You would believe that a cat could fly

Shattered in an expression I have heard people in England use when someone is just devastated. It’s a good one. Descriptive.

But rather than just wallow and cry, Mark and I are sitting here, drinking champagne, weeping, but celebrating the short shining life of my fluffy little baby with fangs. Maybe this New Orleans approach to death will help.


You would believe that a cat could fly. That’s what I always said about Bill. In so many ways he was just kind of supernatural. It seemed that he would levitate or float when he was getting on his cat tower.


Billy had a lot in common with another little character who came into our lives at the same time. Both kind of extraterrestrial, both started out lost and sad, then both happy and fluffy.


Billy always used to stand on his cat tower and bang on the window at me to say hi whenever I came home. At least I thought he was saying hi. There was some evidence that he was giving landing directions to his alien masters for their tiny space ships. Early on he would line things up for landing strips – wallets, keys, cell phones, wooden spoons, or in this case cats toys.


Bill did other odd things that demonstrated he was not quite of this earth. Like clapping. Bill liked to clap – to stand on his hind legs and clap in the air. I only have one picture to prove this, but this is absolutely a real picture.


Notice here how Bill is slightly out of sync with time. Like he’s not quite in this dimension? I always knew that Bill was this very special but temporary thing in my life. I can’t explain this, but I really did know that Bill would not be around forever.

I always said that Bill was a delicate flower. Mark always said Bill was a weed. Here he makes his weed face.

At night Bill would always come up to me as I was starting to fall asleep, nudge open my mouth, and stick his nose in there as if to suck out my soul. I couldn’t get to sleep until he took some soul.

Bill absolutely hated the sound of snapping – like when you snap your fingers. And the name Porter Goss, the former head of the CIA. Bill hated Porter Goss. I always had to turn off NPR when there was a story about the CIA on. If someone snapped their fingers, or said the name Porter Goss, Bill’s hair would fluff up and he would start to look like that Klingon Commander, Gowron:

Here are some random observations:

- Squirrels hated Bill because his tail was prettier than theirs.
- I always called Bill my Puppy.
- Sometimes I called him my Fluffy Puppy.
- Bill liked to stick his arms under the door when the bathroom door was closed.
- Bill was mostly good, but sometimes he was bad. When he was bad, I used to tell Bill that he needed to volunteer.
- Bill would steal women’s make-up out of their purses.
- Bill was in the middle of drilling a hole in the rug on my stairs.
- Bill liked to open the curtains in the morning whenever you were trying to sleep in.
- Bill loved ice cubes.
- Bill liked to lie on his back like he was a dead bug.
- Bill was mean drunk when he had catnip.
- Bill liked to help, especially where you were cooking or reading a newspaper. Thanks for helping Bill!
- Bill used to wear Soft Paws and chew them off.
- Bill liked to be kissed on the lips.
- Mark always called him “Sillah Billah!”
- Bill liked to have the bottoms of his feet rubbed.
- Bill liked to sit on the side of the couch and be flat.
- Bill liked to put toy mice in my shoes.
- Bill had very long whiskers.

- Bill used to drown mice in the water dish.


I always used to sing this stupid song to Bill:

Billy Baloney
He eats minestrone
But he’s still kind of boney.

I don’t know why I did this.

Bill had his own agenda. He did what he wanted, all the time. But when he wanted love he would come and find you, rub around, and do all these cutesy little things that just yelled out “love me”. And I did love him, very much. Everyone did.

The day I got Bill he just looked so sad, like he had given up. That changed quickly. He was so happy here...and funny, and independent, and alien...and fluffy.

He had a very lovely life.



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Goodbye my little puppy. I loved you so much.