Remembering Mauicat

He showed up at age four months or so, on the doorstep of a housing cooperative. And, just in case we were to fail to recognize him as a gift, he wore a small bow.  The kitten wasn't claimed, so he became my cat. No one ever knew from whence he came. He might have been purposefully left on the porch of that 16-bedroom house. Some suggested -- with at least whimsical seriousness -- that his origins were otherwordly.

Maui was not a purebred ragdoll, but he resembled one in both physical appearance and temperament.  He was not as graceful as the average cat, and his spatial intelligence was low. You could throw a ball for him to catch, and he'd overshoot the mark by several feet, then look around, wondering, Where'd that ball go?

His interpersonal intelligence, though, was very high. This was a cat who would let me lie down with arms wrapped completely around him, teddy bear style. 

The cat had several physical anomalies. His heart was a little too large -- I knew that nearly half his lifetime ago -- though for a long time it was thought to be benign.

He died on June 2, 2009, apparently of complications of that too-large heart. He was 13.  About a year before, I had started having very regular 'kitty cat dreams' -- dreams that did not seem to make sense.  They began to make sense on June 1, and I do think they were preparation.

Several people will remember receiving mail from my cat over the years -- CDs or other creative works with a "four thumbs up" Maui-the-Cat rating. 

That was my cat: He gave four thumbs up to things that didn't deserve it, and three thumbs up to things that were sometimes lousy. A housemate once described him as the ultimate type B cat. He liked music and other things that were mellow and soft, like himself.