Spitball Army

“Do you have kids?” I am sometimes, though rarely, asked.

“Well, I have pets.”

“Ooh!  Cats?”  If the person asking is a cat-lover, the first part of that is usually an octave or two higher than the second part.  I nod to answer Yes.  “What are their names?”

“They’re from the same litter,” says I.  “A male and a female cat.  The male’s name is Ziggy.”  The interrogator smiles.  Ziggy is, after all, a familiar-sounding name for a pet.  I continue, “His full name is Zigeunerweisen.  Have you ever watched a cat between around two and four in the afternoon?  You know how they’ll rouse from that second or third nap of the day and start chasing shadows and their own tail, doing their kitty version of a lion growl, and darting through rooms and down hallways?  Well, there is a piece of classical music written by Pablo de Sarasate called ‘Zigeunerweisen’ that has that same frenetic, energetic pace, just like a cat’s crazy hour.”

My questioner’s eyes glaze over.  Maybe I offered too much information.

“Anyway, Ziggy was like that when he was a kitten, so that seemed like an appropriate name.  But it’s much easier to say Ziggy than his full name.”  I try to limit the number of words I use that have v-sounding w’s to a minimum, in an attempt to avoid sounding lofty.  Wagner.  Weltanschauung.  Kurt Weill.

“What about the female cat?  What did you name her?”

I say, very matter-of-factly, “Her name is Barbara.”

With total honesty, I swear to you that this statement is always met with a double take.  Then a laugh.  For who, in their right mind, would ever name a cat Barbara?

Most assume that I named her after a human, someone that I know with that name.  I allow them to believe that, if they like.  My eldest aunt, who is also my godmother, is named Barbara.  One of my fellow graduate school mates was a Barbara, and we were close friends for a time just before I was adopted by this cat and her brother.  If cat Barbara could have ever been named after a particular person, though, her namesake would most likely have been my first grade teacher, SAM (our acronym for Sister Augustine Mary, who later changed her name back to Sister Barbara Mason), who telephoned on my birthday one year and played me “Las Mañanitas” on her trumpet.  That is the kind of thing that you never, ever forget, the kind of thing that demands a reminder of a moment that belongs to no one but you.  A homebound feline companion bearing her name could be that reminder.

But Barbara was not named for any specific person.  Instead, she was named after another cat.  Well, in a sideways manner, I guess.  To explain it to you requires the telling of another story.

During college, I lived in Quincy House – a Cambridge city block housing a few hundred students, a handful of graduate student tutors, and a varied collective of Harvard faculty members.  It was an outstanding experience, as we, the undergrad students, had exposure to a multitude of diverse people, their backgrounds, and interests.  A group of us spent an evening at one music grad student’s apartment learning about the operas of Richard Strauss (the subject of his dissertation).  E.O. Wilson joined us for lunch one afternoon, and pulled a test tube filled with ants from his coat pocket to illustrate a point about sociobiology.  I recall discussions over coffee about the oratory of Ronald Reagan with tutor Paul Erickson (who later wrote a book on the subject), and listening to Roger Swaim’s colorful descriptions of bee-keeping, while standing in the House courtyard.  Daily, we had random contact with this colorful batch of residents, and sometimes we would schedule time with them for more specifically prescribed educational purposes.

On one such scheduled meeting, a small group of us went to the apartment of Business Professor Raymond and his wife, Lee.  We stood on the landing outside their door and knocked.  There was no answer.  We could see that the apartment was dark, and the curtains were drawn.  We knocked once more.  Shortly, we heard some shuffling and movement on the other side of the door.  The latch turned and the door moved slowly inward until there was about a two-inch crack of an opening.  Mrs. Raymond’s face appeared out of the darkness.  She pressed her face toward the opening and, raising a finger to her lips in that universal sign, said, “Shhh.  Michael’s sleeping.”  We filed into the living room and tip-toed around the furniture into the adjoining study where Prof. Raymond was waiting for us.  We were all unaware that the Raymonds had any children, for surely we would have seen them playing in the courtyard.

As it turned out, they did not have any children, nor any grandchildren, that were named Michael.  Michael was the name of their cat.  A large, old, spoiled-rotten cat who, that day, was enjoying the luxury of a quiet nap in the midst of a bustling college campus.

Imagine if Lee Raymond had said, “Shhh!  Fluffy’s sleeping.”  Or “Snowball’s sleeping.”  We would have likely not taken her too seriously, thinking that the sleeping habits of a cat paled in importance to our impending discussion of the economic theories of Adam Smith (or whatever it was that we were discussing that day).  The choice of such a mundane, commonplace human name for a pet was ingenious.  It served to include him, without hesitation, as an official member of the family.  I resolved to remember that small lesson, for the day that I had pets of my own.

The lesson was soon forgotten.  The following year, I adopted a kitten, named her Gatita, and lost her just a few months later.  Eight years after that, I was living in Birmingham.  A pair of kittens moved into my backyard, abandoned by their mother, who showed up only a couple of times to check on them before she disappeared altogether.  I named the kittens Zippy and Waldo, for no reason, in particular.  Within six months, they were both injured and killed by the Highway 78 traffic behind my house.  I decided that, if I ever again brought animals into my home, it would be a permanent situation, and they would be official members of the family.

It only took a few months before I caved.  A friend of a friend of a friend had kittens to offer, and my two current housemates chose me immediately.  You know why Ziggy got his name.  Choosing a name for the female was more difficult.  Her medical record at the veterinarian’s office has my first shot at a name, Squishy B, scribbled on its header.  But, immediately thereafter, I had remembered the lesson of Michael Raymond, and was trying out girls’ names on her.  Suzie?  Too girly.  Mary?  I had a friend named Mary, and she might think this to be a tribute.  I considered Cecilia, Margaret, Brenda and Linda.  Those were all fine, but the moment I said Barbara, I knew it was perfect.  No one in their right mind would name a cat that.

Now I say the name, “Barbara,” and what I envision before me is not a psychology graduate student or a trumpet-playing nun, but a furry companion with a distinct personality.  She complains when she is hungry, is constantly fixing her hair, protests and runs from the room when I sneeze, and, except for the unpleasant occasions when she violently coughs up a hairball, is nearly human.

So, please don’t laugh at her name.  You’ll hurt Barbara’s feelings.