Posting because it's time to post. I doubt my capacity for coherency right now. Maybe bullets can help.

• Blitz, the cat who lived with my family for the past 22 years, was put to sleep last Thursday. I think of her as "my" cat, but she really belonged to my parents, and herself. She came into our lives accidentally; we had purchased two kittens, one for the family and one for my sister, who was now living on her own. Nora, the perfect, sweet, pretty kitten was to be for us, while Blitz, the scrappy, hyperactive, runt of the litter was to go to my sister. Blitz was soft and cute, as kittens tend to be, but she had been born with a bent tail that formed a club at the end, and her name was a true reflection of her personality. Long story short, Blitz never went to live with my sister, but stayed with the family. After a year or so, she had succeeded in driving her sister away and forcing our older cat out of the house. She knew, long before we did, that she ought to be the only cat in the household. Her ambition far outstripped her maturity and even while staging her not-so-subtle coup of the cat population, she was still trying to nurse at my mother's breast. The latter activity resulted, as one might imagine, in a contentious relationship with my mother, which lasted until the last 5 years or so of Blitz's life. Blitz was adept at bouncing off of walls, achieving high perches, and slaughtering birds. She broke her leg by wedging it into the crotch of a tree in our backyard, then gleefully dragged her tiny cast through her own feces. We have pictures of her snoozing on the couch with her brown-spotted cast. She was very much an outdoor cat, albeit one who enjoyed the comforts of home to the utmost. She spent her days denuding the neighborhood of rodents and hastening the evolution of the bird population by capturing the slower of the species. At night, she would come home to nibble on her food and collect the accolades and attention she so richly deserved. She loved to sleep on human bodies and could often be found colonizing the broadest (or softest) chest, back, buttocks, or thighs in the house. Even at her full adult size, she was smaller than most cats, but had an uncanny knack for taking over even the largest bed. The humans of her realm would wake to find themselves clinging to the edge of the mattress or contorted in pretzel-like shapes, while Blitz sprawled or curled in the middle of a wide nest. She also had a need to knead, and had no compunction about using her claws while she did so. We watched her approach with mingled dread and affection, blocking our tender skin with blankets, pillows, and other armor, so we could have the pleasure of stroking her incredibly soft fur without the attendant pain of her incredibly sharp claws. She also put those claws to use in her working life, sometimes pinning the tail of a small rodent as it tried to escape, other times batting it about, until finally using the same weapon to bring it to its untimely death. Up until the very end of her life, Blitz loved to play, and could be counted on to chase strings, ribbons, shoelaces, and other trailing objects. She was a fool for catnip and could often be found nesting in my mother's herb garden. She loved gardens in general and would find a patch of dirt warm from the sun and doze in the afternoons. She lived in 4 different houses with my parents and found her spots in each of them. In Hamden, her last home, she enjoyed lying half in sun, half in shade at the very edge of the hemlock hedge, where she could watch bugs, stalk birds, and receive the occasional scratch on the chin or ear from an obliging human. She always loved attention and affection, but it was not until her later years that she became truly needy of them. She developed a cantankerous yowl that she would unleash any time someone passed by. In earlier years, this sound would only have been deployed in a true emergency, such as being stuck out in the rain overnight. Several times, I awoke in such a circumstance to find a dripping-wet Blitz sitting outside the second story window, announcing her displeasure. After what one must assume were many attempts to gain our attention at the usual doors and windows, she had climbed up onto the roof and wanted to be let in there. The yowl also came in handy when she had snuck into the attic and been locked in there by an unsuspecting human. For me, she is the model for all other cats, and I find myself puzzled and disappointed when they do not respond to the same type of scratching and petting that Blitz appreciated. She trained me how to be a cat owner, and I know I will think of her whenever I put those skills to use. They will never be used so fondly or so well again.

Apparently, this post is like a sheriff in an old Western: one bullet was all it needed to get the job done.