BarbaraArdingerWriting

Schroedinger and Heisenberg

My first Schroedinger came to me in 1984. I'd just had a cat named Puff euthanized when my friend Rebecca phoned and said, "If you got a new cat, what would you name it?" Since I'd just been reading Fritjof Capra and Itzhak Bentov, my answer was a no-brainer. A few days later, Rebecca knocked on my door. She had a tiny calico kitten in her hands. "I just went to the kitten cage at the animal shelter," she said, "and called 'Schroedinger! Come here.' This is the kitten that looked up and came to me."

barbara's cats

SCHROEDINGER IS ON THE LEFT
AND HEISENBERG IS ON THE RIGHT

My first Heisenberg was an intelligent and curious Maine Coon cat. No matter what I was doing—bleaching my hair, making the bed, watering plants, or typing—he'd soon stroll into the room, his tail as flamboyant as Cyrano's white plume. He'd observe, comment, and help me do it better. Everyone who ever met him admired him.

In 2001, he was attacked by a tumor so invasive that euthanasia was my only choice. On his last night on the planet, I crawled under my bed with him and read Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince to him. Born on Asteroid B-612, the Little Prince comes to earth and learns that we see best with our hearts, that "the essential is invisible to our eyes." I have Heisenberg's ashes, which are golden, in a little wooden box that one of my uncles brought back from World War II. It's on my "home altar," between a golden Bast and a heart-shaped rock.

I've always said that I wanted to come in my next life as Heisenberg with me as his mommy.

Toward the end of her life, Schroedinger was fat and cranky and something of a solitary. (Did I just hear someone suggesting that cats and their people come to be alike?) She was Queen of the World and I was her lady-in-waiting. By the summer of 2004, however, after she passed her twentieth birthday, she had become very feeble. It broke my heart to do so, but I couldn't let her live a life of such discomfort, not able to walk well and eating so little, so I finally had her euthanized. On her last night on the planet, I held her on my lap and read a fairy tale about a brave princess to her. Now I have the ashes of both cats (plus a little cat jingle toy) in the little box on my altar.

NEW SCHROEDINGER IS ON THE RIGHT
AND HEISENBERG TOO IS ON THE LEFT

Do you know the folksong, "The Cat Came Back?" It's true. My cats have come back. I knew I couldn't live without cat vibes in my house, so I went to www.petfinder.com and found Maine Coon Rescue. Within a couple of weeks, I had adopted a rescued Maine Coon who I named Heisenberg Too. He looks kind of like the Kliban Cat. Like his predecessor, Heisenberg is everybody's friend. He's Mr. Puppy Cat. No matter what I'm doing, he comes to help.This includes sitting on my lap while I'm working. Have you ever tried to type over a purring 18-pound cat? I can't stay on the home row.

My new Schroedinger came from Maine Coon Adoptions. She was found on the streets of Sacramento by a lawyer who is a rescuer and her photo was posted on Petfinder.com. After I made the arrangements to adopt her, they put her in a cat carrier and sent her to me. (The rescue agencies have volunteers who drive all over the state.) Schroedinger visited San Francisco, Paso Robles, and Pasadena, where she was delivered to me, and then I brought her home. That's two days and 500 miles in a box, and she was calm and self-assured when I let her out. A friend who had never successfully petted a cat was with me that night; after half an hour, she was talking baby-talk to the new cat. Schroedinger sleeps in the same chair as the first Schroedinger and has a similar personality. Because this cat is half Ragdoll, my friend Lori Nyx says she looks like a majorly fat chinchilla. I think she's Miss Glamour Cat.

Within an hour of Schroedinger's arrival (October '05), she and Heisenberg were peering at each other around the toilet. Now they entertain me with Kitty Olympics. You know…broad jump, high jump, sprint, wrestling….

I once read in a novel that because cats have nine lives, they can (with permission) jump into the bodies of other cats. Or maybe when a cat comes into a home where earlier cats were adored, they absorb the vibes of the earlier cats. Whatever happens, it's happened here. These two new cats are like their predecessors in every way but coloring. And we all know that there's nothing as good as a purring cat.

email: bawriting@earthlink.net