The Joy of being Your Own Favorite Flavor

Wouldn't it be nice to lick yourself and have it be absolutely delicious?

Okay, maybe good for to 'esplain' no?

My cat Delilah, or "the Kitten" as we usually called her, took joy in many things, but perhaps none more that bathing herself. she would purr and groom her coat to perfection with relish. Occasionally we would offer her the tip of her tail and hold it steady for her. She would lick and bite it with joy. "Oooh thanks! Yum! That's a tough spot to reach!" she seemed to say. My wife often noted that she was her own favorite flavor.

Yesterday we said goodbye to our fifteen-year-old cat Delilah. She has been had a rough few months and was continually growing less uncomfortable and less mentally astute. We weren't certain what is wrong with her. A definitive answer may or may not have been at the end of a traumatic $4,000 MRI and would not have included any treatment. So we made the difficult decision to end her suffering.

A vet who specializes at-home euthanasia came to our home on Monday and put her to sleep in familiar surroundings.

That we will miss her is an understatement, there is a now a hole in our apartment, our hearts, our lives.

I found Delilah as a stray kitten while working on a short film in Vicksburg Mississippi. I named her after lead character in the movie. The I knew she was a keeper when I walked into the basement of the mansion we were shooting in and called her name. She came running from the shadows where she was hiding. I had only know her for a couple hours and she knew my voice!

I flew home with her, an adventure of it's own, and we soon became best friends. I actually had two other cats at the time but Delilah and bonded like I've never bonded with any other animal. When in my lap she would frequently look up at me and stare and I would look right back into those little eyes. Not always, but occasionally she would give me a little nose kiss when I got close.

When I came home from work I would often approach her quietly and merely place my fingers near her nose and my scent would awake her. I would tell her about my day, where I'd been, what I'd been doing and whom I met simply by letting her explore the smells on my fingers.

At this point you may be thinking that this is the sweetest cat that ever lived. You'd be wrong. Like all cats Delilah was unaffected and unconcerned with your needs.

Like with all cats there was at least one other side to her.

If Delilah were human, I picture a seventy year old lady with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, one hand around a beer, the other on a slot machine handle.

Contentious and moody, she's quick to anger but just as quick to recover. She'll growl hiss and run away for inexplicable reasons, but no worries, she'll be running back to you 'in five... four... three...'

Delilah would face down any dog or human with a steely resolve and used up about all of her nine lives (including attempting to sword-swallow an entire chicken satay bamboo skewer and not one, but two falls off a three-story balcony). For all her bravery, she is scared to death of birds real or imagined; she has been known to scurry across the room on her belly because a spinning ceiling fan was making her nervous.

Even as she aged, she remained as playful. We purchased cat toys for her once in a while but it was always a waste of money. 

Memories:

• In the morning when I would sit on the john and she would climb on a ledge behind me and knock tweezers off the sink while waiting for me to finish my business and hurry and feed her. Once she lost her footage and I found myself sitting on the john with a panicked clawing fighting cat between my back and the toilet tank.
• We would occasionally place a paper shopping bag on it's side. As soon as she noticed it, she would run full speed and crash into the thing with vigor. Then she would violently attack any part of the bag that was stimulated from the outside. We quickly learn that the paper was not thick enough, nor was any hand fast enough to risk doing this manually. A stick of six inches or so was safe.
• 'Treat treats' would, even in her 'old age' would inspire athletic spryness in her. It would often start in the kitchen where I stood while she waited in the entryway. I would drop a treat on the floor like a hockey puck and brush it slowly back and forth. Delilah would see this cue and crouch for attack, her eyes dilated like an anime character. Then I would kick the treat skittering it across the floor towards her. Many times she would swat at the first shot and send it unreachably under the stove and look at me perplexed at having made it disappear. There's got be 50 of then under there (Note: when we moved there were closer to 30). As the game progressed I would shoot them towards her like a free-throw. If she caught them and ate before they hit the wall; point Kitten. If I was able to hit the wall; point Joelee. She grew tired of this part of the game quickly and we progressed to level two in the carpeted run between the entryway and the bedroom hall. I would throw/roll a treat at high speed and she would sprint after it attacking it with her paws clapped together pad-to-pad. I have the high speed video to prove it: https://youtu.be/oxmRggepe0U
• During this game she was awarded the affectionate nick-name "Hammers", as in 'dumb as a bag of...' A treat would land right near her and she, smelling it, would look around furiously for it and not see it. Eventually the game would end when she got tired or more likely bored with it. She would lie on her side and watch the treats tumble with in a foot of her but she would not get up, seeming to say 'yeah, could you just push that in my mouth for me. If you happen to help me chew that would be great too, but I can probably manage.

Joel Would have been proud

I worked on a short film on location in Mississippi in August of 2001, that's right, the month before 9/11.

Mont Helena Plantation, The mansion we filmed at.

It is built on an artificial hill since it lies in the Mississippi flood plain. 

Our primary shooting location was an old plantation on the Mississippi flood plain. The main house had been built on an artificial hill to raise the mansion up above the flood waters. It was surrounded by cotton fields and an honest-to-God sharecropper's shack below, complete with a tin roof and 1920s newspapers stuck to the walls.

The crew's hotel, the Cedar Grove Mansion Inn, a series of bungalows for us, was about an hour away in Vicksburg, MI. It had been a tough shoot. Working outdoors or non-air conditioned indoors in hundred degree heat and ninety-nine percent humidity, hauling cables, setting up hot lights, toting camera dolly track is not much fun with sweat dripping off your nose constantly. I already had one foot firmly planted in the air conditioned television world, this jaunt back into the film world was a favor to a friend, in the spirit of adventure. After having to hold my breath and close my eyes to climb a ladder and adjust a light with huge prehistoric-looking insects bouncing off my head, when at in a swamp at 2AM, when it was no cooler or less humid than daytime, seeing a snake in the where I was carrying a light stand, I was officially done with film work! It was too hard, hot and dirty, and at least for me at this stage, the money wasn't very good either.

The morning of our last day, I stepped outside, wondering why I even bothered to towel after my shower off when the humidity turned my skin and clothes immediately damp. The key grip's bungalow was right by the street where the van picked us up so I knocked on his door to wait for the van in a cool place. A tiny orange and white kitten was running around inside trying to hide.

“Where'd the kitten come from?” I asked.

“She was out front this morning, a stray.”

When the van arrived the key grip picked up the kitten and put her outside. She ran to a culvert by the street and scurried into the drainage pipe. I was a bit horrified at first, but what else could he do. We had to work on a film for the next ten, twelve, fourteen hours. I sat in the van, but all I could think about was that kitten. What would happen to her?

At the last minute I jumped out fo the van and went to the pipe. I tried to coax her out of the pipe, but she was too scared. I reached in and grabbed her. I carried her back to the van just before it pulled away.

Now what? She was my responsibility now. I had this tiny kitten, so small she could fit easily in one hand. I would have the hour ride to figure out what to do with her all day on a location set when I got there and another day till my flight home to figure out where to go from there. We stopped and a convenient store for coffee and such. I got a small container of milk. I tried to pour small amounts into my hand for her to drink, but she was too freaked out to care about the milk.

I held the squirmy little thing on my lap till we arrived at the plantation house. I quietly placed her in the basement without telling anyone about it, including the owner of the house. I'd would have rather risked getting in trouble (fire me please!) than risk the owner would chuck her out into the cotton fields or worse. I put her down and promised her I'd be back as soon as I could. She scurried off into the dim light to hide. About an hour later I was able to take a moment to get a dish a water to my new friend. I wondered if I would be able to find her in that vast dark basement.

I called out to her in a high voice. "Little kitten, where are you. Come and get some water little girl." To my surprise she came running out from under a pile of lumber. Purring and happy to see me.

I knew right then that, somehow, this fuzzy little thing was coming home with me.

There was a young actress who was playing a character named “Delilah”. One day during the shoot she had brought her own cat to the set in a carrier. I knew my problems were solved when I saw she was working that day.

“Oh Whitney,” I said with one hand behind my back, guess what I have?”

Her face lit up when she saw the little orange fuzz ball in my hand.

Whitney took care of the kitten while I was working. When she was on the set, the hair and make-up people took over. The kitten spent most of the day sleeping on a chair that was part of the large old house. The chair had a sign on it “Antique chair, do not sit.” Someone added beneath that: “except for kitty”.

The woman taking care of the craft service table was very kind and drove to the nearest town to buy some Kitten Chow. My little kitten, however, was only interested in sleeping.

It was about 1AM when we finished striking the lights and cables. We got in the van and left the location for the last time. I sat in the dark van with the tiny Delilah, as I had already named her after the main character in the movie, in my lap. I poured some of the Kitten Chow in my hand and offered it to her. By this time she was plenty hungry. She chomped voraciously into the food with her needle sharp teeth making no distinction between the kibble and the flesh of my hand.

“MOTHER F...” I yelled in pain the silent van to the half-asleep crew.

I called the airline the next day and made arrangements to carry a cat in my home-made cat carrier I had constructed from a Kodak film box and Gaffer's tape. The 'arrangement' consisted of my giving Delta Airlines more money.

I flew from Jackson, Mississippi to Cincinnati, Ohio with no problem but when I tried to board the plane to LAX they informed me that my cat carrier was not approved and I could not board. At the desk back at the gate they my only option was to buy an 'approved' pet carrier. 

Eighty more dollars please!

At home I already had two cats, now placing me perilously one cat away from being officially crazy. It took some getting used to on everybody's part but soon Delilah was one of the family. Delilah and I already had a couple thousand miles under our belts together so I took her in the car with my every time I had the chance to acclimate her with it which paid-off nicely later on. She loved to ride in the car. She would sleep in my lap or somewhere back in the car.

She was my little redneck, my little southern belle.

Delilah, interrupted from watch wildlife on TV.

She'll roll on her back and invite you to rub her tummy but don't you fall for it; you'll probably bleed. Over the years I have learned the subtleties of her moods and signals as well as earned her trust so I can get away with it but I keep on-guard.

The little sun-goddess takes her afternoon nap where it's warm.

I was not above playing the odd trick on her either though. After a visit from my parents we were draining the air out of the double-high air mattress they had slept on. Delilah was sleeping on it at the time and slowly sank into a crater as the air leaked out. The mattress was about half empty and I could not resist the temptation of falling onto the mattress. Of course, when I did, the sleeping Delilah suddenly found herself airborne. As if in a Wile E. Coyote universe, she managed to begin running in mid air and had almost cleared the room by the time her claws hit the carpet. She returned a moment later sniffing the mattress with great curiosity.

She's not the smartest animal I've ever had, in fact we sometimes call her “Bag-O-Hammers” or sometimes just “Hammers,” as we shake our heads when she can't seem to find a cat treat that has landed inches away.

Don't tell all the other pets I have had through the years but in spite of her temperamental nature and her lack of mental horsepower, Delilah was my without a doubt my favorite, and probably always will be.

That hellish week in Mississippi was quite worth it after all. The way the Kitten looked at me when I scratched her head (or stop scratching her head) I think I may be her favorite too.