from Amy's Attic

Minerva's Story

I found Minerva at the local SPCA animal shelter. Or maybe she was waiting there for me.

I had looked in most of the cages and found one black and white female who was two or three years old. She rubbed on the cage door and on my fingers, and seemed to be begging to come home with me, so I decided to ask about whether she was available.

While I was petting the black-and-white, I heard a cat meowing from the only corner I hadn't yet visited. "Come over here! Look at me!" it seemed to say, but to get to that corner, I had to move a 30 gallon plastic trash can. Perhaps it had been placed there on purpose for the cats' protection, because both of the corner cages were occupied by black cats, who are feared or despised by some people.

In the top cage was a kitten who meowed at me as if to say, "You finally got here! I've been waiting for you!" Then she lay down and tucked her paws and started purring. And I mean PURRing. This kitten had the loudest purr-box I had ever encountered! She closed her eyes slightly and dilated her pupils so that she seemed totally black, and fluffed out her fur so she appeared larger, and grinned at me. I was captured.

I asked about both cats, but I couldn't take either one of them home with me that day. The black-and-white still hadn't been examined. The kitten still needed to be spayed. I signed papers and promised to return the next week to claim the black kitten. Then I began thinking about a proper name for her.

Since she was my thirteenth cat, it fit perfectly that she was also black. I considered calling her Hecate [sometimes pronounced sort of like "here, kitty"] but the thirteenth letter of the alphabet is M, so I chose instead the similar name Minerva. Both goddesses are wise and magickal, and the cat certainly seemed to be both. Minerva is now "My 'Nerva" and sometimes "Miss Nervous" and is the most demonstrably affectionate cat I've ever had.

[More stories about Minerva are in my fingers, waiting to leap on the keyboard.]

The next week I went back to get the black-and-white cat and named her Gellicat [pronounced jelly-cat] because she was a Jellicle Cat. But she didn't want to be petted or held, and wouldn't play with Minerva. On the sixth day she was with me, Minerva walked up to her and slapped her, as if to say, "Play with me, dammit!" It was hard to take Gellicat back to the shelter, but that's what I did. [sigh]

Fortunately, when I looked for another cat to replace her, I found Apollo. I'll tell his story next.

Amy's Attic | WebCatt