“Three…two…one! Launch da kitty!” A grey ball of fluff was gently tossed a couple of feet down the hallway. When it landed on the floor, it ran down the hall into our living room, except when the rare whim veered him into the dining room instead. If you did not promptly leave the end of the hall, he would come trotting back down the hall to be launched again.

This is my deepest early memory of our first kitty, Macska. He arrived in our home and hearts in early September of 1998, and he recently had to be put to sleep on Saturday, November 1st, after 16 years of charming us utterly. What a wonderful cat.

Meredith and I were married in August of 1998, and we knew we wanted a couple of cats to make our home complete. Meredith was sure she could not handle the stress of picking out just one cat from the local non-kill shelter, so she sent her pre-marriage roommate with me to pick out two cats (one each). As Laura and I entered the Treehouse cat shelter, a woman was returning a three or four-month-old kitten because she was allergic. The kitten was a jaw-droppingly adorable grey long-haired kitten, and Laura gave him a long look.

We went around the shelter, and I fell in love with another kitty who came into our lives in October of that year, Bocca. Laura, after seeing all the kitties available for adoption, went back to get the long-haired grey kitten. When the woman had brought the kitten back in, she apologized to the receptionist; she was told not to worry – the kitten would not stay at Treehouse for long. I think it was about 20 minutes that he was there.

We took Macska home in a cardboard carrier and let him out once we were in our apartment in Chicago. He calmly wandered around and checked everything out. Meredith was smitten. Macska never did have a shy bone in his body.

I’m still not sure how the launch-da-kitty game got started. I suspect Macska was blocking the door one day and I gently tossed him aside and he took off running. He loved it, and so did we.
Everything that cat did was cute, and if any cat has ever understood the concept of “work it, baby!” it was Macska. He would flop in the middle of the floor, roll over on his back to expose his fuzzy tummy, tuck his paws up, tilt his head at an angle, and if he REALLY wanted to wow you he would let out a tiny mew. We called him our show cat, and for at least ten years he was. He loved people and wanted to be in someone’s lap if one was around. Whose lap changed from year to year – sometimes he favored me, especially when I was lying down on the couch, and sometimes he favored Meredith. Meredith was his clear favorite for the last several years of his life – she could not be on the couch without Macska being in her lap.

Some random memories about Macska:

He loved to lick metal and plastic. Odd, but true. We would sometimes be awakened by the sound of a cat licking the tub faucet. I think he liked the way it felt on his tongue.
He loved bread, and was known to tear into bread bags to get at it, so we could never leave it out. In much the same way, he loved cheese.

When he was a young cat, he liked to play tug-of-war with him on one end of a cat toy and me or Meredith on the other. We just called it “tug!”

When he was still a kitten, he somehow got up on to the top of Meredith’s bureau, then on to her dollhouse, where he curled up and went to sleep on the porch of the house.
For years later in his life, he like to be in Meredith’s lap when she was reading her Bible. We called him our “spiritual kitty.”

Early in his life, Macska was known to climb up in our artificial Christmas tree, bend a few branches to make a nest, and fall asleep in the tree.

Macska may or may not have been related to my sister-in-law’s cat, Earl. Earl looked almost the same as Macska, was about the same age, and was a found stray from the north side of Chicago.
After sixteen years, I still cannot reliably spell Macska (which is Hungarian for “cat”).

Macska was a very special kitty to us, and we are much sadder for his being gone. While our other kitties are all friendly and like to be near us, none of them is the consistent lap cat that Macska was, so we are reminded of his absence quite often. He was a dear kitty, and an amazing one, and I am deeply grateful we were able to enjoy his company for so long. Rest in peace, my dear kitty.