A tribute to Elf

Brownie and Elf were the first cats we ever got. They were the first cats I owned since my own Smokey died when I was a freshman in college in 1995. They were also the first cats that John ever owned. Elf was a diluted torbie (tortoiseshell and tabby mix) while Brownie was just straight brown tabby. Brownie became my cat while Elf was John's cat, but we loved both of them just the same. Before we got cats, John thought he was a dog person. Elf helped him change his mind, and now we are both definitely cat people.

We wanted to get cats ever since we got married, but I wanted to wait until we had a house so we would have plenty of room. We got our house in September 2001 and adopted Brownie and Elf (originally named Blossom and Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls) shortly after Christmas that year. They were four months old when we got them, and their birthdate was estimated to be August 26.





Over the years, Elf has had many nicknames, but "Elfie" and "Elf Elf" were the two that stuck.

Brownie and Elf were always our Christmas kitties. They would always get excited when we would put up the tree and would camp out under it until there were too many presents for them to fit under it. We would try to keep a space for them, but it wouldn't always happen.



Elf never developed a full meow. Instead, she squeaked, so we would occasionally call her "Squeaker." She would even squeak when she would yawn like in the picture below.


Elf was the original bathroom kitty. (Pixie has taken over that position the last six months or so.) She always had to come in to see what we were doing anytime we were in the bathroom. Really, it's very fitting that she chose that place as her final resting spot.

Elf had a little crook at the end of her tail. We were never sure what caused it – either it was broken as a kitten or she might have had an extra bone in her tail. But it was the easiest way to tell the difference between her and Brownie when it was dark. If you look close enough, you can kind of see the crook in the picture below.


Her favorite toy was a stuffed worm. She would throw that thing and chase it down. We found it all over the place. Once, it went missing for a couple of weeks because she threw it on top of the fridge, and we had no idea. Sometimes we would be woken up during the night because she was playing with it on our bed and would hit us with it. She would also bring the worm to us so that we could throw it for her, so we would play a game of "fetch." As the original worm shown below became ragged, we bought more worms for her to play with, but she kept going back to her first one.



Elf's other favorite toy was a pipe cleaner. One Halloween, John made spiders out of pipe cleaners, and she loved to play with them.


Elf was also our lap kitty. In fact, she and Brownie would fight over our laps. She definitely did not like the laptop being in my lap and would try to edge it out just to get on my lap.


Elf couldn't stand to go without being petted. Neither she nor Brownie liked it when people would come to visit, but Elf would be the first one to allow people to pet her. Elf was the first one to take an interest in Mara after she was born.



Elf loved plastic. For some reason, she loved to lick it. She also loved to climb into plastic bags.


As with my mom, I know that Elf is in a better place now and she is no longer sick. We'll still miss her, though.