This is about Darwin. No, not about the British guy who came up with the famed Theory of Evolution, but about the Ohio stray cat, who ensured his own survival by yowling loud enough to be found under a woodpile.
Darwin has been with us for five years, after I mistakenly thought that bringing a kitten for Magellan to play with would be a good thing for her. As my husband points out, I'd already made the same mistake more than two decades before when I got Lawrence to keep Nube company. I sure didn't learn from that mistake. Nube had nothing but contempt for Lawrence for their entire eighteen years together, and Magellan feels no less for Darwin. And I can totally see Magellan's side.
For one, Darwin is a terror. Unless he's asleep, he's always (and I use the word with statistical accuracy) looking for ways to get in trouble. He's such a menace that my husband has apologized to the spirit of Pita, a stray who adopted us in Puerto Rico, for having thought that he (not the as-yet-unborn Darwin) was the most pain-in-the-ass (thus Pita's name) cat ever.
We noticed Pita one night when we were in our backyard covered-porch in Guaynabo, where we'd hung a hammock and where we liked to spend many evenings, enjoying the cool breeze, the smell of the lime tree, and the intermittent songs of the coquís, the tiny Puerto Rican tree frogs that serenade each other with a sound like its name: co-quí, co-quí, co-quí. But the tranquil evening was interrupted by a cat's loud and repeated meowing coming from the neighbor's roof. Many subsequent evenings were equally interrupted by the homely gray tabby, who looked like every other stray cat in the neighborhood, and whom we couldn't get rid of. Eventually, the cat ventured down and decided to adopt us so we fed him. The rest, as they say, is history.
Pita loved to hunt mice, large dragon-tailed lizards and the little green lagartijos or anoles that constitute the bulk of the fauna of the island. He loved to bring us the half-eaten bodies and deposit them on the floor in front of the kitchen door, beaming with self-satisfaction. But because Pita enjoyed the one thing we would not abide: hunting and eating the birds, we packed him up in a box one day. My husband strapped the box to his motorcycle and took it about a mile or so away to the animal shelter. He paid $10 and left him in the hopes that Pita would be adopted. No such luck.
A week later, as we were enjoying our newly quieted evenings in the back porch, we heard Pita meowing from the neighbor's roof. Well, as you may imagine, a cat that escapes the pound and travels for miles to find us couldn't be sent back, so Pita stayed for good. We had him neutered and fed him regularly and he lived a good life as an outside cat, who enjoyed getting in the hammock and hanging his head from its edge. Pita never wanted to come inside and actually clawed his way out through a window screen the one time he was in the house recovering from a nasty fight wound. He died several years later, poisoned by some unknown and hopefully damned-to-hell hand, but not before he'd crawled back to our house to die in the backyard he loved so much.
Darwin makes Pita look like a nene de teta. And we can see how he was found under a pile of wood because after we go to bed every night, near midnight or so, Darwin likes to yowl until we call his name and remind him he's not alone. He yowls loud enough to wake the dead and anyone trying to sleep within a few miles of this house. I'm sure all who walk by our house feel sorry for the poor kid who keeps getting yelled at because all anyone ever hears from us is our continual and exasperated cries of: DAAARWIIIIN!
Recently, I've noticed how Darwin is in cahoots with Geni, the stray female dog we brought from Puerto Rico. We keep her treats in sealed plastic containers on top of the microwave cart and his new sport is batting them off the cart onto the floor so she can gorge herself. That's how she got to eat a whole bag of the pricey duck treats I buy for Rusty, our male Puerto Rican sato, who can't have regular treats because he has a skin allergy to certain proteins. You know what they say about there not being anything more expensive than a free dog? Well, it's true.
Darwin loves Geni. He likes to go into the back mud room, where she has her bed, and rub himself against her. I once caught him standing on his hind legs and swatting her with his paws on the face, as if practising his boxing skills. I believe Darwin thinks Geni is his own personal toy. She takes it like a female and looks up at me with eyes that ask me why on earth we ever let Darwin into the house.
When we adopted Darwin from a rescue organization, the woman who came to do the house visit, before the adoption was finalized, told us that he was a very anxious cat. "You'll have to be vigilant about the dogs because he's very nervous around them," she said, adding that Darwin (then known as Piper) also seemed to be inordinately hungry all the time. Bingo on that one, for sure. But she was totally wrong about his anxiety with dogs. Darwin is outright reckless and cannot seem to get it into his head that Rusty, a 50-plus-pound Lab mix, could kill him with a single bite or a shake.
I'm the one with the perpetual anxiety of coming home to find parts of Darwin strewn all over the walls and floor. We've had to train Rusty to control his ornery temper with Darwin and not kill him for the cat's continual trespasses, such as trying to take the dog's treats from him, or trying to paw at Rusty's sensitive ears, or trying to ride Rusty like a horse, or any number of moronic daredevil stunts Darwin likes to attempt.
With his repeated suicidal forays into Rusty territory, Darwin --who never answered to the name Piper but took to being Darwin right away -- seems to be a living contradiction of his namesake's theory about survival of the fittest. Still, with his big yellow eyes, his salt-and-pepper coloring, his outgoing personality and his eternal readiness for play, Darwin is a big favorite among our family and friends, especially our nieces and nephews and our friends' children. He's never too tired or too dignified or too beautiful (like Magellan) to embark on any silliness required of chasing after his favorite feather-tipped toys or his fake mouse.
His latest favorite thing, to Magellan's utter disdain, is to pick up his little mouse in his mouth and to edge surreptitiously up to wherever Magellan is posing like an Egyptian goddess. Darwin then pretends that Magellan wants to take his mouse away. He growls and hisses, surely imagining himself as a lion who just caught an antelope but must fight another lion for the prey. He repeats this game until Magellan, disgusted, moves away and finds a place to hide from Darwin.
I have to agree with Magellan that Darwin does not provide much evidence for the evolution of the cat species. But I also have to say that in oh so many years and after oh so many cats, I've never lived with a funnier and more fun cat than Darwin.
Darwin has been with us for five years, after I mistakenly thought that bringing a kitten for Magellan to play with would be a good thing for her. As my husband points out, I'd already made the same mistake more than two decades before when I got Lawrence to keep Nube company. I sure didn't learn from that mistake. Nube had nothing but contempt for Lawrence for their entire eighteen years together, and Magellan feels no less for Darwin. And I can totally see Magellan's side.
For one, Darwin is a terror. Unless he's asleep, he's always (and I use the word with statistical accuracy) looking for ways to get in trouble. He's such a menace that my husband has apologized to the spirit of Pita, a stray who adopted us in Puerto Rico, for having thought that he (not the as-yet-unborn Darwin) was the most pain-in-the-ass (thus Pita's name) cat ever.
We noticed Pita one night when we were in our backyard covered-porch in Guaynabo, where we'd hung a hammock and where we liked to spend many evenings, enjoying the cool breeze, the smell of the lime tree, and the intermittent songs of the coquís, the tiny Puerto Rican tree frogs that serenade each other with a sound like its name: co-quí, co-quí, co-quí. But the tranquil evening was interrupted by a cat's loud and repeated meowing coming from the neighbor's roof. Many subsequent evenings were equally interrupted by the homely gray tabby, who looked like every other stray cat in the neighborhood, and whom we couldn't get rid of. Eventually, the cat ventured down and decided to adopt us so we fed him. The rest, as they say, is history.
Pita loved to hunt mice, large dragon-tailed lizards and the little green lagartijos or anoles that constitute the bulk of the fauna of the island. He loved to bring us the half-eaten bodies and deposit them on the floor in front of the kitchen door, beaming with self-satisfaction. But because Pita enjoyed the one thing we would not abide: hunting and eating the birds, we packed him up in a box one day. My husband strapped the box to his motorcycle and took it about a mile or so away to the animal shelter. He paid $10 and left him in the hopes that Pita would be adopted. No such luck.
A week later, as we were enjoying our newly quieted evenings in the back porch, we heard Pita meowing from the neighbor's roof. Well, as you may imagine, a cat that escapes the pound and travels for miles to find us couldn't be sent back, so Pita stayed for good. We had him neutered and fed him regularly and he lived a good life as an outside cat, who enjoyed getting in the hammock and hanging his head from its edge. Pita never wanted to come inside and actually clawed his way out through a window screen the one time he was in the house recovering from a nasty fight wound. He died several years later, poisoned by some unknown and hopefully damned-to-hell hand, but not before he'd crawled back to our house to die in the backyard he loved so much.
Darwin makes Pita look like a nene de teta. And we can see how he was found under a pile of wood because after we go to bed every night, near midnight or so, Darwin likes to yowl until we call his name and remind him he's not alone. He yowls loud enough to wake the dead and anyone trying to sleep within a few miles of this house. I'm sure all who walk by our house feel sorry for the poor kid who keeps getting yelled at because all anyone ever hears from us is our continual and exasperated cries of: DAAARWIIIIN!
Recently, I've noticed how Darwin is in cahoots with Geni, the stray female dog we brought from Puerto Rico. We keep her treats in sealed plastic containers on top of the microwave cart and his new sport is batting them off the cart onto the floor so she can gorge herself. That's how she got to eat a whole bag of the pricey duck treats I buy for Rusty, our male Puerto Rican sato, who can't have regular treats because he has a skin allergy to certain proteins. You know what they say about there not being anything more expensive than a free dog? Well, it's true.
Darwin loves Geni. He likes to go into the back mud room, where she has her bed, and rub himself against her. I once caught him standing on his hind legs and swatting her with his paws on the face, as if practising his boxing skills. I believe Darwin thinks Geni is his own personal toy. She takes it like a female and looks up at me with eyes that ask me why on earth we ever let Darwin into the house.
When we adopted Darwin from a rescue organization, the woman who came to do the house visit, before the adoption was finalized, told us that he was a very anxious cat. "You'll have to be vigilant about the dogs because he's very nervous around them," she said, adding that Darwin (then known as Piper) also seemed to be inordinately hungry all the time. Bingo on that one, for sure. But she was totally wrong about his anxiety with dogs. Darwin is outright reckless and cannot seem to get it into his head that Rusty, a 50-plus-pound Lab mix, could kill him with a single bite or a shake.
I'm the one with the perpetual anxiety of coming home to find parts of Darwin strewn all over the walls and floor. We've had to train Rusty to control his ornery temper with Darwin and not kill him for the cat's continual trespasses, such as trying to take the dog's treats from him, or trying to paw at Rusty's sensitive ears, or trying to ride Rusty like a horse, or any number of moronic daredevil stunts Darwin likes to attempt.
With his repeated suicidal forays into Rusty territory, Darwin --who never answered to the name Piper but took to being Darwin right away -- seems to be a living contradiction of his namesake's theory about survival of the fittest. Still, with his big yellow eyes, his salt-and-pepper coloring, his outgoing personality and his eternal readiness for play, Darwin is a big favorite among our family and friends, especially our nieces and nephews and our friends' children. He's never too tired or too dignified or too beautiful (like Magellan) to embark on any silliness required of chasing after his favorite feather-tipped toys or his fake mouse.
His latest favorite thing, to Magellan's utter disdain, is to pick up his little mouse in his mouth and to edge surreptitiously up to wherever Magellan is posing like an Egyptian goddess. Darwin then pretends that Magellan wants to take his mouse away. He growls and hisses, surely imagining himself as a lion who just caught an antelope but must fight another lion for the prey. He repeats this game until Magellan, disgusted, moves away and finds a place to hide from Darwin.
I have to agree with Magellan that Darwin does not provide much evidence for the evolution of the cat species. But I also have to say that in oh so many years and after oh so many cats, I've never lived with a funnier and more fun cat than Darwin.
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