Naming of Cats
McBurney (Rest in Peace)
Hey ho lovely Constant Readers. A very humongous welcome to all my new readers from all of the US and the world! I see you, California! I see you Florida and New Jersey! I see you all over Wisconsin! Iowa, I see you! Canada, UK, Ireland, Cypress, and Netherlands! A very big Hygge Hug (from at least 6 feet apart) from Madison, WI, USA! And everywhere else I’ve forgotten! This is altogether too many exclamation points. I must restrain myself. Some of you have come from Facebook, some for Cats some for Hygge, I’ll write loads more about each. I was thinking of starting a scrapbook page of Hygge things and photos and stories I come across. And I’m always interested in cats, especially the mini panther breed, my beloved black cats.
My first black cat joined my family before I came into this world, her name was Amy (Named after the poet Amy Lowell, my family was very literary with our felines). I don’t remember much about Amy, she was a bit of a scaredy, but she had several litters of kittens, and that was my introduction to the miracle of birth. Huh. I just now had a thought… we never let our cats outside, so who was the daddy? Must have been Eddie (named after Edna St. Vincent Millay before discovering he was male) or Bernard (Bernard Malamud), a pretty brown Burmese.
You know how people will get “special cats” who seem to glom especially on to one particular human in the household? Bernard was Frankie’s cat (my older brother). And “My cat” was James (James Herriot), a ginger kit we rescued from a horse farm when I was in middle school. That cat really got me through some rough years. He used to “nurse” on my right hand as I lay on my side in bed, I can still feel the ghost of it! And I had a waterbed, so Jamesy and I had very healing womblike therapy every night.
All those times we also had other cats, Beatrix (Beatrix Potter, a Tonkinese. She was given to me as a gift from my Aunt but she was a moody cat and we didn’t really connect), and a calico named Shelley (Mary Shelley, but everyone in the family agreed two Marys would be confusing. Shelley was Mom’s special cat) and her littermate, a beautiful roly-poly pud of a tortoise shell named Madeline (Madeline L’Engle, of course). I got married in 1990, and I cried the first night, missing James, who we felt would do better staying with my folk’s household.
Our first “new household” cat was Pandora, a brown tabby. (Note we left the author genre of names). She was small in stature, but big in personality. She loved to jump straight up vertically and balance on the tops of doors When she loved you she let you know it, and if you were not on her (extremely limited) list, boy she let you know that, too, and in no uncertain terms. My poor father… she would just SCREAM at him and attack his legs! It was extremely uncomfortable. I loved that cat, but she didn’t make it easy on you. Pandora moved with us from two different addresses in Glendale, Outside of Milwaukee, and to Cleveland, to two different addresses on the East side of Madison, and to our House we have now, and the West side of Madison. Our son was getting older by then (he must have smelled right to Pan, she never went after Sam).
Nathan and I decided to get Sam “Happy Loving Cuddler Cats” for him to remember in his childhood, as I so much loved all my childhood cats. We looked at the Dane County Humane Society website and I fell in love with a matched set of two year old cats that they had there. They were stunning black and white Tuxies. We went to the center and adopted them. They were young and vital and crazy-boing, and just as loving and gentle and fun as we’d hoped. The only problem was bringing them in with Pandora was like mixing chemicals That SHOULD NOT be mixed. I really hoped Pan would settle down They pretty much hounded her all the time. Poor Pandora. We named the black and white loons McBurney and Munro, since both Nathan and I were studying anatomy and physiology at the time (no, YOU look it up!) They were the best cats ever. Aren’t the cats you have presently the best cats ever? I honestly didn’t think we could beat McBurney and Munro until we got Phryne and Dot (named after the character’s from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Note return to literary theme.) See Cats — Mary's Poetry Room.
Just a few things to make clear: our cats have always been strictly indoor cats (with lots of fresh air window time). My cats have their claws and are Spayed or Neutered.
I quite feel like T.S. Elliot.
