Found Photo

I found this test shot in a portrait set I did for a client last week - I must have squeezed off one of Lise in the morning before I left home. The original shot was almost completely black, but I could see one little eye peeking out of the darkness. I corrected it as best I could in Photoshop.

Lise came to say goodbye to me on Tuesday. At the end of the afternoon I was completely wrung and exhausted, so I went to lie down in the bedroom. I was dozing for a while and then Dad came over to pat my head and say how sorry he was that Lise had died. After he left I was trying to get back to sleep when Lise jumped up on the bed. My eyes were closed, and I kept them closed. She walked around my head and came to sit near my chest. Through my earplugs I could feel the rhythm of her purring. She walked away, down toward my feet. The whole visit lasted a long while, probably five minutes. I knew she was there to say goodbye, so I kept my eyes shut and tried my best not to wreck it, though I found myself crying and snurfling into the covers at my neck. Eventually her presence just sort of faded, though she was still with me. I'd had a lot of crying for one day so I said goodbye and got up and went to the kitchen to pull myself together.

Ah, this is one of the downfalls of being naive enough in 2003 to have registered my real name as the website url. Current & potential employers note: Ashley Bristowe has been visited by her dead cat. (But she is not 'a crackpot', per se.)

Categories: Lise

Comments [1]

---

Goodbye, Lise

I really can't believe I'm writing another of these goodbyes. Today we say goodbye to our lovely and beloved cat Lise.

Lise came into our lives at the end of April. She'd been surrendered to the Humane Society by a household that had had far too many cats. Initially Lise was brutally shy and skittish, panicking at any sudden moves or sounds. But I picked her because in the visiting room at the shelter I'd held out my hand and when she finally came over to sniff me, she began to purr really loud, and wanted her head scratched and scratched. She seemed gentle and scared and underloved, and I knew we had lots of love to give at Chez Bristowe Turner. So I had her spayed and brought her home.

For the first few days she didn't leave the pet carrier. I kept it under my desk and worked at the computer all day, periodically reaching down to scratch her head through the door. She spent the first week very tentatively getting to know my office, but wouldn't go into the rest of the house. I would leave the door open at night, in case she wanted to explore while we weren't around. During the day I gave her lots of rubs inside the carrier and she'd purr and purr and purr. Then one morning I awoke in the grey light to Lise on the bed, frantically butting her head repeatedly under my hand, purring and purring, desperate to be petted, to be loved. It was one of the most heartbreakingly endearing things I've ever experienced.

Lise gradually came out of her shell over the next few months, but she really blossomed this fall. A quiet and friendly cat, she came when we called. She loved ham, and popcorn, and canteloupe. Her bum & tail trembled when she was happy to see us come home. Lise was my constant companion when I worked; she'd lie on the futon couch or behind the lamp on my desk, periodically getting up for a face scratch or to follow me to the bathroom. She was great with Sloane, who would often pat her a bit too hard in the manner of children. Sloane, in an early comparison of Lise with Rooney, declared, "This cat is better than Rooney. She's not as bitey." Indeed she wasn't. When Sloane bashed in her mouth a few weeks ago while running around the livingroom, Lise spent the rest of the evening glued to Sloane's hip, purring and letting Sloane pat her for as long as she wanted.

Last night Lise went out while Turner was doing the recycling. It was a chilly night, so we expected to see her back in soon. When she didn't return and we were starting to get ready for bed, we called out the doors for a long while and Turner went out on foot up the alley. Our neighbour takes in strays and we wondered if, since it was already midnight by that point, that she hadn't taken Lise in for the evening. But we were worried, so we left the blinds a bit open on the back window, where Lise would sometimes come to stand and meow if she wanted in. She didn't return.

This morning we went out to look for Lise and after a turn around the neighbourhood together, Turner found her across the street, curled under a parked car. She'd been hit by a vehicle on Spiller Road and died in the night. We brought her home and prepared a cardboard box coffin containing her favourite toys (marbles, the laser pointer), some ham and leaves from a plant she liked to chew, some kitty litter. Turner and Sloane and I buried her in the side yard, beside Rooney. We all dug and we all returned the dirt. Sloane had a lot of questions. She wanted to touch Lise before we put her in the box, so we let her. Initially neither Turner nor I really wanted her to touch the dead cat, but I remembered how incredibly final and helpful it had been to feel Rooney, cold under my hand, when we found him on the hill. How it really helped bring the death home to me. I'd felt that same thunk of reality when I reached down to pick up Lise from under the car earlier this morning and touched her cold head. It felt fair, to let Sloane have that, to learn this death physically in that touch.

Later, we had a wake in the big bed. I told the story of Lise coming to us and reminded Sloane of how Lise would always come and sit on the floor outside the bathtub, waiting for us to be finished. And how she would chatter at the birds at the window feeder, and how she didn't like to be picked up, but if you really wanted to pick her up, she'd let you. Sloane started talking about a random string of things and I fell quiet, and thinking about Lise, started to cry. I cried awhile, Sloane yammering on between us, Turner stroking my hair. I think I sniffled and Sloane suddenly stopped her monologue, and turned, and said, "What happened Mama?" I said, "Lise died, lovie. I'm sad about Lise." With that, Sloane grasped her baba and turned over to face Turner, and said to herself: "Better talk to Dada." Turner and I totally fell apart at that one. Pulled me right out of that grief hole for a little while.

We love and miss Lise. She was a truly lovely and beautiful cat, and a good friend to us in the six months she spent here. We were humbled and grateful to have found such a good soul with whom to share our home and lives.

Categories: Lise

Comments [4]

---

Our Garden

Sloaner and the beans!

(Also shown, below: hollyhocks from Strawberry Hill, marigolds inspired by Shimla, and many sunflowers! The 'orange' theme for our newly-planted flowers this year is in honour of John Johnston's arrival in Calgary last spring.)



We have a great book, Barbapapa Sur Mars, given to Sloane by Jenny and Korey for her first birthday. It only took us a year to decipher the very elementary French of the story. And now? We love it!

Barbidur takes a bean, and plants it in the soil once they get to Mars.



Turns out that the French have moralising to do, under the guise of children's literature. This time, it's the well-known "never bring seeds across international borders" lesson you really need to drill into the under 5 crowd. In this story, the 'harmless' Earth bean tries to take over the whole planet! Mon dieu! Quel disastre!



For her part, Sloane was thrilled that we had planted and grown the very same beans which took over Mars! Formidable!



When we harvested all the beans that'd grown - two whole packages' worth of 'runner beans' - we ended up with just about enough to not-quite-be-a-side-dish for one person. Has Montsanto taken over the domestic bean market here in North America, too?

Categories: House | Lise | Sloane

Comments [2]

---

Meet... Fooney! I mean, Lise

About two months ago, before Rooney died, we'd started looking into getting another cat. From the beginning we'd intended on being a two cat household, but as a person who had never owned even one cat, Turner wanted to have Rooney start us off on solo cat ownership and then we'd work our way up to two. By about February Turner was pretty clear on all the various stuff that goes with owning a cat, and although he really couldn't figure out why the hell the cat would sometimes go rip-tearing around the house for no reason (as someone who grew up with cats I'll tell you that it's because he was a cat, full stop), Turner was willing to let me get another cat. So I started looking into it.

I browsed the various adoption websites and online classifieds for a while. I'm kind of an animal snob, as some of you know. When it comes to dogs, there's a few criteria: 1. no biting, 2. as little barking as possible, and most importantly 3. NO LONG HAIR AROUND THE MOUTH. I'm terrible on the whole idea of dog slobber, so the dogs that have long hair on their faces are right out for me. You know those little puffball-type dogs? The yippy ones? They're white, usually. But around their mouths - brown. BROWN. That hair grows out of their skin white, you know. And then it goes brown because of the slobber and all the ass-licking and what-have-you that dogs do. I really can't think of ANYthing grosser than the brown hair around otherwise-white dogs' mouths. Blech! So I don't like those kinds of dogs, and if they have mouth hair I don't care what colour they are and I don't even really care about their temperment. My cousin Jana has a lovely (though barky) dog named Mulder who is awesome with Sloane and generally a very good-tempered all-around nice animal. But he has slobbery hair around his mouth. I can't touch him and I don't want him anywhere near me and I wouldn't mind if Jana gave him away. (Yes, I realize I am a bad person.)

But I'm also another kind of snob. I like my animals to be beautiful. As in, interesting colour, unusual detail, and good form. Hence the purebred Abyssinian. Hence the purebred English Setter. So when I was browsing these adoption websites and suchlike, I was looking for a Siamese or other purebred-looking cat that would have a lovely personality, not bite, be young enough to adapt to our resident cat and active household, and best of all be beautiful. It's a tall order, especially considering most SPCA-type cats are mangy feral things. It's not surprising that the search would take a few months.

Around the beginning of April I finally found a cat in Lethbridge that seemed to suit us. It was half Bengal and super affectionate. 10 months old. Named Roxy. I conferred with the owner by phone a few times and we agreed that her cat would be a good fit for us, and us a good fit for her cat. We were just finalizing the arrangements to meet in Nanton (halfway between Lethbridge and Calgary) to do the cat hand over, and then suddenly Rooney died.

I can't help but think that if he'd had a friend in the house Rooney might not have been so hell-bent on getting outside. So I sort of blame myself for not getting him a friend sooner, because maybe he would've been running around inside and had more exercise and wouldn't've been lonely or needing to escape and then wouldn't've been killed. ...Something like that. I know it's stupid, but you think these things, you know?

Obviously the whole new-cat-acquisition thing very suddenly went on hold. I wrote this email to my old friend Renee Kerman a few days later:

Ren,

I just lost my cat Rooney to coyotes on Friday night. I know you never met him but he was a super little guy, really a character. He was an indoor cat but managed to get out when we had guests on Friday. We found him early the next morning, about a block from our house, torn in half. It was probably the most surreal thing I've ever seen in my life. I buried him in the yard early Saturday morning. (I think that's illegal, but fuck it.)

I've been thinking a lot of you and the email you sent when Nora died a few years ago. I can't remember if I wrote back anything lengthy or particularly insightful, but your email really conveyed how sad you were and how important she'd been to you. I've been thinking about your loss a lot in the last few days, digesting my own loss.

I've also been thinking a lot about [Renee's old university beau] Denis and how he lost that new puppy (traffic accident?) and he was so devastated, and then got another puppy sort-of-too-quickly afterward. I don't remember how all that turned out but I remember talking with you about it, at the time. I was in the midst of adopting another cat for our household last week and now I'm like, Should I stop and wait? I was going to get another cat anyway, even if Rooney was still alive. I'm not trying to replace him. But suddenly my cat is dead and I'm totally grieving... I don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to write and tell you that I've been thinking of you and Nora, and that I'm in a similar-but-different position these days. Sad times.

How are things with you?
Love Ash

Well, in the end I did the cat show and it was really great (if expensive) and cathartic and all that. And the following week I thought it through, and quietly started back into the adoption process to find another cat for our house. Not to replace Rooney, mind, though he'd left a giant Rooney-shaped hole in our lives when he left us. We wanted another cat (I wanted another cat), and eventually we will be a two-cat household as per the plan. So we'd start back with one again. Eventually I found a lovely cat at the Calgary Humane Society (Sloane called it "the cat store" after a few visits), a tortie-point siamese cross. Very different personality than Rooney: very shy, almost skittish, but super affectionate, loving the head rubs. One year old, and beautiful. I adopted her. And brought her home. We named her Lise.




(The title of this post comes from some very black humour from the weekend of Rooney's death. Turner and I were lying in bed sort of digesting the events of the day on Saturday, and I was upset, but we were kind of smiling about how Rooney finally got his big night out on the town. The topic turned to the whole adoption-of-new-cat I'd been doing and how it would look on the website if I blogged about the events. Turner: "You can't get another cat yet. Just replace Rooney and move on? What's it going to be on the blog? Saturday: Goodbye, Rooney. ...Monday: Meet... Fooney!" I almost choked, laughing so hard.)

Categories: Lise | Rooney

Comments [1]

---