Batty R.I.P.

We named her Batman; though we later found out she was a girl. Sixteen years ago she came to us via a cardboard box near the main gate of the Woodland Park Zoo. A sign was posted “Free Kittens” and since it was spring and she always wants a new cat in the spring, Sweetie called me to see if she could take one home.

But Batman didn’t ever really stick and we soon started calling her Batty and from there her name began to split like shards of glass.

· Batina
· Batarina Witt
· Battyship
· The Battyship Potempkin
· Tempkin
· Battykins
· Pope-o-dee Battykin
· and finally just Popo-D

She was one of the “stupid” cats. You know the kind that people wind up with when looking for a companion for the first “smart” cat. It seemed like a good idea at the time but it became apparent early on that she would at best just be a thorn in our other cat’s side. Though Zane never cared for her, she would at times, reluctantly groom her. Probably more out of a sense of pity then out of love.

She was, early on, a failed tree climber, or at least a failed tree decender. In her early days when we lived on the north side of Queen Ann hill, She would make her way to the top of the cedar trees that lined the greenbelt near our house. I would have to climb up and place her in a backpack to carry her down. The last time I rescued her, she had made her way to the very top of our landlords Douglas fir across the street. We watched her up there for three days until we determined that she had made the choice to die up there instead of climb down. It is to this day, the highest I have ever been in a tree. Up over the rooftops of all the houses, close to 60 feet up I figured at the time. She fought me all the way down, climbing and clawing her way out of the backpack and slicing my hands and legs with her sharp nails. When we finally got to the ground and I was all covered with mud and dirt and blood. I took her to the smaller trees in our yard, set a ladder against one of the lower branches about fifteen feet up and taught her how to climb down. I didn’t care that she was hungry or thirsty or tired, she was going to learn, and she was going to learn when the horror was fresh in her mind. Zane had come out to help and would climb up the tree right next to us as if she was showing Batty how it was done. Zane could jump from tree to tree and would at times sit in the branches above meowing down at us as if to give encouragement. After an hour of carrying her to the branch and helping her swing her butt around and helping her climb down and picking her back up and starting all over at the top again, I think she finally got it. Whether because she was to traumatized to ever get near a tree again or that she had at last learned the method, I never figured out, but the truth is I never had to climb another tree to get her down.

She had a litter of 6 kittens herself at a too young age that also made their way to the gates of the Woodland Park Zoo in a cardboard box. She would for years afterwards call out for them in a distinct voice she started using just after they were born.

She could also, quite clearly, say my name.

She was not a smart cat. She was for most of her life a fat cat, though not in the way that you might think a fat cat should look. She carried all her girth in her belly and looked, as someone once described her, like a hippo in high heels. She had a small head and narrow shoulders, and stood daintily on feet that seemed much too small for her middle.

She was not a good hunter, though later in life she managed to bring a mouse or two into the house. She enjoyed, like most cats, sun-spots and near empty cans of tuna. Disliked major changes to her diet and anything involving water. She was afraid of people, even people who she knew quite well unless they were sitting and being still. She was a pushy cat but not out of meanness, it always seemed more out of a sense that she just didn’t know better. She would never for instance, bring you something to play with like our other cat, but when Zane would bring over a toy Batty would just butt in and take over the game. I don’t think she ever quite figured out why Zane would get so frustrated and leave.

She had been in declining health for the past month or so, loosing a lot of weight and letting her fur get matted and dirty. Last night when I got home from the mill I came upon her leaving the litter box hardly able to walk. We covered her in blankets because she seemed cold and this morning we took her to the vet.

I knew in my heart this morning that we were leaving to put her to sleep. The Doctor said it was kidney failure, and that she had something that felt like a tumor on one of them and the other one the doctor couldn’t even find. We asked if we could be in the room with her when she died and we held her and scratched her ears until she stopped breathing and her heart gave out.

In a few days we’ll have a box of her ashes. Sweetie wants to take them back to our old house on Queen Ann and sprinkle them in the greenbelt near where Batty used to hunt. I’m hoping a small part of her will wind up near the top of one of those old cedar trees, looking out over the Freemont bridge to the east and beyond: catching and swaying with the passing wind finally at peace and thinking herself free.