Ginger the cat

 

Ginger was a cat of surprises. The first surprise was bringing him home—we had just gone to "look" at kittens. But how do you just "look" at kittens when they're only thirty dollars?!

 

 

 

Indulge me while I remember how tiny he was. Because eventually he was surprisingly large—nearly twenty pounds—and surprisingly feisty. Everyone was always surprised, too, to find out he wasn't orange. 

 

But what would be the fun of naming an orange cat Ginger?

 

Surprise doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when the vet called, after I dropped him off to be spayed, that the cat I thought was a she—for five months!—was a he. 

Ginger's life ended in surprise too. I did not expect the vet's bad diagnosis on March 9, 2017. 

Though he scared a lot of people off with his "saucy man" act, to quote the vet, I knew the real Ginger. He was lively, spunky, and friendly to me—loved to snooze by the fire and cuddle on my chest, purring and head-butting my nose and glasses. He knew how to make up for being an embarrassing menace in front of guests, once everyone had gone, and I found it flattering to be loved so exclusively by a creature. 

 

 

He was also silly, a sucker for cardboard boxes, surprise attacks, ninja jumps, seeing how far he could climb up door frames, opening doors, battling the vacuum cleaner, and playing with dogs. 

 

 

 

He liked a serious board game every now and then, too.

 

 

And he appreciated the finer things of life, like beautiful music...

 

 

...and books in any stage of the production process...

 

...and a quality snuggle spot. 

 

Lest he sound too angelic in the past tense, let me say that he could be a truly awful cat, especially in his first year, and drove me to tears more than once. He laughed in the face of discipline and couldn't have cared less about any principles we had about keeping cats off counters or...well, I can't even remember our other principles because they were pretty quickly replaced with Ginger's Laws of the Land. I always thought this picture pretty adequately sums up his tyranny, and our submission to it: 

 

I will not miss sweeping up the fountains of litter he sprayed all over the floor, despite an enclosed litter box. Or miss watching him tear our nice couches to shreds though we hand-built him a super sweet cat tower and scratching post. 

 

But. None of that really mattered because he was my friend. It sounds cheesy, but it's true. It is surprising how much a pet can become a pal.