Gwai went to sleep for the last time today, October 18th, 2007, after years of sharing unlimited, unconditional love and boundless meezerly craziness with us. He will be deeply missed, but he had a long and full life with us, and we with him. Bye, gwai.

Gwai is a bit... special. He's always walked a little unsteadily, and he's just plain wacky sometimes. He is a very verbal part-siamese; he's an old guy now, getting along toward 15 years old, and he's skinnier now than this several-year old image shows. But he's still really cheerful and loving.

A couple of years ago, his liver quit, his gums and skin turned yellow, he lost all ability to walk or maintain his balance and we spent a good deal of money at the vets with him on a drip, trying to get his liver to work again. Well, to make a long, painful and expensive story short, the vet succeeded, and he's been with us for the last two years. We have to give him pills every evening, and feed him a special diet that doesn't strain his old liver, but it's been absolutely worth it. He's a good old friend, enjoys a high quality of life, and for our efforts, he and we both got a lot more time.

Gwai's got some funny things he does. If you pick him up, invert him, and put his feet on the ceiling, he'll proceed to walk around as long as you are willing to support him. I don't know if he simply can't tell if he's upside down, or if he's just making fun of us, but whatever, he's all about it. Also — if you meow at him, he'll meow right back. Loudly. He supervises all cat box operations, and is an expert at getting underfoot.

Gwai is a "head-butter." If you hold him near you, he'll butt you to show affection. Hard. How hard? One day I was leaning back in a chair, and he was standing on my chest. He looked at me, and before I even knew what had happened, he'd driven his head into my nose. The next day my nose was black and blue from the tip about 1/2 way to the bridge.

Altogether a superior meezer, as we like to call "his kind."

#cat #meezer #gwailo

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