Sheba

206.0 up 3.0
When Lisa and I first got married she wasn't too excited about the idea of having pets. I, of course, grew up with a cat and I thought having a cat would be a good idea. I was resigned to the fact that we wouldn't have any pets but then something happened that changed her mind. After I graduated from college and accepted a job at Global we moved to Bassano and rented a small house in Bassano. My family helped us move and put all of the boxes in the basement. After I started work and everyone had left Lisa spent her days unpacking all of the boxes in the basement. One day when I was at work Lisa called me at work and she is hysterical. She's crying on the phone and I'm thinking something horrible happened to the baby or something but finally, through the sobs and the tears I figure out what she's talking about. Apparently she had been going through the boxes in the basement and when she opened one box a mouse jumped out of the box right into her face. We got a cat. Our first cat's name was Dragon. Dragon was a male and he wasn't the brightest of cats but we never had a mouse problem after that. Dragon used to like to get into fights and sometimes he would disappear for a day or two and then come home covered with blood. One day he never did come home. I assume he lost his last fight. Our next cat was named Shadow. Shadow was a female and she was a very smart cat. She was also smart enough to avoid the fights or good enough to win them but she always came home and rarely was she hurt. She immigrated to the States with us as well. Shadow lived to be a good ripe old age but one day she went missing. She had been rather sick so we were a bit worried. I suppose it is a good thing that I was the one who found her. We had all of our bikes parked in the garage side by side and apparently Shadow jumped on one of the bikes and knocked them all over. When the bikes fell over one of the axles caught poor Shadow in the side of the head and she was quite dead. If she hadn't been sick I'm sure she would have been faster and avoided the axle but alas, Shadow is in cat heaven waiting for us. It was a sad day in the Leavitt household. Even Lisa (the self proclaimed animal hater) was in tears. Next came Cyrus. Cyrus was another male and another dumb cat. Are you noticing a trend here? We got Cyrus just before we bought our house and maybe it is because we moved from a Cul-de-sac to a busier street but as it turned out, Cyrus wasn't smart enough to know that he should get out of the way of the cars. We only moved a few blocks so we had been moving everything in our cars. I was coming home with the last load of the day and as I drive up the street I see a dead cat in the middle of the road. I knew right away that it was Cyrus. We had the funeral cermonies in the flower bed that evening. The flowers are growing really nicely in that flower bed by the way. Since Cyrus we have buried several mice, several hamsters, a bird, a frog and many fish alongside him. Lisa, who never wanted a pet in the first place, has been quite tolerant. Our tortois (Shelly) isn't buried in the flower bed because we want to save the shell so he is in a garden tomb and some day when we're brave we're going to pull him out of the tomb and remove the bones and display the shell. So after Cyrus we got Sheba. Another female and probably the coolest cat you'll ever meet. She is also quite possibly bi-polar. She is the most loving animal one minute and she'll slash you the next. Brandon used to play with her all the time and she would hide in a corner and literally jump across the room and attack him with all twenty claws fully extended. She comes when you call her and she'll even go for a walk with you (if she feels like it). Sheba was born in 1995 and so is now 13 years old. I did that "real cat age" test that I was talking about with Bridget and according to the test Sheba is an equivalent of 82 .3 years old. Because she is in such good shape however, she has a "real age" of only 67.3. The poor creature is slowing down now. In her prime I've seen her take on a Doberman and win. She was truly fearless. Now she can't take the neighbors cat and she stays mostly indoors unless we're out with her to protect her. She can hardly jump up on the table anymore to eat breakfast with Alex. It is quite a site, she drinks the milk out of his breakfast bowl. I don't know how much longer Sheba will be with us but if we ever do replace her I think I've learned my lesson, we'll get a female.