All Hail King George

George has been gone a month now and I still miss him all the time. He was more than just a cat. In April 2006 I bought my condo, and the weekend after it settled I went straight to Petco to find a cat. My mom spotted him at the adoption event hanging with his litter mates, both of whom were missing limbs from who knows what unspeakable horror. He was a gorgeous kitten and he looked like a George so I named him that and took him to my new home.

My new baby George

Itty bitty Georgie

Discovering the other cat in the mirror

Green kitten eyes

Tired baby

Batting at frogs

He saw me into my adulthood, and it was a learning experience for us both. I remember one night he couldn't make it to the litter box in time and peed on the bed so he and I slept on the floor. Another time I cam home from work to find him strangely listless with his mouth open and red. I ran around trying to figure out if he had gotten into something bad and finally realised his collar had gotten stuck in his mouth and the red I saw was the bell. His poor cheeks were so swollen that night. I also taught him to walk on a leash and he learned those two favourite words- walk and leash. I would take him to my parents' house so he could get used to their dog Sheba. He loved being outside with her prowling around.

Swollen cheeks from his collar. He never were one after that.

Sheba and George

mmm Tasty cactus

No I didn't take him to Glamour Shots, that was on my bed.

My absolute favourite picture of him. Even when he was little he knew he was pretty.

Before his mane grew in

Then our world changed and Phil came along. With him came Sigmund, a giant cat that terrorised him in our little tiny condo. We also got Maybe, but he was less traumatised by that thanks to his visits with Sheba. A couple years later he had to deal with moving across the world, from the 5 months of extensive vet visits to the 15 hour flight to the 30 days in quarantine in between two other cats that he hated. Once we got him through quarantine he was perfectly happy living in Oz. He loved the acoustics of the house and would row really loudly in the middle of the night. He enjoyed watching the cockatoos and with his long fur he loved the cooler winters. The extra vet visits gave him a tendency to try to kill vets from then on, so we learned that it worked better to have the vet do a house call to give him his shots. He was always quite eager to greet the vet or any visitor really, he would parade around and twitch his tail and show them just how pretty he was.

As close as George and Sig ever got :)

Moving Day!

Learning about Australian birds

Then we got Goose, and they slowly learned how to play together. They were never BFFs, but they were content sitting near each other on the bed and would occasionally chase each other through the house or wrestle on the floor. He didn't take as well to our getting Shirley, mainly because she's crazy and has an affinity for biting cat tails. But eventually he stopped caring and learned to stand his ground.

George, Maybe, and Goose

Wrestling on a quilt

He rarely left the top of the fridge the first week we had Shirley

Shirley and George sharing a mat - big moment!

He was quite good at catching flies, and I remember one time he lept up and caught one between his two furry paws. He stared at his closed paws and slowly opened them a little more each time, peeking to see if the fly was there. Finally he opened them and to his disappointment the fly was not there. He always acted like a kitten, even towards the end. One time he ran down the hallway and did a burn out into the bedroom. Except the bedroom door was shut. He crashed head first into it and sat down stunned. I could almost see the stars that were circling around his head. Another time I was sitting on the bed eating cantaloupe when he reached his paw in the container, stabbed a piece, and put it in his mouth, Since then whenever there was a cantaloupe to be cut he would come running. Or a can to opened. Or dogs to be fed. Plants and flowers became a no-go because he would either pee in the potted plants or bite of the flowers. He had a bad attitude and could be a pain in the butt, but that was my George.

Take that, flower!

Crazy eyee

Hooked on grass

His favourite place to sleep at night was curled up around my head with his tail twitching in Phil's face. He always lorded over Phil the fact that he outranked him and was not shy about rubbing it in. George would sit on Phil's chest and stare at him, daring him to move. He also loved stalking him and chasing him around. We dubbed him the dog-cat because he would always be at the door to greet us when we came home, and when we called his name he'd come running. He loved his beauty regiments too - when he heard the hair dryer turn on he'd jump onto the bathroom counter so I could brush him and do his makeup.

George pawing at Phil - just because he can

George reminding Phil who came first

Makeup time - he loves his blush

He never met a box that he didn't want to sit in, a grocery bag that he didn't want to explore, or a quilt that he didn't want to sit on. He was always willing to lend a hand with my sewing projects and taught me to never burn candles with exposed flames lest he swish his tail around one and light it on fire.

Fun with boxes

A suitcase is the best of both worlds - fabric and boxes!

He was all for reusable bags

Helping me pick out fabric

Helping me with m George quilt

I told him all about the new house we were building and how well he would match the floors and bathroom cabinets. We chose a front door with a long window so he could look out and made the closet window floor-length so he could look out the back. But now he will be happy curled up in his favourite box under a pretty tree in the new backyard, where he can enjoy the sunshine and birds to his heart's content.