Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Life's Pace

This to revisit and proceed on from the earlier hippy/zippy/Mr Natural entry. You have heard from me before about torque, gear changes, and the like. Years ago, a least a long decade, I found myself looking at a bulletin board in a local hardware store in Minneapolis. There I found a card for a "cattery" advertising Maine Coon Cats. This breed has always interested yours truly because of their size and length (I think they still hold the "Guiness Book of Superlatives" record for both, domestic cat category, of course), Todd Bobo's place was just blocks away, and I had considered giving myself a retirement present.

A phone call later a visit was arranged, the new born kittens were around their mother, and there was a orange one ( prerequisite color) and it was soon evident that he was a contender. Not only was the color right, but he was already in fairly high gear, even though all his litter mates seemed to barely have the eyes open and were immobile. I said I wanted him, and Mr. Bobo warned me about his possible character problems.

I saw no problem, made a down payment and picked him up a few weeks later when he was properly weaned. He was definitely a zippy cat, who not only possessed memory and intelligence, but was seemingly a cat for life. His name, Cajun, was given by my dear Wife and partner, Joni, and he has lived up to it well. Now at 12 years old or so he is going strong, has solid torque and speed (eg. flying up and down stairs, going up the wall a bit for good measure at times) and can be an arm full at times. Not for everyone, but I came "out of the gate" much as he did and thus appreciate his gear ratios. (A picture will be posted of him, again in the near future.)