31st January 2008

Ode to Fat Cat Max

There once was a cat, named Maxim, who was affectionately referenced to as Fat Cat Max. 

Maxim was born in 1991, to someone who did not want him or his brothers and sisters.  They travelled to an animal shelter and were washed and caged in a scary place.  They were placed with a grey kitty who was very mean and had a bad temper.  Max’s grey tabby brother with wise green eyes and mitten paws promised to protect little Max.  Misha knew he had to find an owner very soon.  Along came a young woman who looked really nice - she looked like the perfect owner.  Misha had a good feeling about her, so, he took a chance and reached out to her and pulled her t-shirt sleeve close with his paws.  The young woman played with both of them in a room, and then she left.  Thank goodness she came back again - and took them home in a cardboard box.  It was really scary, but atleast Max and Misha were going to a home together.  Apprehensive, but excited, they adventured to their new home - wow!  There was a lot of room, and stairs, and food, so much food!

Maxim was named by the nice woman after a Russian character she once read about.  Misha was named after Mikhail Barishnikov, the Russian dancer, because Misha was a leaping kitty cat.  Maxim loved his brother very much - if it wasn’t for him he would have not been able to go home with with this woman, and stay together as brothers were meant to be! 

Their lives were very good - there was warmth, lots of love, lap time, even shoulder time, and always plenty of room to run around.  Max loved to run and wake up the woman in the morning.  That was his absolute favorite thing to do.  He would get so hungry, and that woman, she wouldn’t wake up early enough to make that pain in his little tummy go away.  So one day, he went to another room and ran all the way as fast as he could and he jumped on the bed where the woman lay sleeping.  She woke up!  She looked at Max - and Max thought for a second he was in trouble.  But then the woman got up and fed him - wow!  This is going to be easy, he said.

 As long as he could run and jump on the woman’s bed, and run it into the wall, he was in luck.  But he’d have to run from another room just to get up the momentum to run in her room, and jump on her bed.  But then they moved - to another house.  He tried doing the same thing in the morning, but noticed it did not quite have the same effect.  Max looked around in the bedroom for something to make noise with - he went over to the window - where there were these things hanging in - and he noticed, thankfully, that when he put his paws on the white things - well they made some noise - and then, guess what?  the woman, she woke up!

So, thankfully, Max had yet one more way to wake up the young woman.  This meant he could eat early in the morning.  He also noticed that the woman tended to lock up the kitty food in some boxes - and he sure wanted to get into those boxes.  He talked to Misha about it and they came up with a plan - he was able to nudge the box from one side, Misha worked on it from the other side, and voila! - The top of the box came undone, and then all  this food spilled out - Wow!

Max had a favorite chair in this house.  He occasionally had to share it with his brother, Misha.  He knew the way to share this chair was to hop up, lick Misha an awful lot, until Misha got so disgusted by all the affection that he hopped off the chair.  This always made Max very happy.  He wanted the great big comfy chair all to himself.

One day the woman came home with a dog - Max - he was not happy about this.  The little black furry thing was a yipper and liked to run after Max.  Then one day the dog was gone, and the woman cried.  TV reporters came to interview the woman, and Max and his brother, Misha - they got to be on TV!  That dog never returned, but then one day another dog, a bigger dog, came home with the woman.   She was very happy - and Max could tell that the bigger dog was a nice dog and decided he should be nice to the big dog. 

They moved again, which Max was very happy about.  They moved to this really cool place where there was a place they could bask in the sun in the fresh air.  It was safe, yet outside up high, where they could watch birds and other things fly by.  Max promised Misha he would catch him a bird - those little fluffy things that made that sound when they went away.  Max just knew they would taste really, really good.

One day, Max caught himself a bird - he hid behind the door to the outside place - for a very, very long time.  And then the bird landed right outside the door, and Max lunged and caught him!  Gotcha!  He brought the bird inside and couldn’t wait to show his owner how good he’d been!  Somehow the woman wasn’t as excited as he was.  Misha wasn’t either.  But Max, he was very, very proud of his catch.  To be able to catch a bird from inside an apartment - no other cat was as cool as he was.

Max was nicknamed soon after as Fat Cat Max - because he liked to eat, and eat, and eat.  Max got a really healthy belly on him, and he loved to search for food.  One day, he found a bag of bread with some cheese inside.  Never again was he able to find bread with that cheese inside - but he looked and looked in any bag of bread he could find for that cheesy filling - with no luck.  His owner, she got kinda mad when Max would open up those bags of bread.  But she quickly forgave him, because she gave Max something else to eat instead.

Max loved the trash - that stuff underneath the sink.  That was the best - there were containers and containers of yummy smelling stuff, always with just a little taste of something really good inside.  Sometimes, the woman would fix dinner for herself and her boyfriend, and leave a little food on the table.  He’d never forget the day where the woman made some big pieces of meat and placed them all on the table.  There were lots of people around, and the woman and her boyfriend got distracted.  Max talked to Misha and they decided to sneak underneath the table, and spy on the food until the perfect opportunity came about.  Max loved that Misha could jump onto anything really fast, capture the food in his mouth, and run away with it so he and Max could share it on the floor in another room.  Sometimes that big black dog would come in and steal it from them, though.  Max didn’t like that very much.

Max loved lots of things, and he felt life was very, very good.  He loved his owner’s hair - and loved to get on her shoulder and put his paws into her hair.  His brother, Misha, and he lived good lives.  They moved from time to time, but wherever they went there was always more room.  Every once in a while, they got to go outside and eat minty leaves and bask in the sun.  He even began to love that old black furry dog too.  She let him put his paws in her hair too.  Sun, food, laptime, furry blankets and more food - that was a good life - the good times.  But one day, there was an interruption in the good times - and it was in the form of another kitty cat - who also wanted his food, his owner’s time, the dog’s time, and that was not fair! 

Tomorrow Max will tell you about the last four years of his life, when little Monroe, the tuxedo cat, was brought home by the dog Cody.  Thanks for reading.

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