Cozmic Cat.
Born:- Spring-Summer 1993 – Died:- March 16th 2009. R. I. P.
Cozmic the Cat, or to give him his full given name, Really Cozmic, or just Coz’ to those who knew him, died today aged about fifteen and a half years in human terms.
Cozmic was about three to six months old on the morning of 30th October 1993 when he walked into my shop, looked around, walked up the stairs and ‘crashed’ under a record browser.
I, of course, was none too happy with this turn of events so I closed the shop, picked him up and took him down to the other end of the High Street where I left him…
Needless to say, he beat me back to the shop and was waiting outside the front door when I’d walked back, so I unlocked again and he immediately charged in, shot up the stairs and went to ground in the same place as he’d done previously.
I got him a saucer of water and left him to it, business being business after all and anyway, apart from the fact that we had an old listed building from the 1600’s, we’d already cleared the mice so he was going to be superfluous to requirements whether he liked it or not ?
The fourth or fifth person through the door that day was a guy who is really no stranger to those who read this blog or his own outpourings in his own wonderfully musical Kombat Blog http://nuzzprowlinwolf.blogspot.com/ and that was a certain Nuzz Prowling Wolf, who, when told of the aforesaid intruder, shot up the stairs to go and look for himself…
“Wow, man… A black cat the night before Hallowe’en ? That’s really cosmic !”
And a name was born and Cozmic he became and Cozmic he stayed.
Two days later and he still hadn’t moved, despite me leaving him there all night so I sent out for cat food and a litter tray and left him to it…
The problem being that Kocaine (the band I was in at the time... So named because we got up people's noses...) were gigging around Hertfordshire and we had quite a lot of gigs so there didn’t seem any point in taking him home.
On the third day at Emma’s (one of our two guitarists) insistence, I finally take home the cat…
I tried so hard to give him away to all and sundry but for various reasons it never happened, I even put up a notice in the local Vet’s but both families who turned up to look said he wasn’t theirs.
Well, to put it in a nutshell the longhaired black furball stayed.
He was an awkward little pest when I first got him, never wanting to go out, so we’d find lumps of fur that he’d regurgitated all over the house.
You’d think over fifteen years he would have managed to break the habit, but no… He kept hawking them up despite my blandishments and entreaties and telling him off every time I heard him start up… It seemed to be his favourite occupation for a while until once when loading the car with a p.a. I arrived at a gig I’d been booked to play to find I’d also brought a four legged hairy black furball with me.
Would you believe he loved it ?
Loud music was never a worry to him and when he’d sussed the audience was sitting on chairs he just cased them until he spotted an ample lap and without asking just jumped up upon it, settled himself down and watched me along with the rest…
Ok, the man or woman whose lap he jumped on was a usually a little surprised to find a few kilos of cat on it for the duration but usually a call of ‘Don’t mind him, he’s with me…’ or ‘Sorry darlin’… He’s my security…’ and no worries.
He was a strange cat in other ways also…
He’d perch himself in front of the television, usually sat upright where you’d want to step, for any nature, vet rescue, or Western film that involved horses…
No other animal fascinated him so much as horses.
Or else he’d drape himself over the Bass cabinet in the corner and wait for Sharon, my girlfriend of the time, who he absolutely adored.
You could never leave a full cooling cup of tea on the carpet or you’d hear slurping sounds within seconds of doing so.
He did like his cups of tea.
Chicken, whether leg or curry was immaterial to him.
Spaghetti Bolognese, tins of Tesco value tuna and prawns.
Any of the above in any configuration and he was in gastronomic heaven.
He’d greet guests at the front door and usually escort them through to the lounge before waiting for them to sit so that he could find a nice warm seat.
Over the years he was joined by Jodie and later on by Stella both of whom were left with me by ex-girlfriends although in Stella’s case it was at least by mutual agreement as Marina found she was totally allergic to cat fur, but finally the years caught up with him like they do all things and over the last year he managed to get cat diabetes, arthritis in both back legs and blind in one eye but he just carried on and despite the obvious discomfort of descending and climbing the stairs every time he wanted food or to use the litter tray, he still would not move downstairs to stay.
As far as he was concerned his bedroom was at the front of the house so he could peer out of the window and decide which visitors to come and greet and may God help any interloper who decided to sit on his chair…
If they didn’t have red stripes (no, not the lager) when they sat in it, then they more likely would have after he’d complained to them about it and that only took two miaow’s.. If they hadn’t moved after the second one then he must have figured that it was either him or them, and it was his chair so he wasn’t in any mood to back down.
It was recommended that he be put down last November when they discovered the diabetes and gave him a ‘couple of weeks at the most’ but as usual the stubborn little so and so defied all expectations and continued with his normal life style and there was no way I wasn’t going to give him a major pig-out at Christmas, so I held off…
On March 16th prior to flying out to see Haddy in The Gambia for two weeks, I made the decision.
He was definitely unwell and despite it all he would always mope when I took a break and so I made the final decision…
He went as soon as the liquid went in.
He’s now reunited with Jodie again, and I’m quite sure the Great Cat God is going to have his paws full when those two start arguing…
He wasn’t just a cat, he was my mate and I’m gonna miss him.
There's a true story that I turned into something I do onstage on
http://www.morewriting.co.uk/work/20374
and his last pictures (in the snow this year, are posted above)
Rock on, Puss Cat !
Born:- Spring-Summer 1993 – Died:- March 16th 2009. R. I. P.
Cozmic the Cat, or to give him his full given name, Really Cozmic, or just Coz’ to those who knew him, died today aged about fifteen and a half years in human terms.
Cozmic was about three to six months old on the morning of 30th October 1993 when he walked into my shop, looked around, walked up the stairs and ‘crashed’ under a record browser.
I, of course, was none too happy with this turn of events so I closed the shop, picked him up and took him down to the other end of the High Street where I left him…
Needless to say, he beat me back to the shop and was waiting outside the front door when I’d walked back, so I unlocked again and he immediately charged in, shot up the stairs and went to ground in the same place as he’d done previously.
I got him a saucer of water and left him to it, business being business after all and anyway, apart from the fact that we had an old listed building from the 1600’s, we’d already cleared the mice so he was going to be superfluous to requirements whether he liked it or not ?
The fourth or fifth person through the door that day was a guy who is really no stranger to those who read this blog or his own outpourings in his own wonderfully musical Kombat Blog http://nuzzprowlinwolf.blogspot.com/ and that was a certain Nuzz Prowling Wolf, who, when told of the aforesaid intruder, shot up the stairs to go and look for himself…
“Wow, man… A black cat the night before Hallowe’en ? That’s really cosmic !”
And a name was born and Cozmic he became and Cozmic he stayed.
Two days later and he still hadn’t moved, despite me leaving him there all night so I sent out for cat food and a litter tray and left him to it…
The problem being that Kocaine (the band I was in at the time... So named because we got up people's noses...) were gigging around Hertfordshire and we had quite a lot of gigs so there didn’t seem any point in taking him home.
On the third day at Emma’s (one of our two guitarists) insistence, I finally take home the cat…
I tried so hard to give him away to all and sundry but for various reasons it never happened, I even put up a notice in the local Vet’s but both families who turned up to look said he wasn’t theirs.
Well, to put it in a nutshell the longhaired black furball stayed.
He was an awkward little pest when I first got him, never wanting to go out, so we’d find lumps of fur that he’d regurgitated all over the house.
You’d think over fifteen years he would have managed to break the habit, but no… He kept hawking them up despite my blandishments and entreaties and telling him off every time I heard him start up… It seemed to be his favourite occupation for a while until once when loading the car with a p.a. I arrived at a gig I’d been booked to play to find I’d also brought a four legged hairy black furball with me.
Would you believe he loved it ?
Loud music was never a worry to him and when he’d sussed the audience was sitting on chairs he just cased them until he spotted an ample lap and without asking just jumped up upon it, settled himself down and watched me along with the rest…
Ok, the man or woman whose lap he jumped on was a usually a little surprised to find a few kilos of cat on it for the duration but usually a call of ‘Don’t mind him, he’s with me…’ or ‘Sorry darlin’… He’s my security…’ and no worries.
He was a strange cat in other ways also…
He’d perch himself in front of the television, usually sat upright where you’d want to step, for any nature, vet rescue, or Western film that involved horses…
No other animal fascinated him so much as horses.
Or else he’d drape himself over the Bass cabinet in the corner and wait for Sharon, my girlfriend of the time, who he absolutely adored.
You could never leave a full cooling cup of tea on the carpet or you’d hear slurping sounds within seconds of doing so.
He did like his cups of tea.
Chicken, whether leg or curry was immaterial to him.
Spaghetti Bolognese, tins of Tesco value tuna and prawns.
Any of the above in any configuration and he was in gastronomic heaven.
He’d greet guests at the front door and usually escort them through to the lounge before waiting for them to sit so that he could find a nice warm seat.
Over the years he was joined by Jodie and later on by Stella both of whom were left with me by ex-girlfriends although in Stella’s case it was at least by mutual agreement as Marina found she was totally allergic to cat fur, but finally the years caught up with him like they do all things and over the last year he managed to get cat diabetes, arthritis in both back legs and blind in one eye but he just carried on and despite the obvious discomfort of descending and climbing the stairs every time he wanted food or to use the litter tray, he still would not move downstairs to stay.
As far as he was concerned his bedroom was at the front of the house so he could peer out of the window and decide which visitors to come and greet and may God help any interloper who decided to sit on his chair…
If they didn’t have red stripes (no, not the lager) when they sat in it, then they more likely would have after he’d complained to them about it and that only took two miaow’s.. If they hadn’t moved after the second one then he must have figured that it was either him or them, and it was his chair so he wasn’t in any mood to back down.
It was recommended that he be put down last November when they discovered the diabetes and gave him a ‘couple of weeks at the most’ but as usual the stubborn little so and so defied all expectations and continued with his normal life style and there was no way I wasn’t going to give him a major pig-out at Christmas, so I held off…
On March 16th prior to flying out to see Haddy in The Gambia for two weeks, I made the decision.
He was definitely unwell and despite it all he would always mope when I took a break and so I made the final decision…
He went as soon as the liquid went in.
He’s now reunited with Jodie again, and I’m quite sure the Great Cat God is going to have his paws full when those two start arguing…
He wasn’t just a cat, he was my mate and I’m gonna miss him.
There's a true story that I turned into something I do onstage on
http://www.morewriting.co.uk/work/20374
and his last pictures (in the snow this year, are posted above)
Rock on, Puss Cat !
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