Misty the Cat: Biter of Mice.

We owned an apartment building in San Francisco between eleventh street and twelfth street, and between Mission and Howard. Misty tolerated our new child Daniel, because she was a tough but fair cat, and so we did not return her to death row.

As written, she was a large female cat. She would leap impressive distances and land in silence. Because I was under the mistaken impression that the travel time from locations on Cape Ann, Massachusetts to some land that we own in Washington Vermont would be less than the travel time from Oakland airport, I took a contract working on an ion implanter at Varian Semiconductor. We I worked there for a while, and Misty aged. She was still able to control our yard, to leap and play, and bite all mice. She didn't seem to age, except for a soft thump when she landed on a table, or the ironing board, or the mantle. She was reasonable with our new sons: David and Samuel, and accompanied us when we left.

When we left, she was an ancient biter of mice

The move to Cape Ann was not a good move for us, and we moved to Ithaca New York, which is where we are now. The joke is: Ithaca is centrally isolated. The city has a large number of local colleges and universities and is drenched in beautiful music of all sorts. We sang in choirs, and it was fun. Our youngest son loved Misty. She would let him use her for a stuffed animal. She could no longer catch any but the oldest mice, let alone a rat, so we descended to traps.

She had become the biter of ancient mice.

Misty the Cat: Biter of Mice.

A Cat Story: Misty with Blanks.
(Misty is the cat.)

In the beginning, there was no Misty, only mice, and we lived in San Francisco, California. The mice were loud and nocturnal. They multiplied and ran all over the house. They began to run over our faces as we slept.

I took a pleasant walk over to the SPCA (so called). It was the close to the site of the old San Francisco Baseball stadium. There is still a bar on the corner named Balls. There is a hill leading up to Balls, before one gets to Balls, one finds the SPCA. On the other side of Balls, there was a Chinese restaurant.

A nice woman showed me death row. I walked down the row of cages making mouse noises, sort of an IQ test for mousers, and a large gray female cat with a white front, white paws, and a black nose won the competition for continued life. The name on the cage was Misty. I was given a card with her particulars, and took her home. We tried to make her feel welcome. She adjusted quickly. That night she caught a mouse, (think it was uncle Fred) and played with it for about four hours. The mice became invisible and inaudible to us. We knew they were there, because Misty would leave the occasional body under our pillow for us to enjoy after she ate the head. Good Job Misty!

more later...