimes, she was dangerous...if the game was her hunting game, she showed no mercy. In that game, we often had to freeze in our tracks, or risk a lunging, leaping attack from a crazed lunatic cat. Simcha was neat, clean, precise, strategic, loyal and thoughtful. She was gentle and nurturing during my cancer treatment and recovery and would sleep on top of me to keep me company.

If Simcha was in advanced placement classes, Mishu is in special education. He knows how to jump, and enjoys jumping, but doesn't particularly care what he jumps into... be it a clothes dryer, a toilet, a dishwasher, a refrigerator, a cabinet, etc. He jumps with little finesse...he misses his target frequently, and crash lands back onto the ground. He does like to be around people, and hates it when we leave...he sits in front of the door in the morning and tries his best to keep us from leaving the house, batting at us with his paw in a brave, but futile attempt at keeping us captive.

Mishu, (pronounced mee-shu) a Ragdoll kitten, is clumsy, sweet, wreckless, confused, impulsive and hasn't quite figured out his place in the family. He's not quite a year old, and maybe I have forgotten that Simcha was once not so bright as well.

I am slowly learning to appreciate Mishu for who he is, rather than comparing him to Simcha. I think Mishu is slowly learning to appreciate us as well. It's taken awhile for us each to adapt...