Tinky Loves to Eat Chlorella

     If you are really blessed, you will get to experience the love and companionship of a cat like Tinky.  She was the kind of cat that made a cat lover out of “dog people”.  She loved people and would greet everyone that came over and always had to be involved in whatever we were doing.  Instead of being jealous when my daughter was born, she took it upon herself to watch over her.  Tinky was a traveller, she went many places with me as I had trained her with a harness and leash right from the start and she was comfortable in the car.  Too comfortable, as the second time she was lost; it was because she fell asleep in a friend’s car parked in the driveway.  In her later years she rode in a stroller when we took her out.  She was a volunteer as part of the “Pets & Friends” program while I was off work for a time and visited a senior’s home with me.  She was just a small calico cat, the runt of the litter, but very feisty, especially when it came to protecting her territory from other animals. She had large greens eyes, long skinny white toes, a pink nose and a beautiful coat of black, rust and white.  She always expressed herself and every emotion was clearly written on her face.  When she loved you, she loved you with all her being, even to the point of playing “guard cat”.  She was funny, very spiritual, and stubborn and in the 20 ½ years that I spent with her, she was always surprising me. We called her the third member of our family and I often called her a “being” as her spirit seemed much larger than that of a cat.  Yes, we were blessed to have a cat such as Tinky.

      When I got Tinky, she was so tiny, she fit in the palm of my hand, she was shaking slightly and oh so cute.  I paid the $10, put her on the large seat of my car and drove her home and so started our life together.

      Tinky, although tiny, was feisty right from the start; she would spit when we played.  I would bring home raw fish from my job at Tanner’s English Fare and after I gave it to her, I would start to creep my fingers towards the fish and pretend to take it away, out her claws would go, growling and spitting, she would guard that fish!  Later on, she would chase the other cats out of our yard, the next yard, the next yard and so on.  In one house she fought so much with the male cat next door, she for years afterwards had a small piece of her ear hanging where it had been ripped, and apparently he did too.                                                      

    Shortly after I brought her home, I was eating cantaloupe and when I went to look for her I found her in the garbage can eating the seeds, so I told her she was welcome to share the cantaloupe.  Later on, she would also eat honeydew melon, pea pods, cucumber and alfalfa sprouts.

     Like any crazy kitten, she loved to play and once when I was sleeping I must have fluttered my eye lash as when I opened my eyes, she swatted at me and off I went to the Doctor to get an eye patch as she put a scratch on my cornea.

      When Tinky was still quite young, we decided to move back to BC, as Lethbridge, Alberta had not yet had its boom and jobs were hard to find.  So we packed up the car and a small trailer, loaded the Anole Lizard tank in the back seat and the three of us, my husband at the time, Tinky and I set off for the scenic drive from Alberta to White Rock, BC. While driving through a desert in the US, as we had decided to drive part way through the US, we realized we could not find our cat.  We pulled over and searched throughout the car, finally finding Tinky under the driver’s seat; she was still small enough to fit under there.  We arrived in White Rock and stayed with my mother in her suite close to the beach. In those days, you did not need a license to catch crab, so after buying the equipment, we went crabbing and caught quite a few.  Tinky and my husband had never eaten crab and it tasted so good, that they both ate too much and got sick.  When my husband and I split up, my mother and I decided to rent a house together closer to the city center, but still in White rock.                                                     

     Tinky loved that house, especially the yard, there were trees to climb, a big picture window in the living room and lots of room to run.  When it snowed she would run and slide through the snow bank and play with the snow that flew up in the air.  One night there was a loud boom, White Rock tended to have a lot of thunder storms, I got up from my sleep to find Tinky to comfort her from the loud noise and I could not find her under the bed or anywhere.  Walking into the living room, there she was sitting in the large picture window; she had front row seats and was watching the storm!  My job was close to home and I would walk home, before I arrived home, Tinky would get off my mother’s lap, to come and wait by the door to greet me when I arrived home.

    When I was pregnant with my son, I moved to Burnaby to live with my brother, as I was already showing at four months I didn’t look for work and I decided to volunteer instead.  Tinky and I joined the “Pets & Friends” program and we visited a senior’s home on a weekly basis.  The first time she tried to escape out an open window, but after that she would see their comfy Afghans and settle down comfortably with them. One of the residents, Harold, would wait all week for Tinky’s visit and we would place her on the table top of his wheel chair and drive them around.   

    The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) used to have a cat show.  I decided to enter Tinky in the last one they had.  Now Tinky does not like being around other cats, so she was a little angry and the judge must have smelled like other cats, so she hissed at him and they awarded her “The Loud Mouth Award”.  Yes, Tinky always spoke her mind and never held back her feelings!

     Next we moved in with my best friend and she got herself a kitten named Nicky; it took quite a while for Tinky to calm down with Nicky having to stay in her room, while Tinky expressed her dislike of not being the only cat in the apartment at the door for a month or two.  After she calmed down, her and Nicky became best of friends and would play till their hearts content.  They played so much that one day they knocked the screen out of the third story window and they both fell out.  We came home from our jobs and began to look for them.  My roommate found her kitten right away, but Tinky was nowhere to be found. After searching for quite a while with no leads, I remembered I had a first date with a man and I decided to go out for dinner anyways.  I described what my cat looked like, as he had never met her before and while I was getting ready, he went out and searched for her himself.  He came to my apartment door carrying this calico cat that was desperately fighting to get away from him; he thought he had found my cat, but it wasn’t her.  My date had also gotten me a small gift; it was a key chain that when it was clicked open it had this tiny cat inside playing with a ball of yarn and it read “I love my cat”.  He felt silly but gave it to me anyways.

     The next day, we continued to search for Tinky.  My roommate had this feeling that if we did not find her today, she would be lost forever, so we phoned up all of our friends to find someone with a car, as she felt Tinky had made her way to the park and then was picked up by a man wanting a cat.  He took her home to his place at the foot of Burnaby Mountain which is a large forested area.  After she was fed, she realized she wanted to go home, but home was not so close anymore.  We found a good friend and all piled in the car, drove to the forest and with a flashlight and cat treats proceeded to walk on the trail that my roommate had said she would be on.  A short way into the forest, we saw Tinky sitting cold and hungry on a log, we picked her up and drove her home.  After a good bath and some love she recovered from her shock.

     While dating this man, we took a trip to the West Coast of Vancouver Island and of course I wanted to bring Tinky.  We stopped at the Goat’s on the Roof store and placed Tinky on a stump with her leash on; the busload of German tourists stopped taking pictures of the goats on the roof and began to take pictures of my cat.  So somewhere in Germany there are pictures of Tinky.  On the same trip we went to Long Beach and I took off her leash, put her on the sand and took an awesome picture of just her on this large deserted beach.  We stayed in this great cabin along the beach and as I was having a bath, Tinky was sitting on the side of the bathtub dangling her tail in the warm water.  Then my boyfriend turned on his electric shaver and the noise startled her; she jumped off the side of the bathtub while flinging her tail over her head, the water from her tail splashed on her head and she looked around wondering where the water had come from.

     As I said, Tinky was always surprising me.  One night it was about 2am and my roommate and I had a couple friends over; the lights were dim and we were talking about ghosts.  Our kitchen cupboards did not reach to the ceiling leaving a space on top. I looked up and saw a cat sitting on top of the cupboards watching us intently, I had never seen her up there before and before I could register it was her, I yelled. This caused my roommate to automatically scream and then we all laughed when we realized it was just Tinky.  In that apartment building there was a lot of crime, although we never experienced it, but it was well known to the police.  Tinky would often get onto the dresser and reach up to something close to the ceiling; she would also see things behind my head when I was leaning against the wall lying on my bed.  It was the only place I have ever lived that I had a fear of being shot, while standing in front of the window.  We never had anything like this happen, but for some reason I had this fear.

     We would have Hawaiian or Mexican parties in January to help brighten up the month; my roommate and I would make Leis and paper flowers for our hair; we would make smaller ones for our cats to get them in the party spirit.  It was Easter and my roommate had left her empty Easter basket on the table; Tinky loved baskets, so she climbed in and posed.  I think this picture is where her nickname “Goofball” came from.  Tinky was a cat that would let us dress her up, she had a hat collection that we would place on her head and she would let us take her picture.  When my daughter was young, she would dress Tinky up and Tinky would just sit there and put up with it, but she would have the most disgusted look on her face.

     I took Tinky with me to beaches, fireworks (on a beach that was quieter) and anywhere else a cat could go.  One time we were at Kit’s Beach in Vancouver and we came upon a lady who had her two parrots at the beach with her, so I let Tinky say hi to the parrots.  That was a time that I wished a newspaper reporter had been there, it would have made a great picture.

     I then moved to Burnaby and got my own bachelor suite.  I worked long hours managing a health store, so I felt bad for Tinky and I bought her a bunny.  I named this black bunny “Bunny”, although she stayed in the cage when I was gone, as she tended to chew everything, I would like to think that she kept Tinky company. While working in this store, this man kept coming in and he would buy the exact same thing, I didn’t have a clue he was coming in to see me. We ended up spending six years together and having a daughter.  Tinky grew to love him and would always come for a pet while he was sitting on the toilette, that was their routine; she would also wait before eating for a pet from him after he fed her.  I had Tinky trained, if she was doing something she wasn’t supposed to, I would snap my fingers, she would whine and get down.  He would snap his fingers just to hear her whine on command and untrained her.  He made her this wonderful scratching post with carpet over this long cardboard carpet roll; it reached to the ceiling and Tinky would climb all the way up and back down. He would later coin the phrase “Tinky’s Fire God” as Tinky absolutely loved getting up close to the fire place and staring into it.  It was also him that noticed the bond between Tinky and me, how she became a part of me when she lay on me. It is a bond that goes beyond this world and I do not completely understand it.

 

 

Tinky used up another life while walking in the forest behind our house, the forested area ran on top of a five foot stone wall behind our houses.  One day while my boyfriend was resting on the couch with the back door open he heard a sound that was familiar as he used to ranch up in the Chilcotin, it was the sound of an animal trying to smother its prey by pressing it’s face into the ground. He quickly got up and threw a broom into the woods to loosen the grip and save Tinky’s life.  That night I saw the opossum sitting on the stone wall, it was very large with glowing, piercing eyes and it looked like something from a horror movie.

      She loved to catch mice and she would proudly bring the half dead mice into the house while we were eating dinner, letting them run around so she could chase them and my boyfriend would have to leave his dinner to get the mouse out of the house. The neighbour loved watching her catch mice in the field behind her house. Tinky loved to play so I would attach a cat toy to a string, sit in the middle of the room and turn the string around my body in a circular motion; Tinky would chase that toy, running around me numerous times in a circle.  She also loved her catnip and I would grow her some and somehow I became the neighbourhood catnip provider.

 

     We would take her camping, on road trips and for sleepovers.  One time we were camping and I took the leash off at night to sleep, in the early morning I found that Tinky was not in the tent and the tent’s zipper was slightly opened.  I went searching for her and found her sitting under a tree with a sign that read “Pets Must Be on Leashes”.  She was a great traveller and I always had to bring her litter box, even when we went camping.  Another time when we were camping, this chipmunk was protesting very loudly as we must have taken his spot and maybe he didn’t want a cat in his camping spot; he went on for quite a while like this.  One time we took her fishing and we had to walk through some water to get to our spot.  My boyfriend was holding her, but she wanted to get to me, so he put her down and she forded the water until she reached me.

     While I was pregnant with my daughter, I would tell her to not be jealous, that it was just another person for her to love and she would lay on my tummy.  When my daughter was a baby, Tinky would sleep in the doorway on the hardwood floor.  The house we lived in was drafty and cold and had very little carpeting; I kept wondering why she was sleeping there as she loved warm, soft places as most cats do.  So I started researching it and found that cats and dogs will sleep in the doorway of a baby’s room to protect them from evil spirits.  This made me love her even more knowing she was watching out for my daughter.

      One summer’s day, some friends came to visit and they left the windows down in their car while it was parked in our driveway.  Tinky was comfortable with cars and a curious girl, so in she climbed; they did not notice her when they left, so she went for a ride, unknowingly to us.  So began her second time being lost, it would be almost two weeks until we had her back.  We believe she got out when they got gas and started home, but the distance is a lot larger for a little cat and she kept walking; we kept searching not knowing if she was alive, injured or dead.  The house was not the same without her.  One night at 11:50 pm a lady called me, she had found Tinky, gave her some food and it took a while for her to get close enough to read the number on her tag, as Tinky was guarding that food!  I came down right away and picked her up; she had lost about 1/3 of her body weight.  We were so happy to have her home once again.

 

     During the time she was lost, my boyfriend’s 15 year old daughter, came home one day and she say Tinky run into the house, it was so vivid that she searched for her, but she did not physically come home for another week.  I also once saw Tinky a place she was not.

      When my daughter was almost two years old, her dad and I split up but still remained friends.  After sometime I had to stop taking Tinky out with us, as my young daughter decided the leash was for dragging the cat!  Tinky just knew and would put up with so much from my daughter, no one else could get away with the things she did.  I remember the first time I was searching for Tinky and it took me a while to find her, but finally I saw her she was curled up in a ball in amongst my daughter’s stuffed animals; she blended right in.

     Tinky was very protective of us and one night someone was outside walking between the houses pretending to look for a lost animal but Tinky must have felt he meant to do us harm as she ran to the door, growling, with her fur standing right up ready to fight!  I asked the landlord for a better lock the next day.  As she was very close to us, she also picked up any anger we held onto, so she would become angry herself, especially when she was sitting in the middle of the hallway and we would say “beep beep”.  She would hiss at us and turn around to swat us, she hated beep beep. As I healed my anger, this gradually went away.

     As I stated before Tinky always had to be involved with things and would always join us for story time before bed.  One day she realized she was missing story time; she was in my daughter’s room but not on the bed with us.  My daughter had left her books all over her bedroom floor and as Tinky was trying her best to join us right asap, she kept slipping on all the books strewn across the floor.  I got up and helped her through the obstacles.

     In this house Tinky started her love affair with fire places; she would stare into the fire and even try to sniff the flame of the gas fireplace if I left the cover open.  Years before this she also sniffed a candle flame, sizzling her little whiskers.  When my daughter came out of the shower, she would want to dry off in front of the fire, but Tinky wanted front row and would fight her for it, this continued until my daughter was 13 years old.  Later on, when I injured my back at work, she would fight me for the heating pad.

     As I am a health consultant and nutritionist, I always fed Tinky healthy, so when I had Biofeedback done, we put her on there also.  It came up that she and I are very spiritually connected and that she is a Channeller.  This therapy was also very helpful over the years if she was not feeling well and we needed an answer on how to help her.

   Tinky loved her people and was never afraid to show it, she would follow me around while I was getting ready for work, she would always be there helping (which wasn’t always a help) and she would sleep on my neck.  One time she was sleeping on my head and her heartbeat woke me up.  Another time a friend cat sat for a few days for me and she would not go near him, when we came back he knocked at the door to pick up his bike and she gave him the dirtiest look you can imagine.  Later on, she learned to love him and would sleep on his lap; she was always forgiving as animals are.

 

     Tinky loved the sun and would sit in the driveway and I swear there would be a smile on her face.  If we were not home, as she only went out when we were home, she would sit on her south facing window pain and bask in the sun.  I told her there would be sun anytime she wanted in heaven, as living on the West Coast of Canada you only get the sun when it decides to come out and if you blink sometimes you will miss it.

     As she got older, I gave her the nickname “Little Miss”, as with a hyperthyroid and probably diabetes she began to lose weight and she was never big to begin with.  She was still feisty though and guarded her territory into her 20^th year, along with speaking her mind when I clipped her toenails.  She went with us to Harrison Hot Springs a few times and we walked her around in the lobby on a leash and pushed her in her stroller around town; the staff would tell us about their cats and always asked where Tinky was if we came for a visit without her.

One day at 20 ½ she was in discomfort and we comforted as best we could, after that the pain went away, but she stopped eating, then she stopped drinking water, finally she could not walk, so we laid her in front on the fire place on a large pillow and cared for her until she passed.  The only pain she seemed to be in was the pain of leaving us, as she held on for over a week and finally left her body, which was now only 5 pounds, on Wednesday November 21^st, 2012.  I got up this morning and thought I should look for her, but then remembered she is not physically here anymore; life will be different without her here, but if you are really blessed you will experience the love of a cat such as Tinky.