Lord Methos, Master of the Universe and Our much loved fur friend died of a sudden stroke Thursday, April 10, 2003

  Methos Memories...

Methos was supervising the painting. He'd been up and down the ladder a dozen times but every time I went to get the camera, he disappeared. Hrumph... Finally I looked at him and said I want a picture. Now.

So,I got the camera and he obliged.

The loss of Sharra in August 1999 left a very large hole in my heart. It also meant that for the first time in over 30 years I was without a black cat. It was months before I could even look at a black cat without seeing the "small black thing."

In January I stopped up at our local pet store to pick up grass for Jane and Duncan. The people there worked with "Purrfect Pals" to help find homes for cats who have lost their people for one reason or another. If you have time or money to donate, they are a "no kill" shelter here in the Seattle area and worthy of your support.

In one of the cages was the biggest black cat I'd ever seen. I went over to pet him and was rewarded by a deep toned, rumbling purr. I kept telling myself that as sweet natured and beautiful as he was, he'd have no trouble finding a home but months went by and he was adopted and sent back several times. Each time I saw him it was harder to walk away.

Cheryl and I talked it over and we agreed that we really did need a black cat. Duncan sniffed at my hands and seemed OK with the idea of a big brother, Jane simply settled herself in Cheryl's pillows and ignored the whole thing.

The women who run the store told me they'd named him "Bat" and that they thought he was about 8 years old. We put him in a carrier and I brought him home. He took to us right away and within two hours he and Duncat were playing like littermates. Neither of us liked the name "Bat" for him, so I called him "Methos" and he responded immediately. Methos he is and displays his talent for sprawling on a daily basis..

Methos weighed 20 pounds and was exceedingly affectionate. We think he was probably closer to five years old and he and three year old Duncat were definitely a team. They took turns patrolling, sitting on me and making sure Cheryl was OK. No enemy cats were allowed to get close to the condo and all visitors were greeted by our furry welcoming committee.

He also decided that he and Duncan needed to supervise my writing. Having the Large Black Thing or his slightly smaller partner levitate to my shoulder while trying to keep the keyboard out of harm's way got verrry interesting.

My theory is that all of our former black cats, Michael, Countess Shadow, the Leewitt, Svartalf and Sharra picked him out for us.

We don't know what his life was before he was rescued by Perfect Pals, but we know that for his last years he was happy sleeping sprawled on me or on Cheryl's bed, chasing the other cats and surveying his domain from the top level of the fancy cat tree.

I always have trouble saying goodbye but the only way to avoid it is never to say hello and I don't think I will ever be able to do that. I'm sure that the same past friends who sent him our way in the first place welcomed him to the Gates of Summerland and the Realm of the Goddess.

Lady Jane Grey... 
She was Cheryl's loving companion and as close as we ever got to shy with a cat.  She made the trip up to Washington State with us in 1992 and reached the exalted status as senior cat. Not that the other two paid any attention...

She came to live with us after one of Mother Nature's love pats. Our neighbor decided to move.  Cheryl gathered up the pretty dilute calico and her orange nephew and brought them home.  The orange tabby, Pixel went to live with another friend eventually, but Lady Jane Grey was with us ever after. Janie loved Cheryl but regarded me as the local ax murderer, even though I'm the designated feeder.

The elegant 'mese took one look at Cheryl and decided she had found the perfect slave. She ignored me from that moment on and adored Cheryl to the day she died, in Cheryl's arms.

We certainly couldn't call her "Gimpy".  The first name that came to mind was a character in a play I'd loved years ago.  "How about, Pyewacket?"

Pye liked it and responded to it immediately.  That was that.

Pye was very social.  We had a gathering that included a major D & D game going on in the living room.  Someone tossed a note to someone else and Pye decided that they were doing it for her.  She began grabbing the messages and the game soon dissolved into a far less formal one, called Siamese hockey.

She developed a real talent for keeping an eye on Cheryl. Both Sharra and Pye seemed to keep track of Cheryl's breathing and came in to get me if anything was wrong.

Her Small Highness, Sharra, Ruler of the Roost and successor to the Countess Shadow of Transylvania, was 24 when she left us.. Sharra had the dubious honor of being the template for a character in two of my Highlander novellas, "Demons in the Darkness" and "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning".

Cheryl picked her up and explained that she had found a home for this one. She and Jane hurried back to explain to me that I just had to keep the little cat.

Sharra left us in August of 1999 for Summerland.  She will be missed.  There's more of her story here

Svartalf was named for a character in Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos". Like the original, Svartalf was "black as furry midnight". He came with the house on Nordoff and immediately convinced the other human members of the family that he was the appropriate outdoor guard cat.He apparently had a son (Corwin) and daughter (Nimue). Of course I insisted that we weren't taking care of them. (I never learn do I?)  First we had to take Nimue to the vet.  He couldn't save her.  Then Svartalf rescued Sharra, the small black thing from the nasty tomcat down the street.  A week or two later, I came home to a very noisy SBT who insisted that I come with her.  She fussed until I went out in the yard to find Svartalf lying under one of the bushes. 

He was hurt and we carted him over to our vet.  Dr. Friedman winced as he examined the big tomcat.  He had broken bones in his foreleg, shoulder and jaw.  The foreleg and shoulder were so bad we had to find a feline orthopedist.  When we brought our new, three legged, no balled tomcat home, he immediately became Sharra's pet.  She washed him, nagged him, walked up his body and gnawed on his ears and generally owned him from that day on. He lived with us until 1998 when his loving little spirit returned to the Goddess.

Her Imperious Fuzzyness, Countess Shadow of Transylvania... Many years ago, I lived in Detroit and a friend of mine was breeding some of the first Himalayan Cats (this was in the 1960's). The first step is the cross between the Black Persian and Siamese bloodlines. I'd recently lost a handsome black cat and she wanted me to have one of the pet quality kittens. Shadow-Mitzie-La Condessa, hadn't developed the long coat, so she was up for adoption.

It took all of three minutes for her to convince me that I really needed to take her home so she could supervise my entire life. The only picture we ever got of her was this, slightly silly crowned Countessa, glaring at the misbegotten slave who not only had the temerity to wake her, but stuck a tinsel crown on her head. She took Sharra in hand and was almost 21 when she left us for Summerland.

Cyncia J. Dragonette was one of a kind. Her mother, Ariel, the litterbug, reacted badly to the anesthesia the first time we tried to have her spayed so our only hope was to keep her in the house. Sure. Ariel's greatest talent was opening doors, louvered windows and slicing screens.

We'd managed to find homes for all of the earlier kittens, then surprise, surprise, she was pregnant again! There was one kitten that really tickled us. She was a tabby, like her mother, and got into everything. One afternoon, she managed to get her sharp little teeth into the phone cord as a call was coming in. The electrical shock threw the tiny furball across the room. We managed to get her breathing again and called our vet. There was really not a lot to be done. This was in the early seventies. Keep her warm and feed her a mixture of canned milk and water with a little brandy to keep her calm. By the second day we were were making extra, with a lot more brandy, for us.

She recovered with only one problem. Walking a straight line wasn't good. She could run in a straight line, which she proved many times by landing on all the other cats (except the Countess). She also decided she liked a silly stuffed toy, a remnant from "Laugh In" called a "Bippy". She hauled it all over the apartment and growled if you tried to take it away.

Her borthers and sisters all had extra toes. The polydactyl fur folks went to a friend of ours who sold them as Chinese Lucky cats. One couple bought two of them and kept coming home to find all the lights on in the house. One night they returned early to find a pair of guilty looking cats sitting below the light switch. The mitten type paws were quite good at flipping switches.