RIP Sunday (1997-2016)
Yes, I pretty much just use this journal for cat obituaries now.
Two weeks ago, on the 16th, Sunday passed on. He was a month shy of 19. That's a pretty long run for a cat, and he was getting more and more frail over the past year, so we knew this was coming.
Sunday was one of the two cats we got from a friend who moved away, along with Muswell Hill. She told us that he came from a pet store, where she overheard a little girl's mother reject him because, "Something's wrong with that one's ear." Yes, he had a crumpled ear, but that just gave him a rakish charm. He was also declawed, unfortunately.
After she brought Sunday home, he always lived with other cats. By the time we got him in 2011, he'd lived with Muswell for 7 years already, so they were pretty much brothers. Here they are exploring their new home.
But he was pretty much done with meeting new cats. He was entering his golden years and he just wanted to relax and be pampered.
Pampering:
Sunday knew how to find comfort. He loved to curl up on laps - he was like a little comfort ninja, because often he would appear on your lap and you'd have no idea how he got there or how long he'd been there. Even more than that, he loved to sleep nestled under covers next to his humans. If we stayed up late, he would stand on the end of the bed and yell at us until we came to bed so he could snuggle. (He stayed at a fosterer for a few weeks until we were ready to take him, and she warned us - he was crawling into bed with her immediately. Entitled.)
His second favourite place to sleep was in a sunbeam. That's because, it turned out, he had a low body temperature. We can tell ourselves that he loved us and wanted to curl up with us, but really, he just loved to leech our body heat. We didn't mind.
Here he is getting warm in his favourite way:
And his second favourite:
Apart from keeping himself warm, Sunday's favourite thing in the world was eating cake. And dairy products. The first time we went to meet Muswell and Sunday, to decide if we wanted to take them, we brought a large cream-filled raspberry cake as a gift. While Muswell lurked in the kitchen doorway wondering if he could trust these new people, Sunday jumped up in Amanda's lap and buried his face in it. Every morning before going to work, I would sit down on the couch with a bowl of yogurt, and EVERY TIME he would jump up on my lap and beg for some. That's the only time he really paid any attention to me. He was mostly Amanda's cat.
(Those are Amanda's jeans in those photos, in case you're wondering about the relevance.)
Alas, we had to stop letting him have yogurt. It was bad for his stomach. As he got older, he started getting more and more medical problems. At the end he was taking two pills, a sprinkling of probiotic powder in his food, and ear drops every day. (Also three different types of speciality food, mixed.) He was also getting thinner and thinner (and more and more ornery) every week. If Muswell always seemed to have the personality of a little child, Sunday had the personality of a bony old man, yelling at clouds. A rakish old man - he was ornery, but he was also a charmer. Everybody liked him. And he was so photogenic:
Notice that as those photos go on, he spends more and more time sleeping. Cats already sleep a lot, but as Sunday approached his 19th birthday, he was sleeping A LOT. He'd get up to eat, and then go right back to bed.
We always said that when it was time for him to go, before he died we'd buy him a giant cream cake and let him eat the whole thing, to make up for all the years of cruelly eating yogurt in front of him and not letting him have any. And I was very happy that we got enough warning I was able to make his wish come true - we didn't get cake, but I did bring a container of yogurt along to the vet, and let him go to town on it. He ate about half of it, licked his chops off thoroughly, and then immediately curled up and fell asleep. That's a pretty good way to go - asleep, with a full belly, surrounded by loved ones.
His human loved ones. Not this guy. He barely tolerated this guy.
That guy's our only cat now. He seems a bit lonely. He needs a playmate - he has for a while, really, cause he kept trying to wrestle with Sunday, and Sunday would just yell at him. But we didn't want to get another cat that Sunday might not get along with.
We'll be getting him a friend soon. And maybe a second friend. We were a three-cat house for a long time.
Two weeks ago, on the 16th, Sunday passed on. He was a month shy of 19. That's a pretty long run for a cat, and he was getting more and more frail over the past year, so we knew this was coming.
Sunday was one of the two cats we got from a friend who moved away, along with Muswell Hill. She told us that he came from a pet store, where she overheard a little girl's mother reject him because, "Something's wrong with that one's ear." Yes, he had a crumpled ear, but that just gave him a rakish charm. He was also declawed, unfortunately.
After she brought Sunday home, he always lived with other cats. By the time we got him in 2011, he'd lived with Muswell for 7 years already, so they were pretty much brothers. Here they are exploring their new home.
But he was pretty much done with meeting new cats. He was entering his golden years and he just wanted to relax and be pampered.
Pampering:
Sunday knew how to find comfort. He loved to curl up on laps - he was like a little comfort ninja, because often he would appear on your lap and you'd have no idea how he got there or how long he'd been there. Even more than that, he loved to sleep nestled under covers next to his humans. If we stayed up late, he would stand on the end of the bed and yell at us until we came to bed so he could snuggle. (He stayed at a fosterer for a few weeks until we were ready to take him, and she warned us - he was crawling into bed with her immediately. Entitled.)
His second favourite place to sleep was in a sunbeam. That's because, it turned out, he had a low body temperature. We can tell ourselves that he loved us and wanted to curl up with us, but really, he just loved to leech our body heat. We didn't mind.
Here he is getting warm in his favourite way:
And his second favourite:
Apart from keeping himself warm, Sunday's favourite thing in the world was eating cake. And dairy products. The first time we went to meet Muswell and Sunday, to decide if we wanted to take them, we brought a large cream-filled raspberry cake as a gift. While Muswell lurked in the kitchen doorway wondering if he could trust these new people, Sunday jumped up in Amanda's lap and buried his face in it. Every morning before going to work, I would sit down on the couch with a bowl of yogurt, and EVERY TIME he would jump up on my lap and beg for some. That's the only time he really paid any attention to me. He was mostly Amanda's cat.
(Those are Amanda's jeans in those photos, in case you're wondering about the relevance.)
Alas, we had to stop letting him have yogurt. It was bad for his stomach. As he got older, he started getting more and more medical problems. At the end he was taking two pills, a sprinkling of probiotic powder in his food, and ear drops every day. (Also three different types of speciality food, mixed.) He was also getting thinner and thinner (and more and more ornery) every week. If Muswell always seemed to have the personality of a little child, Sunday had the personality of a bony old man, yelling at clouds. A rakish old man - he was ornery, but he was also a charmer. Everybody liked him. And he was so photogenic:
Notice that as those photos go on, he spends more and more time sleeping. Cats already sleep a lot, but as Sunday approached his 19th birthday, he was sleeping A LOT. He'd get up to eat, and then go right back to bed.
We always said that when it was time for him to go, before he died we'd buy him a giant cream cake and let him eat the whole thing, to make up for all the years of cruelly eating yogurt in front of him and not letting him have any. And I was very happy that we got enough warning I was able to make his wish come true - we didn't get cake, but I did bring a container of yogurt along to the vet, and let him go to town on it. He ate about half of it, licked his chops off thoroughly, and then immediately curled up and fell asleep. That's a pretty good way to go - asleep, with a full belly, surrounded by loved ones.
His human loved ones. Not this guy. He barely tolerated this guy.
That guy's our only cat now. He seems a bit lonely. He needs a playmate - he has for a while, really, cause he kept trying to wrestle with Sunday, and Sunday would just yell at him. But we didn't want to get another cat that Sunday might not get along with.
We'll be getting him a friend soon. And maybe a second friend. We were a three-cat house for a long time.