Out of Sync: Of Lap Cats and Laptops

©6-22-01 Charles Sorgie

Kriya (KREE-ya) was a sweet, affectionate cat. Were she a person, she would probably have been a plump, round old woman with a gold tooth that ran her own neighborhood fruit and vegetable stand. Not the most intellectual individual in the world, but wise in her own way, and very good natured. She would always have something nice to say to you, always greet you with a big smile. Maybe even with a Jamaican tone in her voice, you know, the "Hey, how ya doin', Mon? Nice daay, esin't it?" Kriya understood and enjoyed the simple things in life.

I got Kriya as a companion for my older cat, Stoney. I found Kriya at the Oregon Humane Society. Kriya had been abandoned as a kitten. All of the other cats were scared, or playing with each other, or sleeping. Kriya looked at me when I came into the room, walked up to the side of her cage and climbed it, hung by all fours, stared at me, and purred. I picked her up, and that, as they say, was that.

Kriya could be a very silly cat. I remember one time when I was floating on an inflatable raft in the pond in my backyard. Kriya came, and wanted to visit. Trouble was, Kriya didn't know about water. Or, in retrospect, perhaps she thought that she could walk on water. Regardless, despite my, "No, Kriya, no. NO, Kriya, don't! DON'T!!!" she jumped off the deck, and into the water, to come to me. Imagine hopping off of a deck into an eight foot deep, cold pond, thinking that you were going to walk.

Oops.

Then there was the time that, somehow, she fractured the bone in her right rear leg. I took her to the vet, and they put it in a big, pink, very undignified splint. Man, did she in no uncertain terms make it clear that she did NOT like that. I think it was the only time that I ever heard her hiss. I eventually had to buy a big dog carrier, and put her inside of it for a few weeks to recover, sans splint, with a litter box, food, and water. She did not mind it much; after all, she was by the sliding glass door, in the sun.

Kriya didn't talk very much, until very recently. She didn't really meow very much, either, she sort of squeaked. She sure had purring down flat, though. She also was a "leaner." She wouldn't rub up against your leg, she would come up to you, look straight up into your eyes, and then lean on you, and start purring. She also loved getting swatted on her flank. You could bend down, with her leaning on your leg, and SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK her, hard, and her purring afterburners would kick right in. She loved getting brushed, which was strange. She would lay on her side, and let you brush her, and then flip over so you could do the other side. Oddly, though, Kriya didn't really like to be petted, per se. She would much rather have you hold your hand out so she could "pet herself," rubbing her head over and over against your extended fingers.

When I would be working in my Mac MIDI studio and composing my music, my top cat, Stoney, would always take over my lap, there was never any question about that. Kriya was more than happy to perch atop a little cat seat that I had to my left, which I had set there expressly for that purpose. I would extend my left hand during pauses (with a IIci, believe me, there were plenty of pauses) and Kriya would go to work. Eventually, she would settle down, and I would extend my hand down on occasion and scratch her under the chin.

A couple of months ago, something was not right with Kriya. Kriya was a big fan of the outdoors, and I have a great cat backyard. I would let her out almost every day, weather permitting. Kriya had always been a very fastidious cat, and suddenly her bathroom habits were not up to par. I reasoned that she might have gotten into something outside, some bug or plant spray, or a plant itself, or maybe a errant mouse. I started keeping her inside. She could not keep her food down on occasion, and I reasoned that the hard, dry food might be part of the problem, because she had had some trouble chewing ever since two of her rear teeth had been removed a year or so ago. I switched to something easier to chew, and bought a natural hairball product. That seemed to fix it, and she was eating and active and happy as can be.

After a few weeks, while Kriya's health seemed fine, her coat was a little bit dull, and she seemed a little bit blue. I reasoned that she was depressed about being cooped up inside, and so I broke down and let her out once more. She bounded out, looking at the sun, squinted her eyes, and then found a favorite spot to settle down. When I called her in later in the day, she was moving kind of slow. I reasoned again, all of the sun, a hot day, she always got kind of spaced from the heat. I recall thinking that she looked kind of cute.

She started keeping to herself more, and didn't really greet me with that "Hey, Mon!" that she always had in the past nine years. I felt bad for her, but I was too concerned to let her out again just yet. I reasoned that if there was something outside that was toxic, it would dissipate or I would find it soon. Kriya started spending more time inside of her favorite cat jungle gym, right next to the sliding glass door, in the sun.

The time had come for me to change the oil in my old BMW motorcycle and older Studebaker. I donned some work clothes, and went downstairs to get the tools. It was 5PM on a beautiful Saturday, warm and sunny. OK, I figured, I will let Kriya out. I opened the door, which normally was enough of a signal for her to run to the door from wherever she was. No show. I called to her, and she poked her head out of the jungle gym. "Come on, sleepyhead," I said to her, and she started stepping down to the floor, a little bit groggy. I thought she looked so cute. She stopped, and I picked her up and set her outside on the deck in the sun.

She collapsed, trying to block the sun from her eyes with her paw, but she could not lift it. I picked her up, and moved her into the shade.

"Kriya? ...KRIYA?" She barely moved.

Panic.

I ran inside, passing Stoney as she walked out, and got the cat carrier. I undid the bolts as Kriya lay motionless, nodding off, picked Kriya up, limp, placed her in the carrier, and redid the bolts. I called the vet clinic, they made an appointment for her in twenty minutes. On the drive downtown, Kriya didn't make a sound.

I arrive at the clinic, and check Kriya in. A vet tech promptly accompanies Kriya and I into a private room, and examines her. Kriya isn't in any pain, she just looks very sleepy. The tech weighs her, the scale reads nine pounds, that can't be right. I pick Kriya up, limp, and the tech resets the scale. Gee, Kriya is cold...from the car ride? I set her down again. Yes, nine pounds, down from twelve.

The tech leaves, and the vet comes in. He is concerned. The tech takes Kriya's temperature. There is no reading. She goes out and returns with some hot water bottles. The vet is inspecting Kriya, looking under her eyes, saying that she looks pale. He tugs at Kriya's fur, and a clump pulls out, revealing a spot of skin the size of a dime. I am looking at the bald spot as the vet begins to speak, very compassionately, very professionally.

"I don't know how far you want to go on this," he says. "We don't know what it is. We can do some lab work, but if there is toxicity involved, we need to know what she might have gotten into." He goes over costs, and I am nodding as he says it. Suddenly, I am realizing that Stoney is outside. I tell the vet that I need to get back home. The vet tells me to call in about an hour. I ask about the carrier, the vet tells me that Kriya would be a lot more comfortable if I left her in it. I start to attach the bolts to the top for safe keeping. The tech tells me that she will do that for me. It takes me a while to understand what she means.

I drive back home.

I get home, immediately go into the backyard, and grab Stoney. She looks fine. I put her inside. I look around the house. I look inside the house. Nothing odd at all. I wait an hour, and then I realize that it took me twenty minutes to drive home, so I am calling late. The receptionist tells me that the vet is in a room, and that he can call me at about 8PM. I ask if he can just leave a message, I am going to dinner. She says yes.

I come home about 9PM and listen to the message. Kriya is doing better, she is warm, they are giving her fluids, she picked her head up and was very friendly. The lab results should be in by noon tomorrow.

I get a call about 11:45 in the morning on Sunday, the next day. It is a different vet. She wants to know if she is speaking to Kriya's owner. I say yes. She says that she is sorry to tell me that Kriya was doing well this morning, but then she just collapsed, she is gone.

"Oh," I say. What a call for her to have to make.

We have a long discussion. Well, she is doing most of the talking, I am occasionally forcing out words, questions mostly. She is very nice. The lab work did not show any indication of poison, though Kriya was very anemic. We finally conclude that Kriya had a common feline condition where her intestinal lining is chronically inflamed. I think back, and Kriya has had a sensitive stomach for years. The condition is not curable, and has its ups and downs. Things worked out for the best, Kriya got to spend her last days in her own hospice environment, surrounded by an owner and a fellow feline that loved her, lounging in the sun, looking out the window, and just drifting off.

Is an article like this appropriate for a Mac web site? I think it is.

When I think back to my first Mac, an SE, I can very easily regard it as a pet. It was friendly. It greeted me every time I came home. I mean, it even smiled at me. I recall someone telling me that they had taken their old PC and put it out by the TRASH, because it was worthless, it could not be upgraded. It would have taken a dozen men with stun guns to take my old SE from me and put it out by the trash (the TRASH?), and I'd wager that half of that dozen would have been limping, and the other half would have had a very bad day. Like the owner of a beloved old pet, when I eventually did let go of my trusty old SE, it was not before I had found it a good home.

Not the trash.

Macs have a personality, they are alive. They are alive in the sense that an antique car is alive. They overflow with character and style. A car buff friend of mine and I were talking about the old cars that he restored, and the new Lexus. He said something very profound to me. He asked me if I thought that anyone would be restoring a Lexus thirty years from now.

Err...no.

A PC is just a machine. A cool machine, a useful machine, a marvelous machine, but just a machine. A Mac is not just a machine. A Mac is not a Lexus. A Mac is a ride with some distinction, some personality, some class. A Mac has lines. A Mac has memories. A Mac hugs the curves. You walk around a Mac, just to catch all of the good angles. A Mac is your friend. You don't just play a game on your Mac, your Mac, in and of itself, is a game. You don't just take it for a drive, you remember what you did in the back seat.

A Mac has soul, baby.

And, speaking of souls, while I am certain that animals have a spirit, if any man-made machine has a spirit, a Mac does. I would like to think that my old SE and Kriya are off somewhere, somewhere sunny. Through some miracle upgrade that is commonplace there, my SE is humming along at a billion MHz with a cool zillion bytes of RAM, connected to an external flat panel display the size of Idaho. A parade of lucky entities are having one heck of a good time taking turns unlocking the secrets of the universe with it, and Kriya is there, off to the left as she always was, purring, basking in the constant attention, and getting her occasional scratch under the chin.

I miss them both.

A lot.

 

Postscript

You know, in rereading this article, it still gets to me, but not as much as it did before. I fully admit that there is a part of me that wants to take the experience, and turn it into something positive. That is very ingrained in my nature. I trust that you readers will feel that I have succeeded.

I remember in the movie, Strange Days, they have this technology whereby they can record brain waves, and then play them back, and it is a full sensory experience. It becomes illegal, and there is a black market for "tapes," and you can imagine what those tapes are like. Anything from sex, to parachute jumps, to roller coaster rides, to murder, you name it.

The lead star in the film has tapes of a long lost love of his, he keeps playing them over and over, he is addicted. That is why it is illegal. People just get lost reliving memories.

Someone in the film, a friend, takes him aside, and tells him something profound. She says, "Memories are supposed to fade, they are designed that way."

I understand that better now.

Peace.