Max

The intent of this blog was to be both a journal and a means to communicate with family and friends whilst retaining my fundamentally lazy, if widely dispersed, lifestyle. The second part has worked out reasonably well; but the first part, a journal for my own use, has been neglected. So please indulge me while I try to rectify that. No new pictures here, no stories of the South Pacific, just tales that I don’t want to forget.

In late 2007 I brought home a kitten from California. Nome is hard on cats, at least those of the outdoor variety. Summers are valhalla with lemmings and tall grass in spades, but members of felis are most definitely not the apex predator. Everything from gyrfalcons and foxes on up can take out a house cat, so they tend to disappear after a few years. One of ours had done so the previous year and it seemed time to get another drummer.

Normally we are shelter folks, dogs and cats, but I had received a note from a former colleague in Sonoma County describing how she would have some Maine Coon kits available around Thanksgiving. I’d always been intrigued by the breed with their ‘doggish’ behavior and massive size and I was going to be in the area at the right time. So upon my return I unveiled a huge red kitten, inevitably named Max.

Fast forward a month to the depths of winter. I picked up a stomach bug in one of the villages and was unable to stop the egress of anything from any of the usual orifices, so I lay in bed for two days mewling. On the third day I emerged in robe, shaking and weak, and decided to make a cup of tea (which goes to show just how deathly I felt. One notable remnant of my Mormon upbringing is a relatively strong aversion to coffee and tea; they just aren’t part of my routine). Normally, this is a fairly simple process, even for those of us inexpert in the art of the cuppa.

These were not simple times. Our other cat, Demeter, had not taken gracefully to the presence of the red-headed stranger. Her displeasure was demonstrated in a very specific and unusual way. She had taken to urinating on the stove. Atop one specific burner, to be precise. Not pleasant by any means, but not as bad as could be as we had a ceramic cook top and thus it was very easy to clean. Since her spot of choice was the large front burner, I addressed the situation by simply putting a large cast-iron pot over the burner until she got over her tiff, and this actually seemed to work quite well. Life went on.

So here is the setting. One very nauseous, weak man in naught but a short bathrobe. One large, insanely rambunctious red kitten. One stove with a large pot on the burner normally used to heat up the kettle. Not paying attention, or unable to do so, I fill the kettle with water, remove the pot, place the kettle there, and turn it up on high. I then retire to recover from my exertions and await the whistle.

I never made it to the whistle, due to the cloud of acrid smoke which wafted into the front room. Staggering back to the kitchen I ran face full into a cloud of seared, vaporized cat piss. Apparently Demeter had decided to one-up me by simply pissing around the cook pot, so that upon my lifting it and placing the kettle down the burner was covered in her essential excretions. The smell was god-awful, and I began dry heaving immediately. Clutching the sink to keep upright, I forced my stomach into submission, turned to the stove, ripped the heat off the burner, and yanked the kettle off onto our cheap countertop. By this time the smoke alarm was squealing and I became sick again.

Deciding that the first priority was to remove any further cat urine from a heat source, I grabbed a cloth dish rag, soaked it under the tap, and began sponging off the still glowing burner. In this process I noticed that the countertop around the base of the kettle, so recently on inferno setting on the stove, was bubbling and burning. Grabbing the kettle I whisked it off into the sink and tried to grab the wet rag to throw on the countertop to prevent further damage. Only part of the rag came, however, since in reacting to the incineration of our faux Formica I had dropped the rag on the hot burner, where it was now on fire.

I was now heaving between every breath and desperately, dizzily lurching about a room with cat-urine smoke, 70’s countertop off-gasses, and burning stove-top pissrag filling the air. The smoke alarm was wailing, the dogs were barking, and I was reacting at about a tenth of my usual lackadaisical speed. There was a black ring the size of a dinner plate on my countertop and I was busily dumping the kettle I had designated for tea, my first potential nourishment in 48 hours, all over the flaming rag on the burner. Then Max stepped in.

Remember Max?

Max had been standing behind and beneath me, watching the follies with great interest and stepping out of the way when prudent. It was, I sincerely hope, the first time he had seen a functionally-nude adult human move in such a way. Having observed the full three minutes of glory his essential feline rose up and the moment I seemed to slow, to perhaps have put this disaster into some type of limited control if not outright abeyance, he struck. Springing from underneath, he latched both of his front paws into my swinging pair of holiest of holies. I screamed and dropped like a bull in an abattoir.

Karen came home to find pretty much the mess described above, save that I had managed to clean up the final efforts my stomach had made after Max’s masterful massage. I retired to my bed for an additional two days, leavened with some topical antibiotics. Max did not approach me for weeks, and I have yet to kill him. Karen states that he is coming with when she moves to New Zealand next year.

I have my doubts.

Max at the time of the 'incident'.