It was one of those relatively quiet Sunday mornings, with the summer sun slatting through the living room verticals as we groggily slurped our wakeup coffees and reviewed what passed for news in the weekend Post-Disgrace.
It was our weekend to have the girls, and they were still abed upstairs, buried under mountains of covers, despite the warmth of the late July morning.
Murphy padded noiselessly from kitchen to living room to foyer, circling his territory again and again. It was what he did and seemed to enjoy doing so, with a great deal of purposefulness. His littermate, Gort, was in the lower level of the condo, meowling his morning trills and squeaks.
Peripherally, I may have realized that this was odd, as usually Murph and Gort were typically inseparable: The Dynamic Duo, Furrier and Furrier-er, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber -- all sorts of lovingly abusive nicknames abounded for our year-old pets.
Murphy was actually named for the realtor who found us the condo: She was a redheaded, patient and sincere young woman; Murphy was a red tabby, patient and sincere young cat. Gort, on the other hand, survived the initial suggestion that the then 9 year old Lindsey had made for his name: Fluffy. "Let's see if his personality suggests a better name," I gently urged.
Indeed, he DID come up with the perfect name for himself shortly after that. The beige, stripey, long-haired, um, fluffy kitten trotted stiff-legged around the corner into the family room from his evening meal, looking pleased with himself and in charge of the world in general and us in particular. His posture most definitely was informed by the robot Gort from the classic movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still." So:
Gort it was.
But I digress (always.) On this particular morning, as I had noted, the boys (cats) were exhibiting their usual behavior, but Murphy finally decided that Gort's verbalizations needed some investigation, and down the steps he went, venting his own questioning trills and squeaks to his brother.
Soon, our reverie was rudely ended when we saw Gort rocket up the steps as if he had been launched by a slingshot, with Murphy in hot pursuit. Round and round and round they went, so fast, it seemed as if they were defying gravity and whipping around the room on the walls instead of the floors. Kind of like one of these things:
Lindsey had brought the boycats a shoelace to celebrate their 1 year birthday and -- after exhausting the cats with playing "chase the shoestring" for hours earlier Saturday evening -- had innocently left it with them overnight. Seemed harmless at the time...but, nooooo.
This turned out to be Gorty's first manifestation of a lifetime of bad decisions, as he had decided to INGEST the shoelace overnight. Nature was attempting to take its course and the shoelace had partially exited Gorty's body from his south end, along with a lovely necklace of his handcrafted brown ... um ... jewels attached. Murphy had decided that this was a grand fun game that his brother had invented and was chasing Gort robustly, swatting at Gort's beige fuzzy behind with the enticing "toy" dangling therefrom. Michael and I had to double-team them to catch Murphy, shove him in the closet, then calm Gort down enough to assist him with his unwanted accessory. (Not to mention the cleanup in aisles 6 through 10. Gag.)
We were fortunate that Gort successfully passed the shoelace without having it become entangled in his young innards, but good heavens: What possessed him to EAT the damned thing?
It was a Sunday morning that has lived in family folkore since then.
Alas, Murphy and Gorty are no longer with us, but so many fond memories of them remain.
