# The Life and Death of Mistofur Galumphus b. 4/1991 d. 4/2011



## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

She was a five week old kitten, abandoned along with her littermates in the alley we lived on in south Minneapolis. Five kittens were left behind when the mother, who had birthed them somewhere in the vicinity , was taken by her people when they moved. A neighbor had already taken in two of them, and said there were a couple more loose. When I heard a commotion at the house across the alley from us, I came out to look and heard an adult say, "Kill the damn thing".

Three or for kids were crouching around an old car with sticks and stones, poking and pelting something under the car. I got close enough to bend down and saw the little kitten, hunched and crying. I don't remember what I said or did before getting down on my belly and slowly moving close until I could snatch the little thing and take it out of there.

We already had cats, so the kitten was kept on our porch until the next day. We had taken over care of a ten year old German Shepard named Susie when her owner had to go to a nursing home. She was in failing health, and we had already scheduled the mobile vet to come to put her down, so I had him give the little kitty an exam and her first set of shots. Later We decided to adopt her. We called her Misty, short for Mistofur Galumphus Cat.

She was a short hair tabby tortie, mostly dark, what I call 'urban feline camoflage'. She had a lovely patches of white and gold on her chest and another on her belly, with orange and white toes. She was a crackerjack mouser and loved fresh loaves of bread in nice plastic bags, which she would seize in all four sets of claws and pummel into ragged submission. Then she'd rip into the bread with her teeth in ten or twenty places until she had eaten her fill. She was a fiend for catnip, and loved to play fight while getting her belly rubbed.

We planned to have her spayed, but she got out, just once, for about one minute or less, in which time one of the local toms had a brief encounter with her. She had one kitten from that, and was spayed as soon as the kitten was weaned. I was very anxious when she only had one kitten. It was a large one, and I helped deliver it, and that was our Montana Rose Cat, another very brightly colored tabby tortie like her mother. She lived until about five years ago, when she became ill and was pts.

Oddly, both Misty and Mora, the cat that lives with my son in the other half of our double bungalow, were almost carbon copies of other beloved cats that passed on. Misty filled the place left when my husband's cat, Sophie, was lost, with a gap of a few years. Mora Lessa Cat is almost a carbon copy of Montana Rose Cat (Monty).

Misty was the best lap cat ever; if there was a lap to be had, she wanted to fill it, with a purr as big as the whole room. She spent a couple of years with the Trainor family as they moved to a couple different locations. When my daughter took over her care, she was ignored and abused by her boyfiend (yeah, not going to correct that typo!) We took her when my daughter left the state, thinking to take Misty later, and I told her later that my sweet little darling was going to stay with me for the rest of her days. That was over five years ago; I never regretted my decision for a second. Misty was the best little kitty cat ever!

We all got a chance to say goodbye to her as she was pts earlier today. She will rest next to Monty in the plot in our yard.


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