CLEO

CLEO IN A SUITCASE.

Cleo was a neighborhood cat that my husband's kids called Hamburger Kittie because they would feed her some of their MacDonald's hamburgers. My Stepdaughter Shawn is 47 now so this was when she and her brothers and friends from the block were in their late teens early twenties. Cleo lived next door with the Irish family who had lots of little kids and my husband tells me the girls used to dress her in doll clothes and push her in a carriage. When Rod would come home from salmon fishing he would whistle and she would come running for tidbits when he was cleaning his fish. Rod and I dated cross country Fairfax to South San Francisco from 1990-94 ( both of us worked for United Airlines) and we married in 1995.

The Irish family moved out in the middle of the night running from creditors per the wife's American mother and went back to Ireland leaving Cleo.  Rod found her mother sitting on the front stoop crying and helped her clean up the mess they had left behind.  In the garage Rod found some curious paraphernalia and suspects his neighbor was assembling Tech9s for the IRA.  We were taking care of Shawn's black lab at the time so Cleo "went down the street" as she didn't like dogs.

When Tara the lab went to live with Shawn and her family Cleo started coming by again. After a while she would come in and spend the night but leave the house when I went to work in the morning. One morning I called her and she came to the door like usual, looked outside, then turned around and went back into the house. She was ours... or... we were hers!!

CLEO DISCUSSING HER DAY WITH ME!

She was so smart, probably the smartest cat I have ever known. One time I was cleaning her litter box in the garage and got distracted and left it there. The next day while we were at work and she needed it and it wasn't there she found her round scratch thing toy about 12 inches wide and did her business in the middle of it not on the floor. Can you believe that? So smart!!  Also, she loved to sit on the couch on the end that was near the fireplace to warm her old bones.  At other times we had a heater we would set up in the family room when we were watching TV.  It made a clicking sound as it was heating up and she if she wanted heat she would go tap it with a paw to make the clicking sound for heat even though it wasn't plugged in.

She had a flat head and ear tufts and looked rather like an Abyssinian with the agouti coat. One day my husband and I were standing out front and the Mail Lady came down the street. Cleo got so excited and greeted her and wound around her legs and meowed to her. The Mail Lady gave us her story:   she had belonged to a family years before on a street behind us who moved away and left her bowls on the porch and Cleo behind. That's when she became the neighborhood cat. The Mail Lady used to carry treats for her and knew her well.

 Cleo was very old and she finally got a tumor which we had removed but it took her.   I still miss her so much and even though Rod and I have and had other cats no one will ever take her place.