A box containing a new mom cat and four kittens was brought home from an abandoned home/construction clean-up site.  The kittens’ eyes were not yet open.  The first kitten out of the box, the explorer on shaky legs, was the one chosen to go with us.

At about one year of age, that cat gave birth to her own litter of four kittens.  She was neutered the following month.

The 2-year old cat disappeared for a 4 day stretch.

The 2-1/2 year old cat would regularly chase dogs away from our yard.

A large black labrador dog chased the 3-year old cat up the townhouse steps -- the cat chased it back down.

At some point she had three sleep positions at night: on my chest (after kneading a bit), over the covers between my legs, or under my arm.  Up to this point I also had a waterbed.  At no time when the sheets/blankets were off it and the vinyl mattress was bare did she knead the bed with her claws extended.  Either she knew, or vinyl was just not that appealing.  (I traded the waterbed for a futon.)

The 5-1/2 year old cat was cornered under a bed by two adult Doberman Pinschers in a house at which I was temporarily staying.  I foolishly pushed my way in to get the dogs away.  Luckily they didn’t snap at me.  A little later when the dogs left the room unsatisfied, one of them “took a dump” in the living room on her way out of the house.  (I like to think that the cat scared the crap out of her.)

A few months later she had her first photos taken at Christmas time.

A couple of emotional low points over the years briefly saw me thinking "who would take care of Dance if I was gone?"  So I stayed.

At age 10, the cat got a young companion kitten which was [mis]named Shass.  (We were supposed to have "Danse et Chanson," French for "Dance and Song."  My linguistic error.)

Video exists of the 10-1/2 year old cat and Shass walking around one of our apartments. 

By this time, Dance had taken a liking to resting in my lap as I was reading a newspaper or book -- or working at the computer.  (Usually in the early stages of compiling the history that now makes up a good part of this website.)

Video exists of the 12-1/2 year old cat and Shass standing in the hallway the moment they first laid eyes on my newborn son Andrew.

Right, wrong or indifferent, Dance never needed to go to see the vet through most of her life.  She’d mostly been fed chopped-up alfalfa sprouts mixed in with her food (since at least age one), and most of her life she received a quality balanced cat food -- not one of the big-name brands.  (The regular store brands were not good enough, by my research.)  Uneaten canned portions were refrigerated, and then heated to room temperature and served on an old, small, blue and white Curier & Ives litho plate (which had been gotten as part of a promotional set from A&P years earlier back in Cleveland).  And I recall at various times blending in a mashed brewer's yeast pill or powdered garlic, a bit of avocado or fresh papaya.  A couple of times I also got her a small Cornish game hen, served when thawed.

Most of her life she did her business in Litter Green brand cat litter.  Our house(s) never stank.

She had a relatively soft-to-medium meow and a medium-to-loud purr.  I imitated the latter often -- I still do -- and wonder if other cats are puzzled why I have such a strange accent for a human male.

Her long hair was brushed fairly regularly.  And I don’t recall her ever coming across a skunk or rolling in manure.

As years went by a few extra white hairs began to show in her coat.

Shass ran away/was catnapped on Father's Day 1993.  Dance apparently went into a depression shortly after that.  She was taken to the vet by early August for a skin rash and was given some immunization shot in addition to the skin medicine.  She had a reaction to it and started to become incontinent and lost weight.  By the third week in September, I knew what was coming and prepared a grave for her off the side of the small garden behind the house.  The night of the following day, I held her emaciated body and we reminisced about our lives together.  The following morning I could barely choke out to my boss that I wasn't coming in to work that day.  My mom drove us to the vet where I held Dance as she got her last injection.  I brought her home, and noting the reality of that expression "dead weight" -- all muscle tone gone, totally limp – buried her seemingly too small body.  During the previous couple of days the song "Memories" from the musical "Cats" had been purposely played several times to try to help flush out the tears.  But there were still more in there.

A time or two during the next several months I may have caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye.  And on a few occasions in dreams I've caught up with her again briefly.  In some contexts she was my child.

All told, Dance lived at 17 addresses during her 15-1/2 years.  She never did like moving.  (One apartment manager, when I asked if they allowed cats, said, "Oh, cats really don't like to move."  I thought, "Lady, she's probably lived in more places than you have.")  Dance never tried to run back to a previous address once we were moved in, but she verbally and "hidingly" expressed her displeasure once the moving boxes began to appear or once we were in the car.  She never indicated that she was, literally, pissed off at me.  (I’ve only had five other addresses in the past 9-1/2 years, and the current location we are buying [writing this in the Spring of 2004].)

It would have be nine years before I had another cat in my household.  That line from the song "Mr. Bojangles" taunts me: "After twenty years he still grieves."  Maybe not...