Our cat Isabel has a birthday this week, her seventeenth. We don't know for sure on what date she was born in 1991, but it was right around the first of April. Isabel and her brother Gus came to us as six-week-old kittens from our friends the MacKenzie family, whose momcat had just had a litter, on Zelda's seventh birthday.
Gus and Isabel were the cutest little furballs. They moved to Alabama with us, then they moved back to Ohio with us and presided in the old house and its acre on High Street for ten years. They slept together, bathed each other, played and fought as cats play and fight.
Gus died two years ago, and Isabel has declined a little since she lost her brother. She is an old cat. And the sweetest cat in the world. I know everyone says their cat is the coolest, nicest, prettiest, whatever superlative applies. But they don't know Izzy.
She has always been affectionate, that is, when she feels like it. My favorite thing is to lie down on the floor to stretch my back, and no matter where Isabel happens to be in the house, she will come and plant herself in the middle of my chest and settle in for a while.
Lately she has taken to long naps on top of Gven's printer. I think she likes the slight vibration of the new machine. And she spends a lot of time upstairs in Zelda's room, where Gus used to hang out a lot.
Now she moves pretty slowly and has trouble leaping up on the counter to her food bowl, so we help her up. She can still do it on her own, but it takes a lot of effort. She whines and complains for a while every morning and whenever someone comes home, and she requires a lot of attention. Usually she calms down if you feed her or spend some quality time stroking her back or rubbing her ears. She likes that.
Happy birthday, Isabel. You're the best cat ever.
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