RIP Jean, 2004-2021

Jean ( "Jean Grey," "Queenie Meanie Jeanie," "Diamond") passed away Feb. 5, 2021 at the age of 17 due to complications of being old as shit. She was a good cat.

I adopted Jean on 9/11. Okay, Sept. 11, 2006. Why I decided that particular day to stroll a half mile down the road to the animal shelter I'm not sure. Less than two weeks prior I moved into the place where I still reside. I was living without roommates for the first time so it only made sense to get a pet. And the shelter was right there, passed several times a day, an insistent reminder that a companion could be had at any time.

My family always had cats when I was growing up - a couple orange tabbies, a Calico, a tuxedo cat. My mind landed on "gray" as the next deviation. A cat was necessarily less maintenance than a dog given I was alone and working a full-time office job, but I was still excited as it had been a few years during and after college without having a cat.

Exploring the shelter's cat room, I was charmed by kittens tumbling and cleaning themselves in their enclosures. Among them I spotted "Diamond," a long haired, two-year-old Siberian. Admittedly, going in I was vaguely expecting to adopt a kitten, as many animal shelter visitors likely are. Diamond was beautiful, she fit the simple criterion of "gray," and I reasoned with myself that getting an adult cat meant skipping the hassle of litter box training.

She was skittish during our preliminary interaction at the shelter but showed no sign of hostility. I figured she'd warm up in time. The shelter required a home visit before adoption, which entailed a woman coming over, scanning my apartment for two minutes, and saying, "All right, this looks fine." With that, I had a cat again.

Diamond is an impossibly fancy name, though not entirely unfitting for Jean's regal temperament. Still, I couldn't imagine myself talking to Diamond for years with a straight face. I named her Jean Grey which is funny since I’m mostly tired of comic book stuff now, though I only ever called hr Jean out loud. I guess there’s the rapper too? Sometime the pet names you make when you’re 24 become mildly cringe 15 years later. Not the worst thing.

With familiarity came fondness, but also the low-grade contempt that most cats have for their humans. Jean bit my wrists and forearms for fun. Some nights when I turned off the living room lights to go to the bedroom, she would rush me and bite my ankles. Never turn your back on a ninja, I quickly learned. I reciprocated her reign of terror with occasional baiting because teasing cats is half the fun. What's a little light antagonism among friends? In those early years once in a while people would see scratches on my forearm and asked if I got into a fight with a rose bush.

This of course was mixed with affection. Those only used to dogs sometimes think them cold, but cats will let you know you are loved, though perhaps more in moderation.

One of the male cats I had growing up was a shameless beggar for food. He would park himself at the side of the dinner table like a dog, accepting anything, including green beans and corn, that came his way. Jean was the opposite. I never once saw her eat "people food" despite untold opportunities. Anytime I would offer her something, even cat-friendly fare like a morsel of chicken or fish, she would dutifully sniff for a second then recoil, as if to say, "Ew, you eat this shit?"

That's a bizarrely haughty attitude for someone who loves Fancy Feast. During the first few months with Jean, I tried out various types of cat food, including purportedly healthy and organic types. The first time I cracked open a Fancy Feast can, she came running. My girl had brand loyalty. That's all she ever wanted and that's what she got.

That was just one of the many examples of how Jean was a cat decidedly set in her ways. I've always had indoor exclusive cats. Letting a pet roam the streets has always struck me as stressful, though I'm sure some of them appreciate the freedom. Good thing Jean never wanted to go anywhere. Once she got acclimated to my place, if I even carried her down the apartment hallway she protested loudly. Routine trips to the vet might as well have been torture. Not that she had anything especially against the vet. She just wasn't in the apartment.

Eventually Jean decided I was the only human whose presence was acceptable. She swatted at girlfriends, hissed if they tried to pet her. I recall one ex, put off by constant cat rejection, telling me, "She's lucky she found you. I can see why she ended up in the shelter." Another ex who ended up moving in nevertheless received the same cold shoulder for a full year of living with us. It was only when I had to go out of town for a week that Jean took stock of my ex, considered her needs for attention, and decided, "Fine. I suppose this human will do."

As I mentioned, Jean was an indoor-only cat. Despite that handicap, she caught two birds off of my balcony, which strikes me as an impressive achievement and also a testament to the stupidity of birds. You have the entirety of the outdoors to flit around and you get caught by a cat that occupies a one-bedroom apartment? Poor showing by birds, I must say.

In 2013, from that same shelter I adopted Ava, a boxer/Plott hound mix, my first dog. By then, I was working from home full-time and could juggle the demands of a dog. My family in the span of 10-15 years shifted from cat to dog people. Whereas we only ever had cats well into my 20s, now my parents have dogs, my sister has dogs, I have a dog. Jean was the last cat, for now at least.

No physical match for a puppy that grew to roughly 70 lbs., Jean had to withstand a little light bullying from time to time. Rest assured, this was never out of malice, only boredom, and Jean was never hurt, only harried. She quickly learned to navigate the world of living with a dog, always broadcasting in her way that she was never impressed by her apartment mate, even if she had to occasionally respect Ava's considerable size advantage.

About a year or so ago, usually fairly reticent Jean developed the habit of yowling in the early morning to be fed, sometimes beginning as early as 4:30 a.m. Once it became clear this was a new fixture of my mornings, I hesitated to show signs of waking up. Early morning trips to the bathroom had dire consequences; after the alarm was tripped there was no stopping it until can-shaped dollop of foodstuff hit dish. One might assume that feeding her before bed would ward off the yowling, but they'd be wrong. While I can't say this was my favorite behavior during Covid lockdown, I had to appreciate that the yowling would - and if I was especially tired or hungover did - go on for hours if I allowed it, only to cease for maybe five minutes once I cracked open the Fancy Feast. Intermission over, Jean then hopped onto my bathroom counter, now expecting me to set the faucet to a fine line of sipping water for washing down her meal. If the new round of yowling didn't immediately work, she'd start shoving anything she could off the counter: deodorant, hair brush, contact lens cases, an electric razor, non-electric razors. She really had me in check toward the end.

Once morning passed and the rigmarole completed, Jean was still sweet - on her terms, of course. Anytime I was active near the kitchen counter, she wanted to be involved, knowing the location provided access to me and protection from the dog. I'd put my laptop up there during Zoom meetings for work. Jean would frequently insert herself into the feed, delighting coworkers. She and Ava were indispensable help over the last awful year.

Two days before Christmas, Jean fell off my third floor balcony. The shout I let out when I saw her go off the ledge was possibly comic if you removed the context, like Catherine O'Hara from Home Alone. I had the door open for fresh air on an unseasonably warm day. Jean liked to crawl through the railing bars and wander on the narrow area between there and the edge. I'd seen her do it countless times. Working on my laptop in the living room, I was distracted enough to forget she had been losing coordination for months. I saw her gaze up at something on the wall of the building, then double back and fall.

Amazingly, she was fine if a bit disoriented. Lucky for us it's mulch instead of pavement directly below. I ran downstairs, scooped her up behind the bushes. She moaned, as she did whenever she was held outside the apartment. Worried she sustained serious injury, I inspected her closely but Jean was more or less unscathed. A month went by the same as before until her health sharply declined further. Seizures arrived the last couple days of January. I tried to make the end as comfortable as possible.

In lieu of flowers, send the joke that Jean Grey will soon rise as Phoenix.