Lucy Appelcline: 2007-2023
Sep. 27th, 2023 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aLucy was my once-in-a-lifetime cat. She was deeply bonded to me. She'd often wake me in the morning. She'd follow me down to my office for work, and sit down on the top of my MacMini's small case, to watch over it. And at night she'd leap up onto my side of the bed, and would lay down right on the edge, at shoulder level, so I could put an arm around her as we slept. She was there with me, all day, every day.
The funny thing is, we almost didn't get her. We went out to Your Basic Bird, where Hopalong Rescue was doing adoptions with the intent of adding a new kitty to our family and there were a bunch of six-week-old kittens. But Kimberly vetoed them because they were all monochrome black and thus plain looking. Then we went back four weeks later and those black kittens were still there, and I picked up two of them, and one of them climbed all over me, and we adopted her. That was Lucy.
We were given a cardboard box to carry her home in and she yowled the whole way home. We considered calling her "Siren" as a result, but sticking with the mythical names of many of Kimberly's cats and my love for Mike Carey's comic series, we decided on Lucifer instead, sometimes Lucyfur, but Lucy for short. That's what we almost always called her. Unless she was in really big trouble ("LOU-SEE-FUR!")
Lucy was the cat that knew every one of our other cats: Cobweb, Munchkin, Callisto, Elmer, and Mango. Even our occasional Guest Cat, Tai Chi. We'll probably have other cats than the boys at some point, though we are getting up there in age, but we'll never have another cat who connected so many generations of our furry friends.
But she really didn't care for most of them.
Oh, when she was a little kitten, she was sweet with Cobweb, even let Cobweb bathe her. But she was a little monster to both Cobweb and Munchkin, most memorably running after them and then literally leaping onto their backs as they tried to escape and riding them away. It's a wonder that Cobweb was able to tolerate her. Lucy and Munchkin had a hissing relationship.
Tai Chi was the only other cat that Lucy sort of got along with. She was fascinated with him, following him from room to room when he visited, and occasionally cornering him in the bathroom. But I never saw any hissing or fighting. She just wanted to see who he was and what he was up to.
Sadly, Callisto didn't get the same respect. We introduced Callisto to Lucy when Lucy was just 5 or so (and Callisto was under 1), but Lucy never liked her much. Callisto spent 10 years tried to be friends, often sitting down right next to her and even trying to bathe her. But then at some point Callisto would make the mistake of FLINCHING and then Lucy would start batting at her and drive her away.
As for the boys: well right now we mostly remember Lucy hissing and growling at them in the last few months. But I'm pretty sure her attitude toward them got worse when she was on steroids and especially when she was sick these last four months. Looking back I find a lot more pictures where she was willing to be within a foot or two of them as long they didn't bug her. But the boys were both obsessed with her, so they did bug her. Elmer was a total stalker who would sometimes try to get her to play by bopping her in the head, which never went well. Mango was not quite as bad, and sometimes actually managed to sit down next to her, reaching out his paw to touch her. (On the few occasions that happened, she pretend she didn't notice so that she didn't have to get into a growling match with him.)
I think Lucy was less tolerant of the boys mainly because they were wild little animals. I mean, obviously, she didn't care much about other cats in general, but their frantic, crazed, wild escapades, including running at her, running past her, zooming up the stairs, and bopping her in the head was just too much. Which is funny, because Lucy was a wild little animal when she was a kit too, and we told her, "Just wait until we get new kittens some day and you're the old lady." And thus it was. But cats don't understand irony.
Lucy was the cat who used to get the cat dancer caught on her claw when she was a kit and would twirl around and around in breathtaking circles. (That cat dancer was her favorite for many, many years, though we never told her that we changed it out from time to time after she destroyed each one. And then the laser pointer was her favorite for many, many years, and we could get her to run circles with that too.)
Lucy was the cat who was given a bowl of water as a kit that had peppers painted in the bottom and started trying to bat at those painted peppers at the bottom of the bowl.
Lucy was the cat who found a tiny flaw in our the wall of our sun room in Berkeley and ripped a huge hole in it that stayed that way until we had the sun room repainted in the year or so before we left, as part of the prep for our move.
Really, she was a hugely destructive and active monster as a kit. Kimberly said we should have gotten her sister who DIDN'T climb all over me.
Lucy was the barbarian. We tried to keep a collar on her in her early life, because that was a requirement from Hopalong Rescue, but she just didn't cooperate. She'd pry the collar forward and end up with it caught in her mouth(!) and then she'd try to gnaw it off. We finally gave up after two or three collars, and she became Lucy the barbarian. Many years later, in the run-up to our move to Hawaii, we tried again, because we wanted to make sure she had ID if she got lost at the airport. She scratched that thing to heck, but eventually she settled into it.
Lucy was a fraidy cat, at least for a while. I put that down to keeping her in my office at night when she was a kit, as we were slowly introducing her to the other cats. One of those nights there was an earthquake, and I didn't think much of it. But when I went into my office the next morning, I found some of my piles of to-be-read books had fallen over and little Lucy was nowhere to be found. Eventually I found her in the closet, squeezed back into the smallest corner she could get to. Poor baby had clearly been terrified by the falling books and had no one to comfort her! I told her it was OK and she regained her little kitten spunk. But for the first few years we had her, she'd hit the floor whenever anyone moved to fast, and even for a few years after that she'd revert to that behavior when we returned from trips. (Poor baby!)
Lucy was definitely my cat for the first part of her life. She stayed with me while I worked, she laid on me while I read, she laid by me while I slept, she begged me for treats, and she followed me around the house. I think that only changed when I started going to my RWOT workshops and/or when Kimberly was less able to get about for a variety of reasons in our final years in Berkeley, then she became Kimberly's kitty too.
Lucy was the leaden cat. She'd lay down on your legs, and somehow her 6-7 pound frame would weigh down on you more and more over time, until you couldn't stand it any more and had to move her. (Well, me at least; Kimberly was less willing to move the weighty kitty.)
Lucy was the thirsty cat. She was always drinking. And when she did, she'd do the weirdest thing where she'd put her head in the water and than pull back her front paws, with claws extended, like she was dragging herself to the water.
Lucy was the obstinate cat. She would cheek a pill until it was entirely dissolved rather than swallow it. If she got highly annoyed at you, not that she did a lot, she'd bat at you with claws extended. Yowtch! I've never before seen a cat who batted like that not out of fear or anger, but just because she was pissed off.
Lucy was the huffer. When she was displeased at something, before she'd hiss or growl she'd often just HUFF, expelling a bit of air. It read to me like mild annoyance, like how dare they do that!
Lucy was the treat cat. She wasn't super food-motivated, like Callisto, but she LOVED her treats. She'd be waiting by my office closet door in the morning, since that's where the treats were, and she'd wander down there again at night, 30 or 40 minutes before bedtime. She was very insistent about her treats and had a little clock in her that told her when it was time to get them.
Lucy was the alarm-clock cat. Unfortunately, her alarm-clock wasn't that good. Somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes before I was ready to get up in the morning, she'd often start poking at me, jamming her nose into my face, and sometimes her paws as well. I'd turn over and over trying to get away from her, but it usually wouldn't work until I pulled the covers fully over my head, and even then she'd sometimes crawl under the covers to get at me. The reason, I always assumed, was so that she could get those morning treats.
("No treats for the orangies when I get up in the morning," I've told Kimberly since.)
Lucy was the drippy cat. Whenever she started purring, which was very often, she'd also start dripping snot from her nose. Now refer back to that picture of her poking me with her nose in the morning, purring the whole time, and you can see even more why it was so disturbing.
Lucy was the climbing cat. We'd hear CLAW, CLAW, CLAW and look over and see her destroying the corner of the couch, and we'd yell "LOOOOOO-CY". And then she'd climb the couch where she'd been clawing, and we'd say, "Oh, she was just climbing."
Though Lucy obviously didn't like other cats, she also definitely wasn't a loner. After we lost Cobweb and Munchkin, Kimberly and I left Lucy home alone during our yearly visit to Hawaii (with daily cat sitter visits, of course), and after we got home, Lucy saw us and let us the loudest, most plaintive, and looooooooooooongest whine that we'd ever heard. We got Callisto not too long after that, and though Lucy just barely tolerated Callisto, she also never again expressed that much loneliness when we made our annual pilgrimage.
I was always a little concerned about moving Lucy to Hawaii because she seemed small and fragile and had been losing weight prior to the move. But she did well enough on the move over and seemed to greatly enjoy the climate out here.
Lucy was sleek and elegant. She loved sitting in the sun. She loved being with her people and jealously guarded that right. She was always purring whenever you picked her up or petted her or were just near her. She used to visit with gamers on my Thursday nights by jumping on the arms of their chairs, but would only settle down with me.
She was very much an active part of our family and will be dearly missed.
The funny thing is, we almost didn't get her. We went out to Your Basic Bird, where Hopalong Rescue was doing adoptions with the intent of adding a new kitty to our family and there were a bunch of six-week-old kittens. But Kimberly vetoed them because they were all monochrome black and thus plain looking. Then we went back four weeks later and those black kittens were still there, and I picked up two of them, and one of them climbed all over me, and we adopted her. That was Lucy.
We were given a cardboard box to carry her home in and she yowled the whole way home. We considered calling her "Siren" as a result, but sticking with the mythical names of many of Kimberly's cats and my love for Mike Carey's comic series, we decided on Lucifer instead, sometimes Lucyfur, but Lucy for short. That's what we almost always called her. Unless she was in really big trouble ("LOU-SEE-FUR!")
Lucy was the cat that knew every one of our other cats: Cobweb, Munchkin, Callisto, Elmer, and Mango. Even our occasional Guest Cat, Tai Chi. We'll probably have other cats than the boys at some point, though we are getting up there in age, but we'll never have another cat who connected so many generations of our furry friends.
But she really didn't care for most of them.
Oh, when she was a little kitten, she was sweet with Cobweb, even let Cobweb bathe her. But she was a little monster to both Cobweb and Munchkin, most memorably running after them and then literally leaping onto their backs as they tried to escape and riding them away. It's a wonder that Cobweb was able to tolerate her. Lucy and Munchkin had a hissing relationship.
Tai Chi was the only other cat that Lucy sort of got along with. She was fascinated with him, following him from room to room when he visited, and occasionally cornering him in the bathroom. But I never saw any hissing or fighting. She just wanted to see who he was and what he was up to.
Sadly, Callisto didn't get the same respect. We introduced Callisto to Lucy when Lucy was just 5 or so (and Callisto was under 1), but Lucy never liked her much. Callisto spent 10 years tried to be friends, often sitting down right next to her and even trying to bathe her. But then at some point Callisto would make the mistake of FLINCHING and then Lucy would start batting at her and drive her away.
As for the boys: well right now we mostly remember Lucy hissing and growling at them in the last few months. But I'm pretty sure her attitude toward them got worse when she was on steroids and especially when she was sick these last four months. Looking back I find a lot more pictures where she was willing to be within a foot or two of them as long they didn't bug her. But the boys were both obsessed with her, so they did bug her. Elmer was a total stalker who would sometimes try to get her to play by bopping her in the head, which never went well. Mango was not quite as bad, and sometimes actually managed to sit down next to her, reaching out his paw to touch her. (On the few occasions that happened, she pretend she didn't notice so that she didn't have to get into a growling match with him.)
I think Lucy was less tolerant of the boys mainly because they were wild little animals. I mean, obviously, she didn't care much about other cats in general, but their frantic, crazed, wild escapades, including running at her, running past her, zooming up the stairs, and bopping her in the head was just too much. Which is funny, because Lucy was a wild little animal when she was a kit too, and we told her, "Just wait until we get new kittens some day and you're the old lady." And thus it was. But cats don't understand irony.
Lucy was the cat who used to get the cat dancer caught on her claw when she was a kit and would twirl around and around in breathtaking circles. (That cat dancer was her favorite for many, many years, though we never told her that we changed it out from time to time after she destroyed each one. And then the laser pointer was her favorite for many, many years, and we could get her to run circles with that too.)
Lucy was the cat who was given a bowl of water as a kit that had peppers painted in the bottom and started trying to bat at those painted peppers at the bottom of the bowl.
Lucy was the cat who found a tiny flaw in our the wall of our sun room in Berkeley and ripped a huge hole in it that stayed that way until we had the sun room repainted in the year or so before we left, as part of the prep for our move.
Really, she was a hugely destructive and active monster as a kit. Kimberly said we should have gotten her sister who DIDN'T climb all over me.
Lucy was the barbarian. We tried to keep a collar on her in her early life, because that was a requirement from Hopalong Rescue, but she just didn't cooperate. She'd pry the collar forward and end up with it caught in her mouth(!) and then she'd try to gnaw it off. We finally gave up after two or three collars, and she became Lucy the barbarian. Many years later, in the run-up to our move to Hawaii, we tried again, because we wanted to make sure she had ID if she got lost at the airport. She scratched that thing to heck, but eventually she settled into it.
Lucy was a fraidy cat, at least for a while. I put that down to keeping her in my office at night when she was a kit, as we were slowly introducing her to the other cats. One of those nights there was an earthquake, and I didn't think much of it. But when I went into my office the next morning, I found some of my piles of to-be-read books had fallen over and little Lucy was nowhere to be found. Eventually I found her in the closet, squeezed back into the smallest corner she could get to. Poor baby had clearly been terrified by the falling books and had no one to comfort her! I told her it was OK and she regained her little kitten spunk. But for the first few years we had her, she'd hit the floor whenever anyone moved to fast, and even for a few years after that she'd revert to that behavior when we returned from trips. (Poor baby!)
Lucy was definitely my cat for the first part of her life. She stayed with me while I worked, she laid on me while I read, she laid by me while I slept, she begged me for treats, and she followed me around the house. I think that only changed when I started going to my RWOT workshops and/or when Kimberly was less able to get about for a variety of reasons in our final years in Berkeley, then she became Kimberly's kitty too.
Lucy was the leaden cat. She'd lay down on your legs, and somehow her 6-7 pound frame would weigh down on you more and more over time, until you couldn't stand it any more and had to move her. (Well, me at least; Kimberly was less willing to move the weighty kitty.)
Lucy was the thirsty cat. She was always drinking. And when she did, she'd do the weirdest thing where she'd put her head in the water and than pull back her front paws, with claws extended, like she was dragging herself to the water.
Lucy was the obstinate cat. She would cheek a pill until it was entirely dissolved rather than swallow it. If she got highly annoyed at you, not that she did a lot, she'd bat at you with claws extended. Yowtch! I've never before seen a cat who batted like that not out of fear or anger, but just because she was pissed off.
Lucy was the huffer. When she was displeased at something, before she'd hiss or growl she'd often just HUFF, expelling a bit of air. It read to me like mild annoyance, like how dare they do that!
Lucy was the treat cat. She wasn't super food-motivated, like Callisto, but she LOVED her treats. She'd be waiting by my office closet door in the morning, since that's where the treats were, and she'd wander down there again at night, 30 or 40 minutes before bedtime. She was very insistent about her treats and had a little clock in her that told her when it was time to get them.
Lucy was the alarm-clock cat. Unfortunately, her alarm-clock wasn't that good. Somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes before I was ready to get up in the morning, she'd often start poking at me, jamming her nose into my face, and sometimes her paws as well. I'd turn over and over trying to get away from her, but it usually wouldn't work until I pulled the covers fully over my head, and even then she'd sometimes crawl under the covers to get at me. The reason, I always assumed, was so that she could get those morning treats.
("No treats for the orangies when I get up in the morning," I've told Kimberly since.)
Lucy was the drippy cat. Whenever she started purring, which was very often, she'd also start dripping snot from her nose. Now refer back to that picture of her poking me with her nose in the morning, purring the whole time, and you can see even more why it was so disturbing.
Lucy was the climbing cat. We'd hear CLAW, CLAW, CLAW and look over and see her destroying the corner of the couch, and we'd yell "LOOOOOO-CY". And then she'd climb the couch where she'd been clawing, and we'd say, "Oh, she was just climbing."
Though Lucy obviously didn't like other cats, she also definitely wasn't a loner. After we lost Cobweb and Munchkin, Kimberly and I left Lucy home alone during our yearly visit to Hawaii (with daily cat sitter visits, of course), and after we got home, Lucy saw us and let us the loudest, most plaintive, and looooooooooooongest whine that we'd ever heard. We got Callisto not too long after that, and though Lucy just barely tolerated Callisto, she also never again expressed that much loneliness when we made our annual pilgrimage.
I was always a little concerned about moving Lucy to Hawaii because she seemed small and fragile and had been losing weight prior to the move. But she did well enough on the move over and seemed to greatly enjoy the climate out here.
Lucy was sleek and elegant. She loved sitting in the sun. She loved being with her people and jealously guarded that right. She was always purring whenever you picked her up or petted her or were just near her. She used to visit with gamers on my Thursday nights by jumping on the arms of their chairs, but would only settle down with me.
She was very much an active part of our family and will be dearly missed.
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Date: 2023-09-28 05:43 am (UTC)