Spider Man

IN THE BAG

Eye spy with both eyes, a furry little guy who was far smarter than I. He couldn’t spin webs to fly building to building, but he sure did think he could try to catch a plane hanging on a screen from eighteen stories high. My little guy, Spider, his own little “man”, nicknamed Spider Man.
A sweetheart cat, Sammi Jo, that I don’t know purred a word to her man, @krazzytrukker, that she was feeling a little left out of my cat house. Here’s a meow out to Sammi Jo and @krazzytrukker, showing you all some cat love in photos, drawings, and stories.
There have been several cat companions in my life. I’ve loved each one of them. Spider stood out from all of them, a cat apart, a cat with some behaviour that gave me many pauses and causes to question my sanity. Most of all, a cat I bonded with like an old soul come home.BURIED NOSE
Animals are subject matter rarely chosen in my creative process. I think I’ve seen too much art with animals that left me in a place of having little to nothing to say that other artists haven’t already covered. Spider man was an exception. There was something different about him from the beginning that I never could put my finger on, this connection from the moment I first saw him. He was a rescue cat, found on the street by the Humane Society (@dandays, take note here).
There were over a hundred and fifty cats at the shelter when I went to choose a furry companion to bring home. I looked at all of them, but Spider was the only one who sat quietly making direct eye contact with me. I could almost hear him in my mind saying, “Take me home”. He wasn’t on my narrowed down mental list of twenty-five cats. Some kind of cat woo-woo mental magic trick sunk me in his spell. Together we rode home, him not yet with a name.
The name came a few weeks later. I wasn’t used to having a cat inside. Pets were outside and slept in the garage because of my mother’s allergies. I was fascinated watching my new companion and how he behaved. He must have belonged to someone that gave him in and out privileges. He would wait by the door to be let outside until he realized that wasn’t going to happen anymore. Investigating his new home, he found a spider. I watched him play with it for over an hour before he ate it. Learning moment that cats are sadistic. “Spider” fit him as a name and in a sense; he became the spider he ate (along with many more throughout the years).SINK BED
One place where I lived, Spider man developed a fixation for the bathroom sink as one of his favourite occupation spots, or should I say plots? The first time I found him there he almost scared the crap out of me. I had woken up in the middle of the night needing to visit the facilities. Not wanting to wake up fully, I didn’t bother with the lights. Everything was as usual until I turned to wash up, not in water, but two handfuls of water speckled fur. I almost screamed aloud. Good-bye sleep, some furry creature’s in my sink. I snapped on the light. There’s Spider looking at me, eyeball communication of, “What’s the big hairy deal?” I laughed and made a mental note; beware, the sink is now a cat hangout.BLANKETED
Cat napping is the only time Spider stayed put long enough for me to draw him, fifteen to twenty minutes before he’d shift position. Here he was snuggled under my blanket with just his head poking out. He loved burrowing under the blankets, often only identifiable by the obvious cat lump.
A roommate I had, she wasn’t so fond of Spider, no particular reason, since he was always a friendly cat. He must have somehow sensed she didn’t like him and he had a way of making points that made me go on point. Once he left his very furry toy (a long yard rope I’d crocheted) in the middle of her made up bed. I heard her scream when she made contact with it after to going to bed for the night. She was disgusted. I apologized for something I couldn’t understand, let alone explain. Her bedroom door altered its state, closed to cat, always.CURLED UP
Spider wasn’t finished with her. I think that was the warm up for the coup de grâce of leaving a dead mouse in the bottom of one of her thigh high pricey leather boots. These boots of hers were buried at the back of her hall closet, which had a door, one that was consistently shut tight. Spider managed to enter the closet unseen, with a dead mouse (caught when and where?), find those boots among her cornucopia of footwear, slide that mouse right down into the toe part, and depart, stealth as a white ninja in snow.
Something smelled in her closet. What was it? Did I know anything? No, of course I didn’t. I never touched her closet or her things, not my way of being. This went on for weeks until she ripped her entire closet apart searching, clothing and footwear flying into the hall, to finally find, rancid semi-dried out remains of a mouse in the toe of her boot. She blamed Spider. She ranted and raved. She exited four hundred dollars of forest green thigh high boots down the garbage chute. Unredeemable stench. Not long after, she removed herself out the door to a different residence. If a cat could smirk, I’m sure Spider was smirk lurking in the shadows with a satisfying win.LOOKING UP
Cats are carnivores that carnage greenery galore. Vegetation is not sacred. Where I used to live, I kept a small waist height blue table just inside the door of my bedroom. On that I’d placed a rounded white vase almost the size of and similar shape to Spider. I thought ferns were safe, not being grass-like enough. I’d placed a large bunch of lilies with their accompanying greens in the vase. All seemed well and I got busy with other things I needed done. A while later, I think, where’s Spider? I go looking and can’t find him. A second pass into the bedroom and I catch white out of my peripheral vision.
Almost gave it a pass, but something told me not to. I turn and see Spider sitting on the table beside the vase of lilies. He blended in the most uncanny way. I went up close and crouched down. We were eyeball to eyeball, faces one foot apart. He was frozen solid. I stared in his eyes. He looked through me as if I weren’t there, as if he was part of the vase. No blinking, not even a whisker whisper of movement.
I held position and waited for five minutes. Nothing. Was he thinking himself invisible? Did he think I couldn’t see him? This was crazy. Finally, I stared him down hard and said out loud, “You’re busted!” I watched the expression in his eyes change to one of, “I’m sunk”. Now I was visible to him. I’d caught him eating the flower greenery on top of a table he wasn’t supposed to be on. I laughed, scooped him up and put him down on the floor. The flowers got moved to where he couldn’t reach them. I think he sensed I’d missed seeing him and he’d blended with the white vase. Close cat call.MY PILLOW
A pillow, who needs a pillow to sleep on? Obviously not me. Why would I need a memory foam pillow for sleep support because of a cervical spine injury? Okay, I’m going to admit this one is partially my fault. I thought it would be more snuggle fun if Spider slept up by my head. There were two pillows; he could have the other one. That’s what I thought. That’s not what he thought.PILLOW TAKEOVER
It started with sharing a few inches of my pillow. The down pillow wasn’t to his liking. He fell in love with the memory foam molding around his form. I woke up at some point in the night to find that I had two inches of pillow. Spider consumed the rest. He’d nudge moved me over in my sleep until he had the pillow mostly taken over. I got this look from him that said, “This is how it’s supposed to be, I’m in my rightful place.” Negotiation ensued over weeks until it was settled that he would have most of the pillow, while I had just enough to sleep on. All was well in cat pillow land with happy ending sleep stories.
There are many more stories about Spider man and his adventures. I’ve selected some of the most memorable ones to share. I’ve skipped the butter curls, the top kitchen cabinet voyeurism, the appearance of a cat’s dog alter persona, the all about thread incident, the plastic bag parties, supper singing, and the 10.0 complete back flip in mid-air with a perfect four point landing. Oh, and the rest about the screen hanging plane chasing? I peeled him off the screen, grateful it didn’t let go and kept the window a third open after that. End of plane chasing. You are not a real spiderman, Spider.
In loving memory of my special little guy, Spider, though long gone, always near and dear in my heart.STRETCHED OUT
_{All photos taken by Nine with a Pentax digital 35mm camera and 90mm Tamron macro lens.}