Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Frisco "The Bean" Grotberg-Jensen


Frisco "The Bean" Grotberg-Jensen
February 1, 1997 - October 30, 2009

Top Ten (Current) Best Memories of Life with The Beaner-Man
In chronological order, mostly

1. Going to visit you in the pet store on Brady Street in Milwaukee, while waiting for you to grow big enough to take you home. You were the only orange kitty in a litter of eight black brothers and sisters. You would push your way to the front of the cage when I would visit, and you'd hold your front paw out onto the glass -- a tender version of prison visit, I guess. When my parents visited me in Milwaukee, I made them walk to the store so they could meet you.

2. Smuggling you onto the #10 bus for your first visit to the vet. I'd packed you in my top-loading backpack with a pillow and a towel. You was very quiet and sweet until everyone on the bus decided to cease making all noises. Then, you howled to get out. I let your head poke out the top, and a little girl saw you. Her eyes got really big and she was about to grab her mom's sleeve when I caught her eye, smiled, and put my finger to my lips. Shhhhhhh, I motioned. She covered her mouth and turned around and didn't look back at us. She didn't tell her mom, either. At the vet, three days after I brought you home, you were .7lb. Oh, you were cute!

3. You waking me up in the middle of the night with your head stuck in a glass jar. There was a drop of milk on your head, and you opened your mouth like you were meowing, but I couldn't hear you. It was hilarious.

4. The funny, buzzing noise you'd make when you carried a sparkly pom-pom in your mouth

5. Watching you chase a laser beam until you were panting like a dog.

6. The time I took you to the hippie pet center to get the mats on your rump shaved off. The groomer called me at home to tell me that you were impossible to work with, you were hissing and trying to scratch and bite her. I came to find you shrunk in the back of a cubby hole surrounded by sheep dogs. I stuck my face in the cubby and said, "Hi, Frisco!" and you meowed and walked right into my hands. I picked you up, sat you on the scary table surrounded by drooling idiots, and you sat still as a piece of fruit while she shaved you. I'd never let anything bad happen to you, and you believed me.

7. How you sat in front of the shower curtain when I took a shower so you could watch the water drops run down the plastic. I tried to keep you off the counter with a squirt gun, and you thought it was a game because the water sometimes ran down the cupboards.

8. Watching you chase leaves and moths in the backyard. The week before you died, you matched the piles of leaves.

9. You, rubbing your face and head on Todd's beard.

10. When I went to bed and once I was settled in , I could call your name and you'd come waltzing in the bedroom, meowing loudly. You'd jump on the bed, walk all over us, sit directly on the crossword puzzle I was working on and fall asleep. After getting mad at me for moving the puzzle and laying my head too close to you, you'd go back to sleep and not wake up until I did.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Oh, how lovely. Really lovely. It will be strange to come to your Frisco-less house.