Farewell Paisano!

I had my cat put to sleep today at the ASPCA, actually he has been my mom's cat for quite some time. The cat was breathing faintly and he would have been mistaken for dead when I got to my mom's to pick him and her up. As we watched the veterinarian give him his final shot, a memory collage pasted on mind. Paesano was 22 years old. I got him when I was in Dallas. I was going to Dallas Community College and working at the housing authority at the time. One of my coworkers, while on his way to work, saw some kids throwing rocks at a kitten. He brought the kitten to work and as we stood around wondering who would take him, the cat walked up to me, curled up between my feet and put his head on my shoe. In a room full of cat lovers, he chose me; the guy who's first cat ran away while driving him to his new home (whole other blog), the guy who had a cat that had not been seen for the full six months in his care and was living rapped around the cathode tube of his console TV.
From the first night, Paesano was piss and vinegar. An orange and white tiger striped cat that decided me going to bed was cause for him to go all 'Fantastic Voyage' and to try to climb into my mouth. I closed my bedroom door and he meowed all night to get in; I'd get up, he'd stop meowing, I'd go to bed and the meowing would start. I chased him around the apartment, but he thought it was a game.
The second night I named him Paesano after he sat in my lap and help me finish off a bowl of baked ziti. He quickly learned to eat from a fork and preferred human food to the Science Diet I had been feeding him.

A month after I got him, I came home from work to find him chasing Doogie, the irradiated cat that lived behind the TV, around the apartment, before I could even close the door, Doogie went whizzing by me and out the door.  Paesano stood in the doorway taunting him. Amazingly, Doogie looked like a cat that lived on a TV tube.  His hair was sparse and he looked emaciated, even though I know he ate the food that I left on the side of the TV for him, it was the only time I would see him. The next time Paesano or I would see Doogie would be a year and a half later outside the window of the apartment. I assume it was Doogie, it was a beautiful healthy cat but I was sure it was him.
Paesano, as I said, was piss and vinegar. He would jump on the top of my shower door only to lean over and whack me in the head, while I washed my hair. He could jump incredibly high and loved to play and get into trouble. He was incredibly skilled at opening the garbage can and getting any leftovers out of it.
When I left Texas to move back to NJ, the Veterinarian gave me sleeping pills, to give Paesano, for the plane ride. I gave him one when we got to the airport. This little runt of a cat began meowing like crazy, long MEEEEOOOOOOWWWWs. I gave him a second one before getting on the plane. He sat in a carrier beneath my seat for a good ten minutes, when the lady next to me started sneezing like crazy. Of course, even though I purchased the space under my seat for Paesano, the airline put a lady who was allergic to cats next to me. Just as she leans over and says, “I never sneeze like this unless there is a cat around.”, The supposedly knocked out cat's response was, “Meeeeoooooowwww”. I talked to the stewardess and got the lady a different seat, the meows grew steadily louder and longer during the flight.
My first night in NJ, Paesano decided to get payback on me, for drugging him, and peed on my head repetitively while I was trying to sleep. He held grudges like that. When I moved out, my mom kept Paesano. At her house, he raised three dogs and two cats, he outlived all but one dog.
Everyone loved Paesano, he had attitude, personality and though a runt, never backed down from another animal. He would jump out windows, over railings, up Christmas trees or anywhere else he felt like. He was the first cat my children ever saw. After twenty two years, he was the last attachment I had to my previous single life.
Now he's gone. I watched as he took his final breath on a metal table, much like the one that Connie, my dog was put to sleep on several years ago.

Good-bye Paisano, you will be missed.