Travels With Cleo #1 Start at the Start

How a strange and wonderful cat and a garden variety dipshit can come together in life.

Her full given name was Cleopatra Rex. She certainly looked the part, beautiful and regal and sleek. She was a cat, and I was her devoted servant for over 15 years.

This story revolves around her, but it is really part of my story. It’s probably going to come out in several parts, the tale of Cleo and me. Because, like they say at Facebook “It’s complicated”

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She was one of five, born to a Blue Manx and a travelling salesman of a Tom. Not that her mother didn’t get around plenty, she did. The mom (Stumpy) had come to live at my Father’s farm when some friends had an emergency and left the cat. My father had no inclination to protect a cat’s integrity so Stumpy bred whoever was handy and mostly lived in a barn.

When Stumpy strolled up to the feed pan all the other creatures backed away, including some disreputable cattle dogs that would just back away from the food and wait until Stumpy was done.

Anyway, Cleo was born in the Spring of 1973. I was getting married in June, and my soon to be wife (and relatively soon to be ex wife) made no bones about needing a cat in our house. Cleo was a pretty little thing, a show quality calico with her mother’s general shape and her unknown father’s tail. Turns out that the Manx tail is a recessive gene and Stumpy never once passed it on to a farm cat. Had Cleo ever bred to a Manx the tail might have showed back up, but I wasn’t too inclined to protect a cat’s integrity, either.

I lived in a place known locally as “The Honeymoon Cottage”, a little teeny one bedroom bungalow on a postage stamp sized lot. It was ideal for a starter, didn’t take much furniture, didn’t demand much yard time, basically perfect. $75 per month included electricity and water. So Cleo and I shared a bachelor apartment for the first few months before my brand new wife moved in.

We had another roommate. Phoebe, my liver colored German Shorthair. She was a really good hunter, but not so good in the house. She just got too excited and mashed into everything. So, I put up a little kennel and darn near took care of my lawn mowing needs with it. A little strip around the kennel and a bit in front of the house and the lawn tasks were done.

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Enter my brother Randy. We were always pretty close, and in the various times when we were single we spent a lot of time together. Randy didn’t like cats, and just couldn’t figure out why I might want to have one in my house.

He basically tortured Cleo without doing any harm. His favorite trick when she was little was to set her on top of an open door and walk away. She’d be stuck there until I saw her and put her back on the floor. That all ended when she was about 5 months old and she figured out how to get down by herself. When he turned she jumped on him and dug in. He jumped like crazy and she jumped to the couch. Problem solved. Randy was mad as could be and I was reduced to helpless laughter.

I really wish I had a photo to share with you all, but there was a dark side to me and Cleo and our days together. Not that I didn’t take thousands of photos of her, I did. But I was drunk, you see, and I lost everything from those days. By the dawn of the 1970s I was a full tilt practicing alcoholic and did not draw a completely sober breath during the 70s and 80s.

I told you it was complicated. More will be revealed in the story of Cleo and me.