Bill

My four-legged feline boy left the planet on September 2010.  He has presented himself lately in the weirdest and most humorous way.  I looked out the kitchen window for weeks just in case he came walking back, but I know he is in another plane.


One day,  as I swept the kitchen floor (I have to do this everyday when I come as the dogs drag stuff from the yard notoriously)...I shook the throw rugs.  I saw the usual specks of dirt.  But as I swept I noticed this wasn't just fragments of bark, weeds or sand...it was of uniformed size and shape.  The size of long grain brown rice, a little fatter, much browner.  I looked closer and they were cocoons and next some hatched larvae.  I couldn't make it out.  I looked at the garbage can...surveyed outside the house...looked at the larger trash can, nothing; no clue.  I swept them up and threw them in the outside trash.  I researched the internet-still couldn't figure it out.


I thought they were maggots, but those usually are on dead bodies (yes grotesque to think that Bill's decaying body was somewhere being consumed by maggots).  


Next day, came home and did my routine sweeping, and shook the dogs beds and the same thing...!  This time the other corner of the kitchen where Bill's kitty litter used to be.  Yuck!  I noticed litter debris coming from a crack between the floor and the wall-and thought...could it be coming from the wall?  So I cleaned again and threw the suckers out in the trash.


So a couple of weeks went by and no more strange creatures.  Great!  I thought this was Bill telling me he has transformed.


This past weekend, three weeks since Bill's departure another phenomena.  Flies!  The kitchen window which Bill used to come in and out is usually kept open during the day.  I noticed first a few flies around the window...so I swatted them.  As I swatted them, more seemed to appear as if they were gracefully cascading down from the behind the blinds on top of the window.  I swatted them.  Then I thought they were all gone.  A few minutes later when I cam e back to the kitchen...more flies.  I continued the same routine.  Swat, dead flies, sweep.  Swat, dead flies, sweep. Swat, dead flies, sweep.  Saturday evening I had had it so I sprayed bug spray.  They dropped like flies-because they were flies!  On Saturday and Sunday I must have killed over a hundred flies.  


I came home yesterday from work...usual routine.  A few more flies on the floor-I figured they died from residual spray.  I checked the window sill and grooved tracks of the windows...another 30 or so dead flies!  


This time I went up on the attic to see if there was anything dead, down under the house, around the yard, no unusual amounts of dog poop (which would attract flies) NOTHING!  I think they are all gone now...but it is still a mystery.  All I can sum up is that it is still Bill showing me that he has yet transformed again.  Well let's see how things are when I get home tonight.


Here is a re-post of what I wrote on Facebook about Bill.  


Isa’s friend found a litter of abandoned kittens on the hillside in Marin County. Her friend kept one of the kittens, Isa kept another and I had recently lost my cat in the Oakland move so, yes…we were ready for a new kitty. 

Bill was born before Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. That’s why we named him Bill. He grew to be a very big cat, up to 20 lbs in his day. He was an expert urban rat hunter. He was good at catching them but they sometimes got away….inside the house! One time in one’s attempt to get out, it made its way under the dishwasher and ate all the tubing. We only found out when we noticed water flooding the downstairs closet. 

I have many stories of Bill’s hunting foibles…one that included women screaming, upside down bucket captures, and some you would get creeped out if I told you. He was a good boy, a good cat, tolerant of his little dog family, Abbe and Angus and put up with Lilly-who loved to chase him although she was much smaller than he was. Abbe loved him…they would play together. I have a video posted on YouTube. 

He retired from rat hunting when we moved to Santa Cruz. Birds were easier. (birders cup your ears) He had a good life. He loved to lie in the sun! He was quite healthy until one day he got hyper thyroid disease. That was 3 years ago. He got treatment and he was cleared of it. But I think it came back….he lost a lot of weight in the last year. The last few weeks he was skin and bones. He was picky and ate very little…but he ate nonetheless and still loved to soak up the sun in the summer. I gave him a real bath, the first in his life. I never would have been able to do it in his youth – I would have definitely been scarred. But he was submissive and seemed happy to be clean. He came and sat on my lap at night and purred away. He was getting weak and senile but never showed signs of pain, I couldn’t let him go. I didn’t feel right about euthanizing him. 

While I was in Oakland from Friday to Monday morning like I did a lot…Bill decided not to come back Saturday night. I guess he just decided to die. His brother Wylee also took off many years back in the wilds of Ben Lomond. I’m sure he went to join him. 

I wish I could hold him in my arms and hear him purr one more time! Bye my Bill, my sweet boy, my loyal cat. Maybe I’ll see you some day.


Here is a link to pictures of Bill on Facebook.


http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/album.php?aid=198618&id=719536370