Amadis, in memory copyright (c) 2019 D La Pierre Ballard This is a tribute to Amadis our cat who lived with us for thirteen years and then vanished on the evening of Monday, October 14th of 2019. Here are the simple songs that I used to sing to Amadis when he came in each morning for his breakfast. He dearly loved every one of them. I used to sing them to him while feeding him his breakfast. He's a hungry kitty, he's a hungry cat. He lives in the city and needs food for that. There is no need to show him pity. He's a hungry kitty, he's a hungry cat. Kitty Amadis is his name. Mice and sparrows are his game. We know him because of his fame. Kitty Amadis is his name. (Here is the same but for the Groundhog) Punxsutawney Phil is his name. He's the Ground Hog, that's his game. We know him because of his fame. Punxsutawney Phil is his name. He scrubs and scratches and sleeps all day. Mice and sparrows are his prey. At night he sleuths and slips away. Amadis the cat. Of his exploits he will not say. Into the house he comes each day. About him shout Hip Hip Hurray. Amadis the cat. Amadis went outside each evening and came back in the next morning. He went out at 7:30 PM on Monday, October 14, 2019 and has not been seen since. He was born on April 23, 2006. He was dearly dearly loved by his family. He was an orange-cameo cat with very soft medium length hair. Most people would refer to him as a larger tan colored kitty. He liked to be petted in both directions. He liked to be scratched especially on his head, neck and under his chin. When he was standing he liked to be petted on his belly, but if you petted him on his belly when he was lying down he would want to play rough which meant teeth and claws for him! He purred loudly. When he looked at you he looked you in the eye. Usually, though, he did not look at you! He nearly always walked with his tail straight up. We had often said that he had about run out of his nine lives. He had slowed down a lot in the last few months. He did not jump nearly as well or as high. He had lost weight from 14 pounds down to 12 but showed no signs of being diabetic. He had taken to napping under our kitchen table near the glass back door. When we ate at that table he was always beside our feet. He craved affection tremendously and was given the same. It is extremely likely that on that last evening that he was down in the creek bed to the west of our house and had a heart attack while back in the heavy undergrowth and was very quickly gone. We loved him and he loved us. We miss him enormously. When he came to our back porch in June of 2006 he was small and skinny. Tha last two inches of his tail had probably been run over by a car and pretty soon broke off. Shortly after he came to us he broke off the tip of his left upper canine tooth. He had already been fixed when he came to us. After he had been with us for several years he was hit by a car and was sent rolling. He made it to our back porch and I found him and carried him inside. While he was extremely sore after a few days he recovered. Once when tangling with a tomcat he got a notch in his left ear which healed in a few days still leaving the notch. Another time when he tangled with a tomcat he got a bad bite on his right shoulder. The bite bled down his fur. We washed it off and he recovered in a few days. Several times he got scratches on his nose or cheek from tangling with a tomcat. He loved tomcats as he did all animals but they saw him as a threat. Amadis loved all of the wild critters that came to our backyard. For several years we kept a bowl of cat food on the back porch. We soon found that we were feeding the whole neighborhood! Late late at night we got all kinds of critters who came to eat with us. A couple of times I saw him on the back porch with a skunk. He just stood and looked at the skunk without bothering her. He was never sprayed by a skunk. Sometimes instead of a skunk it was an opossum. An opossum looks like a giant rat but to Amadis she was just a friend. A box turtle came by on occasion but she and Amadis got along fine. Amadis talked to us quite a lot. His vocabulary was not large and you had to be able to understand his body language to understand him. He would come to me about every twenty minutes and be wanting something. He might have needed more of his dry cat food. He might have wanted more of his canned cat food which he only got for breakfast. He might have just needed me to stir his dry cat food with my finger! He might have just needed courage because he was afraid of the washing machine just beside his food if it was going. He might have needed to go out in the backyard. Sometimes, he just needed some loving. He would sit patiently waiting for me to respond. If he could not get my attention then he would put his front paws up on me or give me a gentle bite! When I was asleep in bed he would hop up on the bed and sit right in my face purring loudly. If that did not awaken me he would reach out with one of his front paws and gently touch my cheek with only the softness of his paw! Sometimes, Amadis would take a nap with me in the afternoon. He would get down where my feet were and sometimes put his chin on my foot. Amadis really loved to be brushed, and so I tried to brush him regularly. I had not brushed him for some time, but now I wish that I had. He had quite a number of cat toys which he loved to play with especially when I participated. His favorites were furry soccer balls about two inches in diameter. He would bat them around and chase them as they would roll away from him. While we tried to keep all of his toys in our east bathroom the soccer balls would show up all over the house. I always called him “my old sweetie”. One evening when it was getting late I said to him, Amadis it is time for man and beast to go to bed. While he liked me to refer to him as the beast he was ready to go outside for adventures in the dark rather than to nap! He went outdoors each night and was the King of Beasts in our backyard. Cats are nocturnal animals and have tremendous hearing, smell and nighttime eyesight. We knew that when he went outside our yard that he expected to be the King of Beasts there, too. He liked to sit on a towel which we left in the seat of a chair on our back porch. Cats like to be up high especially when they are the King of Beasts. When I let him out that evening at 7:30 PM on Monday, October 14, 2019 I did not know that we would never see him again. The moral of all of this is that you should appreciate those you love as they can be gone all too soon! Below are some stories and remembrances about Amadis. One trick that he did was to roll over when he and I went out in the mornings to get the newspaper! I would say to him let's Amadis and Pippy, he liked me to be called Pippy, go get the newspaper. He and I would go out the front door. I would say to him, are you going to roll over for me? We would go out and on the sidewalk or on the dirt under the oak tree he would roll over! Now the trick was that he taught me to ask him to roll over! He was going to do so anyway! He liked to hop upon the west bathroom counter to help me shave or brush my teeth or even to wash my hands! We have a plastic cup sitting on the counter. He really enjoyed knocking it into the sink. I would say to him, you made a basket! He really enjoyed doing that. He wasn't very good at helping me shave so I would set him down on the floor and tell him he did not need a shave. He would go on to other things! One time when I was watching a DVD on the east bedroom computer, I had made me a cup of peppermint green tea which had cooled some. He hopped to my lap and to the desk top. Then he took a sip of my peppermint green tea. He rolled his eyes and said Wow! Now he did not really roll his eyes and say Wow! But he did the same in cat body language! He did not drink much as he just had a sip! I learned later from my Cousin Karol that peppermint is very similar to catnip! I decided to avoid the peppermint green tea as I did not want to dope up our cat! Our neighbor to the East told me that she really loved Amadis as he would come into her backyard often. In his younger days she had seen him jump the six foot fence, but later he always came in through an opening under the fence which she would make sure that he had available. She said that he was just beautiful but would not let her get close enough to pet him. Just about two weeks before his disappearance he caught a mole in her backyard. Moles are mammals that live in burrows underground. They eat earthworms and are very damaging to plants and yards. She saw him stalking the mole waiting for the mole to come up from his burrow. Later she saw Amadis crossing her front yard with the mole in his mouth. He was beaming with pride at his accomplishment! Another lady told that she really loved Amadis that he was so beautiful but would not let her pet him. She, too, saw Amadis carrying the mole in his mouth with great pride. Amadis really enjoyed going out at night to hunt. He hunted mostly mice and sparrows and occasionally caught them. Sometimes I have found dead mice in the yard which he had hunted down but not eaten. I can well imagine him not wanting to eat a mouse. It was the sport and the chase that excited him! We always knew when Amadis was stalking something. He would be all hunkered down in the grass with rapt attention and utmost stillness. Cats have a enormous amount of patience when stalking a small critter. When stalking he would slowly inch forward towards the game. Usually, the critter would get away and Amadis would stand up and shrug it off as though to say, Oh well! Sometimes, though he would get close enough to spring into action! This, too, was not always successful. When he succeeded he would bring his prey to the back porch and want to come in with it so he could show it to us. On several occasions, unknowingly, we let him in with his prey in his mouth still alive after which he would turn the critter loose in the house! What a joy it was for us for Amadis to let a live mouse or bird free in the house! Amadis, himself, never had any doubt but that he could catch the mouse or critter again! He always did, too, eventually! It was the chase and the sport which really excited him! Several times he got up on the roof of our house by climbing one of our trees and jumping to the roof from a branch strong enough for him to go out on. We would hear the patter patter on the roof of him running to and fro! Once during a thunderstorm I got up on a lawn chair and tried to rescue him from the roof. I was able to get a hold of him but he held on so tightly that I became afraid he would pull me up, too! I gave up and while I was getting down off the chair he jumped from the roof to the ground! Amadis used to climb the trees to chase squirrels. Squirrels are much lighter and more agile in climbing than are cats. Once when he chased a squirrel up a tree and then to the outer branches, the squirrel went to ever thinner branches and when Amadis tried to follow the branch was not big enough around for him to hold on to and he fell off! At least, he landed on his feet on the ground! Every spring time of the year Amadis would shed his heavy winter season wooly fur coat. He would continually get tufts of fur in his mouth many of which he would swallow. I always tried to get these out of his mouth because he would swallow the tufts of fur and eventually spit up. I still have a small metal box of these tufts of his fur.