Good Luck Cat Read online

  Lyons Press is an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

  Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

  Copyright © 2014 by Lissa Warren

  All photos by the author except photo on page 129, courtesy of Michele McDonald

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Information available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Warren, Lissa.

  The good luck cat : how a cat saved a family, and a family saved a cat / Lissa Warren.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-7627-9176-7

  1. Cat owners—New Hampshire—Salem. 2. Korat cat—New Hampshire—Salem. 3. Human-animal relationships. 4. Warren, Lissa. I. Title.

  SF442.73.U6W37 2014

  636.80092’9—dc23

  2014027224

  TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  For my parents, of course.

  And for the cat beside me while I wrote this.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Homecoming

  Chapter Two: The Littlest Warren

  Chapter Three: Dusk

  Chapter Four: Happy Holidays

  Chapter Five: Any Given Day

  Chapter Six: Good Fences

  Chapter Seven: Party of One

  Chapter Eight: Ting Is Missing

  Chapter Nine: Cats and Their Companion Animals

  Chapter Ten: December 18, 2008

  Chapter Eleven: The Sock Drawer

  Chapter Twelve: Spring and Summer

  Chapter Thirteen: Ting Is Sick

  Chapter Fourteen: Monitoring

  Chapter Fifteen: Pacing

  Chapter Sixteen: Homecoming Again

  Chapter Seventeen: Manuscript

  Chapter Eighteen: My Father’s Daughter

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  THE WALTZ ON THE RED-BRICK PATIO

  And the brown-eyed boy who asks a dance

  is the low bough on the buckeye tree

  and his hand in yours is a broad new leaf

  and his fingers thin as branches.

  If you listen close you can hear the roots

  push their backs against the mortar

  and the dappled bricks are almost warm

  in the light of almost-summer.

  And it may seem like you’re wasting time

  but this is what you do

  when you’re ten in Ohio on a Sunday afternoon

  and everyone you’ve ever loved is living.

  —Lissa Warren

  (originally published in Oxford Magazine)

  Chapter One

  Homecoming

  Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

  —Virginia Woolf

  In Thailand, it means good luck. Si-Sawat—the good luck cat, the Korat, the Blue Siamese. Always given, never sold. Gifted in pairs to newlyweds and people of high esteem. One of the oldest—and purest—of breeds. Trained, in ancient days, to check a crib for scorpions (no mere mouser, the Korat). Carried on elephants into battle by Thai warriors. First mentioned in the manuscript Cat-Book Poems, written in 1300s Siam and currently housed in Bangkok’s National Library. A “national treasure,” by government decree. So beloved by King Rama V that he ordered state funerals when his favorites died.

  But their history, while rich, pales in comparison to their appearance: eyes the color of a lotus leaf, lavender paw pads, fur as sleek and gray as a dolphin—silver, even, in certain light. And, oh, the personality: vocal and stubborn, smart as a whip, intensely loyal. Right for us.

  Here on Stillwater Pond, more than eight thousand miles from Thailand, a cat is a lifetime commitment, not unlike a marriage. In my family, adopting a cat is like adopting a child—not something to be taken lightly.

  In 1994, when my father retired from his job as a department store executive, it quickly became apparent that he needed someone to keep him company—to help him pass the time. I’d moved back in with my parents after completing my undergraduate degree (out of choice, not just necessity—I actually liked my parents), and after Dad’s quadruple bypass didn’t entirely “take” (only the main artery, the mammary one, had bypassed like it was supposed to), I had promised to stay for as long as he needed me. But I worked long hours at a publishing company in Boston, almost an hour’s drive from our home in southern New Hampshire. It meant that, in the winter, I barely saw my father during daylight hours. Mom was still employed as a department store executive herself. She sometimes worked fifteen-hour days, preparing for a regional manager’s visit, or dealing with new fixtures, or setting up a sale. It left Dad alone more hours than any of us wanted, so my suggestion that we start putting in calls to cat breeders was met with little resistance. The only real question was which breed of cat to adopt.

  Our previous cat, Cinnamon, had been a sable ­Burmese—also Thai, but a bit more common (though she herself was exceptional). Mom and Dad got her for me for Christmas when I was five—had her flown in from a breeder in Texas. She was, and always will be, the best Christmas present I ever received. We were inseparable. She slept in my arms all night, every night, from the day I got her until the day I cried my way to college. She loved me so much that she once caught and killed a chipmunk and dragged it through the house so she could leave it, like in a scene from The Godfather, on my bed. Gruesome, to be sure—but in her eyes, a glorious gift.

  Cinnamon lived to be nineteen, and her death, from kidney failure, was devastating for all three of us. We were all there when our veterinarian, Dr. Karen Belden, put her to sleep. I was the one who held her, wrapped in her favorite “tiger blanket” with the maize-colored tigress face peering out from the dark brown background. The blanket was soft and warm like she was, and when Dr. Belden went to take her from my arms, I gave her the blanket, too, so she’d have something familiar, even though she was already gone. The folks at Bulger Veterinary Hospital washed the blanket and mailed it back to us a week later, with a condolence card all of them had signed. Perhaps they did that for everyone, but we liked to think they knew Cinnamon was special.

  Though we loved the breed, we had had our sable Burmese. There was simply no way we could adopt another one. We looked into other types of Burmese—champagne, lilac, chocolate, cream. But we were afraid that even they would remind us too much of Cinnamon and what—whom—we had lost. It’d be unfair to the new kitten to compare.

  Abyssinians seemed like an option. Appearance-wise we liked them, and they were known for their sweet temperaments. They were, however, also known as an “energetic” breed, and I worried that an Abyssinian might be a bit too active for my crossword-loving, novel-reading, baseball-watching father with the three occluded arteries. Bengals, too, seemed like they’d be a handful—though their leopard-like appearance intrigued us to no end. Devon Rex? Too mischievous. Maine Coon? Just too huge. Sphynx? A bit too naked. Himalayan? Awfully fluffy. Russian Blue? Perhaps.

  I can’t recall how we homed in on the Korat, but I do remember calling breeder after breeder, asking if they had any Korat females who’d be available for adoption soon. I wasn’t looking for just any Korat female, though. I wanted one who
had been born into a loving home and raised by hand—one who would be gentle and not just used to humans, but fond of them. Truth be told, I was also hoping to find a female who was the runt of the litter, as Cinnamon had been. All of us Warrens were small—Dad was five-foot-six, and Mom and I were five-foot-four (if you want to be generous). And, as Dad put it, I weighed “about a buck.” At a hundred pounds, a six-or seven-pound cat seemed doable to me. A ten-pounder seemed like a stretch. I couldn’t imagine having a tenth of my body weight curled up in my lap. Plus, if she were small, she’d seem more like a Warren.

  After many calls and referrals by other breeders, I came in contact with Madeline Lovelace and her husband, Hewitt, of Love Sumalee cattery in High Point, North Carolina. They were highly respected, with a reputation for breeding beautiful, healthy, affectionate Korats. And, as luck would have it, they had a litter of three born on October 27, 1995, with a tiny female named Thai Princess who needed a good home. The name was fitting, as she had royal bloodlines. Two months prior, her father, “Gideon” (official name: Ruangdej), had become the first Korat to be named the International Cat Association’s top cat of the year. What’s more, she was third-generation Thai. Her great-grandfather, Chiangmai Chup—the grandfather of her mother, Malee Rose, or “Rosie,” as they called her—had been imported from Thailand. Imported Korats, we were told, have more documents to prove their country of origin than most humans do.

  I would soon learn that this kind of detailed family history is the norm for every Korat. Over the years, a dedicated team of Korat enthusiasts has maintained the breed’s history by keeping track of each cat’s lineage through census forms that they send to owners and breeders on an annual basis. And of course they also keep track of how various Korats fare in competition. These records date back to the first time the Korat competed for championship honors, at an American Cat Association show in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, in June of 1966.

  After a careful vetting process that included myriad questions about our house and our experience with cats, as well as our thoughts about indoor versus outdoor cats (they were glad to hear we were staunchly indoor), Madeline and Hewitt mailed me two pictures—one of the three kittens alone and one of Rosie nursing her brood. There was also a note telling me which kitten was to be ours: the petite one in the back.

  Ours.

  We almost didn’t get her, though. By the time I arrived in Secaucus, New Jersey, on March 24, 1996, to pick her up at the agreed-upon meeting place—the Penn Jersey Cat Club show—Madeline was having second thoughts. Unbeknownst to me, she and Hewitt, just for kicks, had shown the kitten that morning, before I’d gotten there, and to their surprise she had won ribbons. Several ribbons. Whatever imperfections they saw in her—a slight banding in the coat, a little kink in the tail—the judges must have missed.

  Madeline informed me of their wish to keep her, despite the fact that we’d had a deal and I’d driven all that way. But Hewitt, seeing my face fall when she delivered the news, promptly picked up Thai Princess and put her in my arms. I bent my head down to the kitten and she gave my nose a quick but definitive lick. She had claimed me—even Madeline could see it. This cat was a Warren.

  I handed over the $800 check—no small sum for a recent college grad working at a literary press (my parents offered to chip in, but it was important to me that she be a gift)—and the Lovelaces handed me a gray (of course) folder that contained a carefully maintained copy of the kitten’s family tree. In her spot, they wrote in the words ting-pei, the name Mom, Dad, and I had chosen for her. At the time we didn’t know anyone of Thai descent, so, with no one to ask, we did the best we could. It sounded vaguely Asian to us and, as dopey as it may seem, we wanted to honor her heritage somehow. “Princess” didn’t sound very Buddhist to us and, besides, we weren’t the type of family that would have a cat with a cutesy name.

  Then I signed the adoption papers in which I promised not to breed her with anything other than another Korat of traceable ancestry, not to sell her or give her away without the breeder’s knowledge and consent, and not to have her declawed. With that, the Lovelaces gave me her favorite kitty bed—a plush, red, donut-shaped jobbie—and sent me on my way, with hugs and their best wishes.

  Ting slept in my lap the whole ride home, and Mom and Dad were at the front door waiting when we got there.

  Chapter Two

  The Littlest Warren

  “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here.”

  —Lewis Carroll

  Exhausted from the combination of cat show, car ride, and homecoming, Ting slept straight through her first night with us. And her first morning. And much of her first afternoon. But shortly before dinner she decided to go ­exploring—to make our home her home. Unfortunately, she started with the toilet.

  We’ll never know what possessed little Ting to go for a swim—whether it was curiosity, poor balance, bad aim, or a combination—but one minute Mom and I were draping the crust over a chicken pot pie, and the next we heard a huge splash coming from the half-bathroom by the kitchen, followed by what can only be described as a death yowl. We went running and Mom got there first, reaching into the bowl just as I plowed into her, unable to stop because I had on socks and we have hardwood floors. We fell, and Ting, who had hooked a desperate paw into the sleeve of Mom’s sweater, came with us. Mom whacked the back of her head on the bathroom wall, “Mommy Lissa” (as I had come to be called) whacked the back of her head on her mom’s front teeth, and Ting whacked both of us with her now-free scissor-paws in an effort to get the hell out of Dodge as the towel bar came down with a clatter.

  “Stop her!” Mom screamed as Dad popped his head out of the bedroom to see what on earth was happening.

  “Potty cat!” I screamed as Ting vaulted past him. It was the only phrase I could think of.

  By the time Mom and I got up to my parents’ room, Ting had already run behind the rocker and started grooming.

  “Don’t let her lick herself,” said Mom. “She could get sick or something.”

  “Why can’t she lick herself?” asked Dad, thoroughly perplexed. We didn’t have time to explain. We are germaphobes, and we had a cat to bathe.

  We felt sure there was no way Ting would tolerate being washed in the bathroom sink—it’d be too much like drowning—so I ran downstairs and threw on my bathing suit while Mom started the shower. We reasoned it would feel like rain—a warm, gentle rain. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to take a shower with a cat, but if you haven’t, don’t. Two seconds in, I realized it was a big mistake. Three seconds in, Ting did—and used my head as a trampoline to get to the top of the shower stall, where she clung for dear life until Mom pulled her (and several towels) down.

  Mom and I spent the next half-hour crouched on the floor in front of the space heater (wisely, Dad had forbidden us to use the hair dryer), blotting Ting dry with Bounty (cloth towels were out of the question; we liked the cat, but she’d been in the toilet) and soothing her while Dad sat on the edge of his bed, watching us and shaking his head. Mom, determined to take full advantage of the situation, declared a new rule: From now on, the toilet lid had to be put down. Dad called her an opportunist, but knew better than to argue.

  Thankfully, Ting seemed no worse for wear and quickly set her sights on her next area of conquest: the big bay window in the living room and its irresistible (custom-made) window shades. Or, rather, its irresistible window shade cords, which to her apparently resembled dental floss. She chewed through two before we caught her.

  When she circled back to have a go at a third cord, Dad got the bright idea to lure her away with real dental floss instead—a bait and switch that worked especially well because he had, by accident (or not), grabbed the special mint-flavored floss that Mom preferred and he despised. He plopped Ting down on the kitchen table, unrolled about a foot of the stuff, wrapped each end around his pointer fingers, and held it up in front
of her. One quick sniff, two tentative licks, and she commenced chomping, angling her chin so that she could get her back left teeth and then her right. A dentist would have been pleased by her form. She kept going until she had severed the floss, at which point Dad unfurled some more.

  Unbeknownst to him, Dad had created a monster. In a matter of days, Ting would figure out which bathroom drawer housed the flavored dental floss and would loudly demand a chance to practice good oral hygiene—aka, get a “mint fix”—every time she heard it roll open. Mom tried switching to cinnamon floss, which it turns out is equally tasty to cats. Eventually, Mom resorted to the far less enticing unflavored variety. Eventually, Dad started sneaking off to the drugstore to get Ting the mint kind.

  None of this helped the shades, by the way. No sooner had we replaced the two ruined cords than Ting munched her way through a third and a fourth—and later, a fifth and a sixth. Mom, exasperated, put the “blind man” on speed dial. Dad seemed a little … proud?

  This was pretty much how my adolescence had gone—me doing something of questionable logic, Mom expressing horror or dismay, and Dad attributing it to “moxie.” Take, for example, my attempt at the age of sixteen to go for a midnight swim in Lake Erie with a bunch of my friends—which was lovely, until the police came. Or the beach volleyball tournament I entered on a whim at age eighteen that resulted in a broken pinkie, which kept me from working (at my first “real” job—scooping ice cream at Friendly’s) the rest of the summer. Or my decision to get a master’s in poetry in an effort to “be more marketable.”

  It’s not that I could do no wrong in my father’s eyes. I could, and did, at regular intervals, and when I did, he let me know it—gently at first, but with increasing agitation if I made the mistake again. He was an impatient man—the kind who’d spin around and walk out of McDonald’s if the line was more than three people long. By the time I was nine or ten, he pretty much expected me to have my act together. And so, for the most part, I did.