Frisco

Here's to my good pal Frisco who had to be put to sleep last night. I want to pay a blog tribute to him, but I really don't know what to say about a cat. This will probably be a bit awkward and random, so bear with me here.

Here's the Wiki data on Frisco:

• Don't pet his belly, even though he's rolling around on his back practically begging you to do so. He'll scratch the crap out of your arms.


• Frisco never really meowed; he made a crazy pigeon coo or a weird "accchhhk acccchk" noise.


• His shiny black and white coat and somewhat portly stature made him look sort of penguinesque.


• Frisco was more like a dog than a cat. He was not aloof and demanded the attention of a good lap dog. He was trained to jump into my lap the second he heard my La-Z-Boy start to recline.


• Frisco took on the personality of his namesake from Atlas Shrugged: playful when he wanted to be, stubborn when he wanted to be, strong when he needed to be, but loyal and affectionate to those that were closest to him.

Frisco wasn't even 10 years old yet; this took us all by surprise. His heavy, labored breathing came on suddenly, but I reacted just as fast and rushed him to the animal hospital. The vet said it was either cancer or heart failure that caused the fluid to pool up around his lungs, and the pain and uncertainty of treatment made euthanasia the most humane decision. He didn't suffer.

Our other cat, Slug, is already wandering the house a bit confused. I'm sure he'll miss Frisco's authoritative thwaps on the head when Slug had pushed the wrong button and bit his ear one too many times. They were close pals, though.

My baby girl had only a few good months of true interaction with Frisco. I'm proud of his tolerance and patience with her. He took a good amount of ear pulling, head slaps, eye pokes, and tail pulls but never once retaliated. They would have been good friends.

I'm taking this a lot harder than I thought I would. It's probably the unexpected nature of this loss that's really upsetting... or it's probably the fact that I got really close to this cat and I'm going to miss my bud.