This is Lindy:

She is a stupid fucking cat.

She survived a flood that caused her owners to give her up.  She traveled 300 miles to be with another owner who also had to give her up.  Then came 2008, when Lindy began her ownership of me.

Stupid fucking cat.

She demands attention.  Whether it’s staring me straight in the eye while also blocking my view of the computer screen until I pet her or planting her feet firmly into my chest while I’m watching TV until I allow her to straddle my arm along my side while I scratch her throat or crawling on top of me while I’m in bed reading until I scratch her ass or never allowing me to close the bathroom door so I can, again, scratch her ass while she rubs her face on the corner of the bathroom wall leaving a permanent Lindy stain.

Stupid fucking cat.

When she pees, her tail wiggles back and forth quickly like a rattlesnake warning an adversary and then bobs down and up like she’s a man shaking before zipping up.  When she poops, her nose rhythmically wrinkles in concentration until you hear the plop.  This is invariably followed by the ritualistic scratching of the rim of the cat box for 50 or so hours followed by exiting the box only to finally go back in and paw at the litter.  Then, depending on her mood, the phase of the moon, how things are arranged on my counter, and infinite other variables that exist in her tiny cat brain, she will enter crazy cat mode and zoom back and forth around the apartment culminating invariably in a dead stop in a corner as she looks piercingly up at the corner of the ceiling staring down a bogey only she can see.

Stupid fucking cat.

Her food bowl is proclaimed empty if the smallest portion of the bottom is visible.

Stupid fucking cat.

She jumps up on high and looks over her kingdom while sitting above her servant clicking futilely at the keyboard.

Stupid fucking cat.

She waits patiently for me to both go to bed and get out of bed and races ahead of me up and down the stairs to meet me at my destination.

Stupid fucking cat.

She demands to be pet when I’m brushing my teeth or filling up my water glass or, really, wherever I happen to be at the time.

Stupid fucking cat.

She gets an ear infection and has to have some teeth removed and she tolerates it all like a champ.

Stupid fucking cat.

The ear infection comes back.  She stops eating.  She starts falling down.  She’s come to loathe the vet but she springs back.

Stupid fucking cat.

Another ear infection.  To the dermatologist.  Allergies.  Special food, Claritin, even more antibiotics.  Looking good.  Feeling good.

Stupid fucking cat.

More falling down.  To the neurologist.  Giant cancerous mass around her right ear.

Stupid fucking cat.

Months to live.

Stupid.

Fucking.

Cat.