I know it’s not Caturday, but since the rain started getting dumped all over Portland there hasn’t been a lot of time for feline sightings. This lack of cats on my blog just won’t do, so I’m digging into the archives here.
This is Momma. She’s a stray cat that loyally hung round the backyard of Chris and I’s Arcata apartment. We lived there for 2 years and there was rarely a day we didn’t see her. We nicknamed her Momma because she had a big swingin’ belly that looked like she’d given birth to one too many litters before someone in the neighborhood got her fixed (her clipped ear is a sign that she’d been TNR’ed).
For a short while we also called her Ice Queen because her normal routine was to sit and stare at us through the sliding glass door. Once, Chris kept a daily log of her activity and she had literally been on our back porch for almost an entire day– disappearing once or twice for up to an hour. She was probably catching some lunch.
For over a year she had a bestie whom I named Nermal; Nerms was way friendlier than Momma, and they were always together. On those rare sunny Humboldt days, they would lay on the rocks next to the fence and roll around together. It was the cutest.
And on the usual rainy Humboldt days, they would spoon each other on our back porch, guarding our recyclables and using pizza boxes for mattresses when we had them.
Unfortunately, Nermal went missing and was eventually reported by a neighbor as being found dead. I cried for a week, I loved her so much. Momma never stopped hanging out in our backyard, though.
It took almost the entire 2 years we lived in that apartment for Momma to warm up to us– it wasn’t until after Nermal died that she let me touch her. She’s extremely feral; I can’t count how many times I’ve witnessed her drag a dead field mouse onto our back porch and devour everything but the snout and tail (total ew!, but also pretty awesome).
We had to say goodbye to Momma when we moved into the Tree House on the other side of town. These are the last photos I ever got to take of her, back in the summer of ‘08. I’d like to think whoever moved into that apartment after us is still taking care of her, but who knows?
I wanted so badly to take her with me, but even after 2 years and a few scratches under the chin she was still so feral; to remove her from her territory would’ve just seemed cruel.
Even though we weren’t the closest, I still miss and think of Momma and Nermal whenever I see a grey cat… I am thankful for the time we got to spend together.
And now, my friends, I am officially misty eyed!
