It wasn’t long after Carolyn and I moved into our house before a little calico cat made her presence known. She showed up in the yard, demanding affection from Carolyn. She got it–and a can of tuna. Pretty soon, she was a regular in our yard. Later, we learned that she’d been a neighborhood fixture for a couple of years, part of a feral colony at the other end of our alley.
I named her “Porch Kitty” because she could often be found on our back porch. Also, I thought that if I didn’t give her a real name, I wouldn’t grow attached to her. I was wrong.
“Porch Kitty” quickly became “Princess Kitty” and “Precious Kitty” and “Perfect Kitty,” but mostly we called her “PK.” She was sweet, and friendly, and an expert at breaking and entering. She exploited damage to the crawl space vent screens to get into the basement and took up residence there. Once, she appeared on the second floor, having climbed the inside of the wall, and exited through a hole in our HVAC ductwork.
Soon, she was coming inside to eat, and then we made her a permanent resident of the house. We screened the back porch so she could still go outside, and that’s where she hung out most of the time. But for a while each evening, we’d tuck the two birds away so that she (and Chubby Huggs, who we still miss) could come inside and spend time with us. She’d alternate between sitting next to me and on Carolyn’s lap.
She feared nothing, except for a weasel ball we got her one Christmas. She hunkered down against the wall, tail wrapped tight against her body, and did her best not to let it touch her. But she was death to Christmas trees, was happy to scale any height, and just last year, killed a rat that had invaded the screen porch.
We moved here in 2002, and she was already at least two by then according to the neighbors at the time. So she was at least twenty-two when she died earlier this week. She had a good, long life and we were with her at the very end.
Rest in peace, PK. I’ll always miss your fuzzy little face.
Sam Falco 