![[Picture of Smidgen]](Smidgen-t.jpg)
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In terms of actual humans, more information about the Coar family name, ancestors, descendants, and other relations can be found at the Coar.Org Web site. This page is actually only devoted to my immediate family, which consists of my wife and our cats.
![[Picture of Cathy]](Cathy-t.jpg)
When I met my wife, she had just started dating my best friend at university. In fact, being the clewless geek that I was (and probably still am), when I found that for their first date they were going to a motion picture I hadn't seen, I invited myself along. But enough of that. In 1983, after we had been walking out for a couple of years, she accompanied me to my high school reunion. I proposed there, she accepted, and we were married a year later to the day. Well, not exactly; we couldn't get all of the ducks lined up for the same day, so the wedding and engagement dates differ by about a week.
Cathy is incredibly smart, and graduated from university cum laude. (She would have done better except that our dating during her senior year seriously impacted her grades.) She took a degree in Classics, and we have a lot of Latin and Greek texts around our place as a consequence.
At the time of this writing, we have four cats. Since we move around a lot, and rent rather than buy, this complicates matters -- a surprisingly small number of places allow pets, and even fewer look with gladsome eyes on the prospect of four cats in an apartment. But oh well; they're our family, so a place that will is a must. (One boneheaded executive at Flatley Corporation in Massachusetts told us that people gladly gave up their pets in order to live in Flatley properties. What a loser. At the time he and I were in heated discussions because we had the cats with the permission of the property manager, but Mister Bonehead up the ladder in the Echelons Beyond Reality decided to trumpet his assotishness by making the pet policy enforced from that level down, giving the property managers no discretion. We moved out.) The cats are listed here in the order of their impingement on our lives.
![[Picture of Maggie]](Maggie-t.jpg)
The first few months after Cathy and I were married, we lived near some people that had a couple of kittens. Their behaviour (the kittens', not their owners) was as outrageous as kittens' usually are, and it inspired us to get a cat when we could, since we've both always been cat people. (The kittens' owners had them in violation of the lease, which we didn't want to do.) So shortly after we moved for my next job, we drove to a cattery where Cathy picked out Maggie. We went back a few weeks later, when she was old enough (Maggie, not Cathy), and picked her up and added her to our family.
So Maggie was the first. In the beginning, she liked to eat cantaloupe (!) and chili; in later life she has given up on such exotic tastes in favour of more mundane things like Brussels sprouts. A few years ago she was diagnosed as having a hyperactive thyroid gland, so she's now on daily medication.
When she was a kitten, Maggie liked to get under the covers when we went to bed, and attack our feet if we moved. We called her our 'cactus-patch cat' as a consequence. I don't remember when she stopped going undercover, but she hasn't done it now for years.
She also liked to climb inside the couch we had 'way back when (a Naugahyde sleeper). Getting her out could be a trial if she didn't want to come, and we were terrified of sitting down too violently if we didn't know where she was. One night we came back to our apartment building and smelled a truly awful odour, and assumed someone had had a cooking misadventure. As we got closer and closer to our door, the pong got stronger -- until we opened the door and saw the smoke. We were convinced Maggie had bitten the electrical cord for the telly and lain there sizzling for hours, and ran about in a panic trying to confirm or deny the thought. As it turned out, she was peacefully asleep inside the couch, and the smell was from a synthetic jumper we had inadvertently left draped over a lamp left on. No harm done, except to the jumper and the assault on our olfactories.
![[Picture of Bête]](Bete-t.jpg)
After Maggie had been with us for a while, I decided (more than a little irrationally) that I wanted a black cat. We found a nearby shelter that had one we could adopt, with the condition that we also adopt her sister. (The shelter was very reluctant to let anyone adopt a black cat; apparently they suffer badly around Hallowe'en from irresponsible people who get them as party props and then abandan the poor things.) Thus Bête joined our family circle.
Bête is a confirmed fatalistic psychotic. She always expects the worst, in a resigned sort of way, and doesn't like normal attention. She does like to have me rough-house with her, until she starts purring furiously and trying to bite my hand. For a couple of years she had the habit of wriggling madly on her back by the front door when we came home, only to tear off into the recesses of the house if we tried to return her welcome. Later she developed the habit of stropping on my ankles when I emerged from the shower; she'd strop left-right-left and then nip my ankle, then strop right-left-right and nip my other ankle. (We asked the vet about it, and he was nonplussed. When we asked what we should do, he replied, "If it were me, I'd punt her!" This is the same vet who had a doorbell next to the receptionist's window that was labelled "Ring Bell. Sit. Stay.")
In 1999 Bête was diagnosed as having a hyperactive thyroid gland, and the best treatment under the circumstances was radiation. So that's what we did, and for about a fortnight we couldn't let her on our laps. Not a particular hardship, since I don't think she's been on our laps at all in the last fifteen years.
Most recently, the veterinarian noticed that she's dehydrated. He says it's not uncommon for older cats to start having difficulty absorbing liquid, and the solution (workaround, really) we're pursuing right now is to give her subcutaneous injections of 100cc of Ringer's solution twice a day. She's starting to look a bit hunted when she notices me eying her and realises it's been several hours since my last attack. However, she seems to enjoy it, in a weird sort of way, and it's definitely improving her health.
We wish there were something we could do to convince her we care about her, but she's a cynic.
![[Picture of Thud]](Thud-t.jpg)
We had the name before we had the cat. Before Cathy and I were married, we were once visiting some friends who had a large cat who made very distinctive sounds when walking on the hardwood floor. We jokingly determined to someday own a large cat and name it 'Thud;' a few years later the opportunity arose, and the name suited the cat better than we suspected.
Thud is Bête's sister, and numb as a hake. I mean, she doesn't have two neurons to rub together. She's a bundle of love, and adores humans, but she not only don't know nothin'; she don't even suspect nothin'.
She's absolutely mad about mint, and not just catnip. Woe betide the human who eats a peppermint -- or even a Tums™ antacid -- where Thud can catch a whiff; there'll be no peace until the scent dissipates.
Another of her many, many oddities is her insistence on watching television with us. If we're on the couch watching the telly, she simply has to get up and sit between us. However, since she's got no inkling of a clew, she tends to immediately fall asleep.
Thud has very silky fur, and lots of it. When we brush her, it is guaranteed that the brush will have 0.25" to 0.50" of tightly woven fur felt in it by the time we're done. Possibly in an attempt to help out, she doesn't mind being hoovered. She can usually be found lying on her side somewhere around the house; we just hoover one side, tip her over, hoover the other side, and we're done. She will be gazing up at us adoringly throughout.
Most of the stories and anecdotes about Thud -- and they are legion -- are either sight gags or catbox jokes, and require a certain amount of gesticulation and body language to convey. So let it suffice that I say she's an innocent source of much amusement.
Smidgen was sort of an impulse acquisition. While shopping in a mall one day, Cathy and I stopped into the pet store to look at the kittens. There she was. We admired her, then continued shopping, rather quietly. We had reached the other end of the mall and were having a couple of ice cream cones, and we suddenly looked at each other and asked, "Should we?" "Let's!" And we raced back to the pet store, frantic to get the kitten before someone else bought her. No worries, we got there in time. So we bought her, and arranged to pick her up after we'd finished our shopping.
We seem to definitely have done everything right in raising her; aside from bullying the other cats, she's incredibly photogenic and loving and entertaining. She sleeps with us, generally hangs out in whatever room we happen to be occupying, and a few years ago she discovered where I went when I got up early every week-day morning. When I sat down at my terminal in my home office, she was fascinated. And she discovered that the bookshelf above the monitor was nicely warm. Ever since, she gets up with me almost every morning and joins me in my office as I catch up on the night's email. When I got a new computer desk, I left the door off the cupboard above the monitor, and Cathy donated one of Smidgen's favourite old bathrobes (that's what Smidgen has her chin on in the thumbnail), so now the cat has her Spot where she can be warm, cozy, sociable, and digesting.
See some photographs of Smidgen.
We occasionally get visited by other relatives, of various degrees of consanguinity. The most insistent ones are from the Southern Hemisphere, and they're a quiet but cheerful bunch. They don't take up much room, but neither do they seem to be considering leaving. There's a photograph below of them being as soberly festive (December 2000 holidays) as they seem to get. We're not quite sure what to do about them; benign neglect seems to have the least impact all round. At least they haven't imposed on us for food, and they seem comfortable with technology.
See a photograph of these quiet-yet-insistent houseguests.
