R.I.P. Llewellyn:
Llewellyn, known as Llelo, is gone. It was quick and gentle; he was euthanized when he made it very clear he was ready to go. It was one of the gentlest passings I have ever been privileged to witness, under the loving care of our wonderful vet, Dr. John Lonam.
Llelo was officially Older Than Dirt, for certain definitions of Dirt, when he passed; Llelo was almost 22 years old. We acquired him the same weekend sister Amy got married, in October of 1980; not a bad run. Here's his pic from a year before he passed:
R.I.P. Nicki:
Nicki, who started out as Mickey, was our 2001 acquisition. Nicki (name change because I worked for a woman named Mikki and the confusion was Right Out...) looked to be a smallish Maine coon cross with something distinctly tabby, but her stripes were muted (though they show pretty well here). She seemed very small for a Mainer to me, but she had the lovely ruff, hairy ears, and hairy toes, and the beautiful flag of a tail. :-) Nicki was friends with Kidlet (see below) but still hissed around the others:
Nicki had been fading for a while. In June of 2004, when we got home to Virginia after Mom's funeral, Nicki seemed really wrung out. At first I thought it was the heat... but then when I went to pick her up, she did not try to kill me. VERY unusual. She was as limp as a used dishrag... I put her into a carrier and took her immediately to Dr. Lonam, who did his best. He came back fifteen minutes later to tell me she had had congestive heart failure--they had removed a LOT of water from around her heart--and she coded on the table. They brought her back... but the poor little thing was exhausted, and went straight down again. He didn't have the heart to force the issue--it was just Time.
She had a good run though....
And now, The Current Crop, in order of age starting with the eldest:
Tilly, sometimes known as Tilly-Woo. Tilly is our dear little blivet: 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound sack. :-) We got Tilly in 1994, I think in May; a co-worker, Laura Mulcahy, told me about her. Tilly needed a new home SOONEST, her circumstances having changed. So Tilly came to live with us, and adopted our son Brian (who is now 22+). She spends most of the night on his bed. The rest of the day she sleeps wherever she can fit. :-) She's getting rather old and creaky, but was a lovely girl in her prime, as you see her here:
Max is an amazing cat. He's probably about 13-ish now, but we're not sure. He was a definite rescue cat. After the Grand Old Gwylli had to be put to sleep in February of 1998, we had no plans for adopting another cat right away. But one day, when Tilly and Llelo went into the vet for shots (Village Veterinary Clinic of Burke, VA -- Dr. Lonam, Dr. Jones, and the most wonderful staff in the world...) Dr. Jones, who had ministered to Gwylli in his last hours, told us: "You have GOT to see the cat we have out back. He's the spitting image of Gwyllian..."
Well, she was pretty close, as you can see in the pix -- and as he gets older, we more often make the mistake of calling him Gwylli. But when we met him, he was shaven and sick and not a Happy Camper... Now, however, he is a content boy. He's short-legged, and muscularly dense -- picking him up is a lot like lifting a fur-covered cinderblock. He has a sort of avuncular relationship with Kidlet, who often tussles in play with Uncle Max...
Kidlet is a Rutlands Mousetrap Cat, a term well-known to local Medievalists in the SCA. :-) Born near Brunswick, MD on the property of our dear friends James and Daniel, who in the SCA are James and Daniel of Rutland, Kidlet was part of a crop of kittens produced with alarming regularity by a local momcat. When the kittens were of an age to be adopted, James posted to the SCA mailing list about the "need for testers" of their new period-correct and documentable mousetraps, AKA Medieval-style rodent catchers, AKA cats. :-)
When I corresponded privately with him, James quite rightly told me this one was absolutely lovely and adorable in every way. Well, we are MAJOR suckers for Tabby cats, so we went up to see the Kid -- and fell in love. He had been snagged, brought into the house, and civilized into the ways of litterbox, regularly available food, and petting. When I picked him up, he snuggled right down into my arms; he rode all the way home in the same place, and quickly made a place for himself in our over-crowded home. Here is a picture of Kidlet in an uncharacteristically contemplative pose:
After Llelo and Nicki passed away, we said there would be no more kitties. 4 in a townhouse is a few too many... however, our friends Chris and Eric adopted a stray cat, a young female who is very sweet and friendly, and... it turned out she was preggers. The kittens were born in mid-May 2002, and we went to visit the other day -- coming home, as we suspected we would, with the one silver-grey tabby in the pile. There were four: two black and white tuxedo kittens, one of each gender, which pretty much marked which Tom in the neighborhood got Mama in a family way... :-) One almost-dead-ringer for Mama, a dark tabby like her, but with four white feet; and the biggest, cutest of them all, the little silver tabby. Little being a term that won't describe him for long... ;-)
Here is a more recent shot of the Kitten-King, who is now bigger than a Brick Sh*t-house:
Also Residing in Summerland:
My late darling, the Grand Old Man, Gwyllian. The name roughly means "passionate madman" or bandit in Welsh; I found it on a memorial placque in Pennsylvania, as part of one of the most wonderful names I've ever seen: Dyfed Gwyllian Garthowen. (Isn't that GREAT??)
Some of those who knew Gwylli would definitely agree with the "madman" part. He was a Shelter Cat, gotten in 1979 at about the age of 6 months; he was a worthy heir to my other darling, Fitzhugh, whose picture will appear soon. Fitzy had been put to sleep in the down stages of feline leukemia, and is resting in peace in the backyard of my in-laws' home in Reading, Massachusetts.
Gwylli craved affection and bid shamlessly for it, but only on his terms: I have many scratches to attest to the manner in which he would suddenly, sometimes still purring, let you know he was "done" being admired and petted. After a while he realized he was safe and stopped being so grumpy.
This picture is of Gwylli when he was in his decline; I will scan and put up some pix that show him in his prime, a magnificent brownish tabby with immense personality. Everyone at the Village Vet just loved him. With his little white chin thrust out, he looked a little like a feline Winston Churchill, if you've ever seen the pic of Winnie right after the photographer snatched his cigar from his mouth. :-)
So we again have 4 living cats in a three-level townhouse. Go figure....
NOT a Cat... :-)
Kidlet is actually officially named Wolfgang, as in W. Amadeus Mozart. But he is SUCH a sweet little guy, and SUCH an amazing suck-up, that he quickly acquired the nickname Kidlet (Tiddles or Tidlet when we're being sickeningly cutesy with him... 
Kidlet is now completely blind from some congenital problem. He gets along fine; as Dr. Lonam told us, "Just don't move the furniture and he should do well!" So we have mostly obeyed that injunction, tho Kidlet is most wroth with us for getting new carpet in the main level of the house.... ;-) All the smells he used as navigation tools are gone!
We have named him Thranduil, Thrandy for short. This is the name of the Elven-king of Mirkwood in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series; he appears namelessly (just called "the elven-king" in The Hobbit, and he is referred to in the trilogy and appendices as being the father of that most wonderful Elf, Legolas of the Nine Walkers. :-) In retrospect, I suppose since Thrandy is silver and the elven-king is described as a golden blond, we probably should have named the kitten for Galadriel's consort, the quiet but powerful Silver Forester himself, Celeborn of Doriath. But Thrandy seems to have stuck. :-)
Additional thought-bubble added by Shiral.... LOL!
