RIP Powder

The absolute Queen of our house died on October 7. I haven’t written about it because it is hard to sum up Powder.

I got her and her brother because they had been abandoned in a trailer park along with another litter mate when their people moved away. (This was lasting trauma for her. Every time we moved afterwards she would try to frantically put herself into moving boxes or into the truck to make sure she went too.)

They were supposed to be barn cats but her brother decided he wanted to come inside. Eventually he liked it so much that he literally dragged her into the house by the scruff of her neck.

She was inside and outside while we lived on the farm. She once went on walkabout for 3 months and then sauntered on home like she’d been gone for an hour. She was a mighty hunter who didn’t tolerate playing with prey. Her brother drove her crazy because he liked to torment mice and she just wanted to kill them.

After her brother died and we got another kitten she pouted in the rafters of the garage for 3 days until I went out and yelled at her. I didn’t know that a few years later she’d pout on a dresser for 18 months to protest Freckles coming into her life.

When our Pomeranian Snowball was dying, Powder guarded her from our other cat who liked to come over and touch Snowball on the top of her head. That made Snowball insanely angry but she couldn’t do anything about it because she was too weak. Powder made sure Riley left the dog alone.

She did not approve of medical procedures. I often had to buy apology presents for my techs after they worked with her. I have a picture of her broken off nail embedded in my thumb after an attempt to draw blood from her. She had several chronic health problems that required meds and monitoring. She decided to take the meds if they were custom blended in her favorite flavorings. No pills for her highness.

She stayed alive much longer than I expected in her condition. We made a lot of allowances in the house for her. When stairs got hard to go up and down as many times as she had to with kidney disease, she got her own litter box in the living room with potty pads because she didn’t like litter.

In spite of it all she still disapproved of most everything we did. I don’t know how to act without someone harrumphing at everything I do. She loved the husband. She considered him her pet. He could do no wrong. Even when he did do wrong, she would come at yell at me about it. I guess she figured I was in charge of him since I brought him home and I should have him under better control.

I had a plan for her.  I figured when she stopped eating or at least when she stopped trying to constantly steal my food, it was time.  It never happened.  She ended up going blind in one eye on a Thursday and then the other eye on Sunday.  With all her other issues and general poor condition, we decided it wasn’t fair to her to make her adapt to this too. I’m sure she was shutting down and it was just a matter of days before something else happened.  I had to wait for her to finish eating a huge bowl of food that the husband gave her before sedating her. I guess she died doing what she loved.  She was 16 and a half years old.

The house is quieter.  Paul doesn’t know who to pounce on now.  The husband is sad and I don’t wake up with a cat on my head who is spitting mad because I had the nerve to move.  Freckles hasn’t seemed to notice. 

The husband now has seniority.  There are no more pets who were here before him.