In loving memory of Zeus

I've been sitting here staring at the screen and trying to figure out how to start this post but I can't find the words. Kim and I lost our beloved kitty Zeus this past Saturday, March 29, 2008. It happened completely unexpectedly and much too soon (he was only 11 years old). It is difficult to know exactly what happened, but the best guess is that he had something called feline cardiomyopathy, which can be very difficult to diagnose in cats because symptoms often do not appear until near the end.

Needless to say, it has been a very tough week for both of us. We went away to Whidbey Island on Sunday night so we would not have to be at home thinking about how empty the house felt and seeing all of the things that reminded us that he was gone. We still expect him to be waiting by the garage door to tell us about his day each time we come home from work. We sit in bed and listen for him, expecting him to come up the stairs and find a comfy spot to sleep on one of us.

Zeus was a wonderful kitty (no offense to our friends who have their own cats, but Zeus literally is the best cat ever!). We wanted to use this post to write about some of Zeus's adorable personality traits and some of our favorite Zeusy stories as well as post some of our favorite pictures to help us focus on all of the love and the great memories we shared.

Here is Aaron's favorite photo of Zeus. He is soaking up some sun from the skylight in our master bathroom on the day before our wedding last year and getting scratched between the ears.



Here is Kim's favorite photo of Zeus, doing what he does best - sleep in his gopher pose on his favorite purple blanket.



This is the photo of Kim and Zeus that was on Kim's biography on Match.com. It is one of the things that first drew Aaron to Kim - she looks so happy and full of love for her kitty and he is happily soaking it up.

On their first date, Kim told Aaron about Zeus and how he would sometimes chase his tail, except she said "tase his chail" by mistake. That is how we referred to this ever since.



This is Zeus performing his "card trick" that we always said we should videotape and send in to one of those home video shows. If you put a credit card down on the ground, he would stand on it with his front paws and try to lift it up, but he never could quite get under it, so he would back around the room, sliding the credit card with him. He focused so intently on the card while he did this, and could not be distracted.



Here is Zeus helping mommy make Christmas cards. He especially loved it when he got one of the bows stuck on his paw.



Here he is playing with daddy's santa hat this past Christmas.



Here he is with daddy (and a lot of loot in the background!) on the first Christmas after Kim and Zeus moved in.



Here is the picture of Zeus-in-a-box not long after Kim adopted him. She has this picture on her desk at work. Look at the beautiful blue eyes!



Here are a couple of photos of one of Zeus's recent favorite beds - the top of the cable box. He liked the extra warmth that it gave him. We found him there so many days in a row after work that we started calling him Comcast Butt! Kim had to move him one time because his tail was getting in the way of the receiver for the remote control.




Here is Zeus playing with one of his favorite toys - a twisty tie! This one came from the packaging from the Homer and Plopper toy that Kim got Aaron this past Christmas.




Here is Zeus in one of his other favorite nap spots - daddy's lap. He was especially helpful when daddy was working at home on his laptop. Notice how the laptop is nudged out of the way to make room for the kitty bed!





Here is one of Zeus's favorite pasttimes - finding a box (any box will do - no matter how small) and crawling into it. Look what the mailman brought us - the cutest kitty in the whole wide world!



Here is Zeus doing his best to help mommy and daddy open some of their wedding presents after they got back from their honeymoon. He always loved sitting up high - in this case it is pretty high, but he even liked being an extra inch off of the ground if he could find something to sit on (like a book or magazine, or grandpa's tool chest, etc).



Here is Zeus attacking the computer - we were playing back a video we had taken of Zeus talking to us, and he was very interested in meeting this new, strange kitty on the screen. Even when there was not a video playing, Zeus would help mommy work on the computer by attacking the mouse cursor as she moved it around. And sometimes, when the monitor got dirty, he would clean it for us by licking the screen. Very helpful!



Here is what happens when you stand up from a chair for 5 seconds with Zeus around....notice the smile on his face in this one - he is very proud of himself!



Here is Zeus helping mommy with her scrapbooking.



In this picture, Zeus is guarding mommy's lap and keeping an eye on his arch-nemesis - Mirabelle.



Zeus and Mirabelle sit down for some peace talks over coffee and breakfast. Notice how Zeus was nice enough to take a break from cleaning his butt for this picture - the back leg is halfway back down.



Here is Zeus sleeping with (actually - sleeping under in this case) the big teddy bear Lance.



Here is a close-up of one of Zeus's many naps. He kept very busy most days - cuddle with mommy and daddy before work, morning nap, snack, afternoon nap, snack, litter box (we think he held it until we got home), greet mommy and daddy after work, sleep on mommy or daddy's lap, snack, go to bed with mommy and daddy.



Another nap - this time he is curled up behind mommy's computer monitor. Zeus always had to be in the same room as mommy and daddy, even if he wasn't always in a lap. This led to trouble one day when he decided to take a nap in the box that mommy was using to to put glitter on some cards she was making. That resulted in one of his other nicknames - Glitter Butt (and this was a literal nickname!)



Here is Zeus taking a break while playing on his scratching post - known as the Tower of Power. Kim's dad added a base to this scratching post so it would be extra tall and Zeus could tower over all who entered the room. The Tower of Power was so tall that Kim couldn't pick him up when he was all the way at the top. One time, Zeus got a little too excited while playing at the top that he slipped and fell - onto mommy....bending her glasses a little bit and causing her to have to go to the mall to get them adjusted.

Before Kim met Aaron, she had the Tower of Power in the bedroom at her apartment for a short time. This turned out to be a big mistake because Zeus would decide to cuddle with mommy in bed, and he would launch himself from the top directly onto her bladder - 8 pounds of flying cat!



Here is Zeus sunbathing - or is it another nap? Kitties are solar powered after all, and Zeus is no exception. He doesn't look thrilled that we interrupted his nap in this picture though.



This is Zeus posing for the camera looking cute with his big blue eyes. He was taking a break from talking to the birds in the trees outside the window.



A couple of other random Zeusy traits that we love so much - the way he came sprinting out of the litter box (but only after #2) and run a lap around the house - I guess he felt so much lighter that he had to celebrate.

Sometimes we would be lying in bed and we would hear Zeus meowing sadly from downstairs - it seemed like he got lost and was trying to figure out where mommy and daddy went. When we heard that, we would call to him to let us know where we were, and he would come running up the stairs and join us in bed.

Zeus would occassionally scrape on the floor next to his food dish to "bury" it - we think this is because the house he lived in before Kim adopted him had many cats and he actually had to hide food in order to be able to eat. He was skin and bones when Kim adopted him.

Zeus also enjoyed swimming in his water dish. He liked to dip his paw in and lick the water off of it, but sometimes he went overboard and we would find wet paw prints all over the floor, and he was wet up to his elbows when he jumped up into one of our laps.

Zeus, we miss you so much and we'll always love you!