Beezus
Pesky Princess Beezus
Beezus is my youngest cat. The only girl. Just like my daughter Mariah who is the youngest kid (though only by 30 seconds in her case) and is the only girl.
According to vets, Beezus is a Russian Blue. That’s quite a designation for a former scroungy, partially feral kitten from a shelter in Butte, Montana.
Beezus’s story starts with Lucy and Frank. Lucy and Frank are two partially Siamese kittens I adopted in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The animal shelter called me one day and said someone had dropped a box of 26 kittens on the doorstep of a ranch in Rifle and would I take one? The kids and I went down and looked. The kittens mostly looked very small. Among the smallest were Frank and Lucy, who were displayed with about six other kittens in a vertical bird cage (the shelter didn’t have enough cages for this many kittens). I asked the shelter if they were eating on their own and they assured me they were. Their eyes were open even though they were amazingly small.
When I got them home, they didn’t know how to eat. I called my vet and he set me up with a concoction of condensed milk and raw egg. I bought doll sized baby bottles from KMart. They had to be fed every two hours for 3 weeks just like Ansel and Mariah did during their premie months. I even got the zombie look after a couple of days from lack of sleep. Frank ate so vociferously that he would bite off the tops of the doll bottles and I had to go back to KMart and get a stash.
But they grew and flourished. Because they were so young, they would do things to get their mommy time. I’d come up to my bedroom and the twins (who were they 7ish) would be laying on the floor watching TV and Frank and Lucy would be sitting on top of their heads (in their hair) purring away. I think it must have been the closest thing to mom’s warm fur they could find. Frank grew to be a big bruiser of a cat, the most comical and eccentric cat I’ve ever owned. He could be a star on David Letterman’s stupid pet tricks if cats would consent to do that sort of thing. Lucy grew to be a Princess. She was petite and beautiful. She was quiet, calm and demure. Princess Lucy. We eventually moved to Butte, Montana.
Lucy was killed by a car in front of our house on Broadway shortly after we moved (Broadway is a narrow side street in Butte). We had lived in a place in Colorado at the end of a road, so perhaps she didn’t understand that cars could do that. I wasn’t home at the time, so the kids were alone when it happened. They called my friend Robin and she took them all to the vet. It was too late, Lucy died at the vet. We were all devastated.
Mariah considered Lucy her cat (the only girl, the youngest kid). Mariah is very persuasive. She started in on me early about getting her another cat. I wasn’t too excited about this but Mariah is persuasive. So a few weeks later, we went to the Butte shelter. They only had two kittens, both grey, in the same cage. They looked like they had come from an alley. Both had thin scraggly hair and looked like they hadn’t been cared for. One of them was crying loudly. Of course, my daughter with the big heart picks that one.
I tried to talk her out of it. I like beautiful cats. I am a good American shorthair cat picker. My cats are really beautiful. This little grey cat did not even come close to meeting my standards. But Mariah is persuasive.
Beautiful Bilban - Ansel's Cat
So home she went. Immediately, I noted she had some sort of respiratory disease. Off the vet we go. She recovered but never stopped wheezing. She wheezes to this day. She also got put on the good cat food. And we found out she was mostly feral.
Mariah and Ansel decided to name her Beezus after their beloved memories of Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. In the story, Beezus in the sensible sister. Ramona is pesky. Beezus should have been named Ramona.
She wanted to be near us but didn’t want us to touch her. So she’d zip into the room I was in, brush by my leg without touching then zip out. Zipping is one of Beezus’s strong suits, she is almost eight now and still zips. Her nickname is Zippy.
If I would reach down and try and touch her, her ears would go back, her eyes would get wide and she’d look like she’d seen Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining. I continued to try and touch her. Eventually (read months) she’d let me do this. So I started on actually petting. Acceptance of petting took months too, and she didn’t permit it for more than one swipe – followed by zipping out of the room. After a couple of years, petting was acceptable. Picking up was not. Ears go back, eyes go wide, horrified look is displayed on kitty face. Beezus is expressive and she lets you know what she thinks. But I did continue to pick her up and pet her if only for a second. Three years later, I was allowed to pick her up.
Beezus has two basic looks – her horrified look and her blissed out look. The blissed out look appeared years later. The blissed out look comes over her when she saunters over to a place she wants to sleep. She has been known to get so blissed out that she falls off things because she loses track of where she is in her blissed state. Beezus is a cat of extremes.
She’s now seven almost eight. She actually comes to me now and wants to be picked up. When I’m sitting in bed in the early morning reading, she throws her body at me and insists on being petted NOW! She follows me around like a dog. This took seven years of love but love certainly worked for her.
And, she’s now beautiful. She has the thickest, most beautiful coat and has a bluish cast to her grey hair. Russian blue. I’m a good American short hair picker 
. And she’s still more like Ramona than Beezus. She zips around the house with the mad woman look during a windstorm or when the temperature drops suddenly. She jumps on the table and claws the rug when she’s not supposed to and dares you to chase her off. She tells you loud and clear when she thinks you ought to feed her, pet her or pick her up. She is not subtle or demure or sensible.
Beezus not enjoying her picture being taken
Beezus is one of my many teachers of the power of gentle persistant attention to hurt and pain. In others, in myself. Being faithful and persistant and paying attention day after day, month after month, year after year. The other being needs to want relationship. Beezus wanted to make a connection, she just didn’t trust it. But we both hung in with each other and now we are best buds.
