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It wasn’t unexpected. In January the vet discovered a large, fast-growing tumour in his abdomen. As an FIV+ cat he was not a candidate for either surgery or chemo so we took him home to spoil him in his last weeks — and oh yes, he was spoiled, spoiled with chopped chicken and tuna and even milk, and endless cans of $3-a-can special prescription yummy food, and was allowed to sleep on my head and had fresh water run for him every five minutes and all kinds of other spoiledness.

He came to us in 2007 with his pal Elwood, sick enough that his FIV+ status was quickly discovered. His original name was Ricky Bobby but we thought that was too goofy even for him so he quickly became the other Blues Brother.

After his initial illness, despite his lack of an immune system his health was pretty good except for his teeth. Over two separate surgeries several years apart he had them all removed and was a much happier guy afterwards. (Cats don’t actually use their teeth for chewing, so it didn’t stop him eating pretty much whatever he liked. It meant he could stick his tongue WAY up his face though.) After his first surgery he got a hilarious special gold-star certificate (which I should have kept) from the vet for excellent behaviour.

Here’s the first picture we took of him when we got him — lying on the stairs, demonstrating his habit of being totally immovable and also his other habit of lying down in inconvenient spots where he blended in well and could be easily stepped on.

Of course, laundry was a different matter. He always had to sit on contrasting laundry for maximum shedding effectiveness.

He liked laundry a lot. Particularly dirty laundry — underpants or other unmentionables — the kind an enterprising cat could dig out of the hamper, drag down the stairs with much triumphant yowling and then hump to death in the middle of a dinner party to great effect. Jake killed all of our socks repeatedly and sometimes even larger items, whole pairs of pants or dressing gowns, fell to his mighty hunting skills.

In a more practical vein, he was an excellent hunter of millipedes. It used to be Elwood who found them and played with them a bit before turning them over to Jake to kill and eat, so for four happy years I didn’t have to deal with a single millipede myself*. After Elwood died I had to take over the finding (ick) but could still sic Jake on them for killing and disposal.

After his teeth were out his tongue often stuck out when he was sleeping since there was nothing to keep it in:

Not that we got to see it much since he often slept with a paw shielding his face:

He was particularly fond of sitting on my head if I was lying down with a migraine. You wouldn’t think a purring cat on your head would be at all good for migraines, but somehow it did help. Perhaps he learned it from Elwood.

He was a huge burrower. When I washed the duvet cover I’d try to pile the duvet in an entertainingly burrowish way for him.

In his last weeks he wasn’t much good at grooming himself so he’d park himself in front of Carson and let Carson groom him, at least his front half.

They were good pals, although not above taking a random swat at each other just for fun when passing each other in the hall.

He affected a dignified obliviousness to being dressed in cunning outfits.

He was never full of mischief — he wasn’t a climber (although he did like M’s loft bed), nor did he push small objects off shelves. He limited himself to scratching the furniture, jumping on the kitchen counter, and doing absolutely anything in pursuit of fresh water.

Bye, dude. You were a good pal.

–
* Bugs are a Pink Job in our house

D: And so it was immortalized on film, huh?
M: No, it was a picture.
D: I’ll just go over here and feel old now.

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Time involved: Five or six hours total
Active time: Maybe a little over half an hour

First, have it be August when there’s a ready supply of nice cheap Roma tomatoes. Buy a 25lb box of tomatoes (don’t pay more than $1/lb), a couple of onions, a few heads of garlic and a few red peppers.

I say 25lbs because that’s how much my oven holds either in two large roasting trays or four smaller foil trays from the dollar store. The oven’s going to be on for hours; may as well fill it up and make it worthwhile.

Put on some music. Wash everything. Take the stem ends off the tomatoes and cut them in half or in quarters. This works well as an assembly-line kind of thing, if there’s someone else you can lasso into helping. Toss the tomato chunks right into the trays. Do the same for the rest of the veggies. It looks like a huge pile of tomatoes but really it’s about 20 minutes of work here.

Pour a bit of olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar (if you have it) over each finished tray then pop them in the oven and set it to around 300F.

About once an hour, switch the trays around and give everything a good stir. You can ignore them the rest of the time.

After a number of hours — probably five or so — it’ll get to a point where the volume has decreased to about 1/3 of the starting volume and there’s very little obvious liquid left in the bottom of the trays. Now it’s done. Don’t worry about cooking it too much though. If it ends up too thick for your taste you can always thin it down with a bit of water or wine.

Scrape the trays directly into the food processor, process it until it’s smooth, then pour into containers and freeze. It’ll need salt but I find salting is best done at the point of use. If you think you’ll forget and end up eating oddly bland sauce, salt it while it’s in the food processor.

There! Easy tomato sauce.

Other encouragements: jam, chicken stock.

Child: I was travelling to other dimensions! Singing a pirate song!