Predeceased by her Uncle Woogie and cousin Sophia. Survived by her loving cousins Burt and Susan, and her angry spinster cousin Mojo who hates her.
Zam died Friday after a short illness and a much longer period of being a spectacular weirdo. If the goal of being a cat is to live a long life which is equal parts comfortable and non-productive, she excelled in both regards. I shall now tell some Zam stories.
Zam prayed frequently and often. (Example.) Her commitment to prayer was, in fact, what originally attracted me to her; she was praying furiously in her cage at the humane society back in January of 2003, and I was instantly smitten. This kitten believed. What she was praying to or why was never successfully sussed out; she frequently prayed to her people and to/for the promise of treats, but sometimes prayed when no one was looking and was once seen praying to a beam of light.
The first time I left Zam alone in the house overnight, she proceeded to immediately go into heat for the first and only time in our association. (She was scheduled to be spayed the following Monday.) When I returned home the next day I found the single most affectionate cat who has ever existed, and who wanted nothing more than to spend every second of every minute of every hour of the next 48 hours standing right in front of me meowing furiously and rubbing herself on me. It was, as you can imagine, disconcerting; especially given that Zam was otherwise relatively aloof for the first 10 years of her life. She neither needed, nor cared to associate herself with, people. This attitude problem was finally relaxed thanks to diligent efforts by Chris and Mel in the waning years of 3QF. They successfully turned Zam into a “nice cat.”
She remained a nice cat for the rest of her life, and became increasingly affectionate and friendly as she matured into senior citizenship – up to the point where, for the last year or so, she was perfectly content to use my prone body as a mattress, which is not something she ever would have done before. In Leslieville and also at our current home in Regent Park, she was also alert to the first sign of wakefulness in the bedroom on any given morning, and would jump up for immediate affection as soon as her people could be demonstrated to be within striking distance of “theoretically awake.” Oddly enough, I found this annoying for the first little while. Then I thought it was the sweetest thing ever. She did it on the last night she spent at home – at 1:30 in the morning, and requiring over 20 minutes of attention. I really didn’t mind.
Zam is the only cat I ever rescued from a burning building, though admittedly, I was in the building too at the time. She was under the bed, and not coming out; it was also the only time I ever grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and made her do anything. She spent the next several hours in a state of nervous agitation mirroring that of her owners, sitting on the lawn across the street from the burning building in question. Her next three months, living with her cousin Mojo, were not her favourite memory; but that night, when we were all safe and sound at my parents’ place and the whole ordeal was over, was one of mine.
On my 35th birthday, Zam made a run for it. She had been trying to escape custody since approximately ten minutes after she first moved in with me. I was spending my 35th at a user conference in Peterborough, and perhaps sensing that this would be her one and only opportunity to get back to whatever wild feline lifestyle had been eluding her for her (then) nine years with me, she saw an open door and went straight through it. My partner at the time had arranged for birthday cake to be delivered to me in my hotel room to make up for the fact that I’d be spending that night alone; little did I know that within 12 hours of that present, she’d been out scouring the streets for my recalcitrant kitty, who – in a stroke of luck – was found by a neighbour before she had successfully boarded a Greyhound to wherever the hell Zam came from. Thankfully, the near escape seemed to quench Zam’s residual desire to flee; while she still greatly enjoyed escaping into the hallway of whatever apartment we subsequently moved into, she would usually run about ten feet, stop dead, and restrategize – at which point she could be easily snared.
Hobbies included sitting, lying down, staring out the window, occupying spots, locating and occupying new spots, attending meetings, saying words like “enh” and “kiaow,” squatting in the bathtub, using her own belly to warm up a cold meal and then re-eating it, and more recently, murdering robots. Liked women more than men – possibly a lesbian. Made friends with every girlfriend I’ve had and was loved plenty in return. She was the healthiest cat I’ve ever known, and was not sick a day in her life until the end. She was fat for most of her life, thin for a portion of it, soft everywhere, bright eyed and beautiful.
Zam was named for a bounty hunter and assassin from Attack of the Clones, and also because it sounded cool. She was also more recently known as the Cow Who Says Meow, thanks to an embarrassing photo on the internet of her dressed up as a cow for Hallowe’en. Her other names included Zamwise Hermione von Woogie III, Zammalammadingdong, Magoo, Shmucka, Princess Pasha, J’boo, Zmuda, Attacko!, Habbas, Zammels, Ubiss, Zambo, Paul, Zammles Jebammles, Fuzzles, Puffles, Zambot 47, Ubie, Pufflose, Zammy Zammy Broken Brain, Quabji, Fatso Catso, Thinso Kinso, Barfles, Ibu, Plumpo, Plopsky, Fartsky, and Pemp.
Zam was my last line of defence, and she and I have been together for my entire adult life – since two months after I moved out of my parents’ house. She was hilarious and strange right up until the end. Her soul is still here with me, and will be, I suspect, for the rest of my days.