Last week, I started writing a post about where I write. Specifically, how the room that I write in is a hangout for the animals. How, even at this very moment, the dog is licking the carpet driving me up the fricking wall. How Beamer the Wonder Cat sits on the desk with all the papers and whacks at my hand when I move the mouse. And how, I wondered, can a person write anything decent when THAT is going on?
I had a little more editing to do before I posted it, but for the most part it was close to being ready. I have a fear of sounding like a goofy, old bat who leaves their estate to their bird or stores dead cats in the the freezer so Animal Control doesn’t bust me. Therefore, charming stories about precocious pets are few and far between.
On Saturday afternoon, I was outside and my neighbor was telling me that Beamer has been eating the dog food. Their dog’s food, in their house. Beamer goes over every day to hang out with Dora and Bogey, and the other nite she kicked him out at 11:00 so they could go to bed. She tells me these kinds of stories all the time, and then usually ends with, “I love that cat. He’s so cool.”
This morning, instead of going to see Dora, Beamer went across the street where he was hit by a car. We didn’t know about it until another neighbor was walking her dogs and found him dead on the side of the road. Can I tell you how much we all loved this cat? That last nite when I was laying on the couch, Beamer came and laid right with me, purring until he dozed off. That Mallie Bee is heartbroken as this was her baby. That Dora was pacing and crying this morning and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. That these lovely women who live next door to us both cried when they heard what happened. That we put Beamer in a bag in the backyard until we could bury him and that another cat in the neighborhood came and sat beside him.
This pet who made a best friend next door, and brought out the wild in Dora so much that they both hopped a fence and laid on a picnic table taunting a Great Dane inside. This pet who was a bit of a shit starter and a lot of a wild one that was a perfect fit for our family. This pet that we didn’t get to have around nearly as long as we wanted, and will likely turn me into a batty, old lady who sits on a park bench telling stories about a cat she once had named Beamer to anyone passing by.
