Dingo and I spent the weekend in Austin with our dear friends P&M, to celebrate(mourn) their moving to Colorado.

At dinner on Saturday, P said, “I think Boadie was just the right cat for what you needed. I miss her.”

And then, you know, I had to take A Moment. But he was right. She was what I needed when I needed her, and I can’t imagine that one gets the gift of a pet like that more than once in a life.

In 1996, the Bedbug and I visited NC for Easter. We were (as usual) staying with his parents. Just before dinner on our last night, his mother was showing me old family pictures.

“I hear a cat!” says I.

“There’s no cat,” she said.

But I insisted (not usual for me, with her or in those days). I followed the sound, and out on their front porch was a tiny tabby kitten, yelling its head off. I tried to creep up to her, but she took off, bounding off the step onto a tree branch, down, around the back of the house, under the air conditioner.

For about an hour I tried to coax her out, with slow movements and a gentle voice. I put out a dish of milk and she crept out, shaking, to lap at it, but went right back under the A/C when I moved.

Eventually everyone else got restive. They took a piece of wood and shoved her out. I threw a towel over her, picked her up, and put her into a cardboard box that I left by the back door.

Halfway through dinner I took a piece of my salmon out and put it in the box, then walked away.

After dinner, I opened the box and she stared up at me with her yellow-green eyes, purring. I held her and played with her while we sat in the back yard, and she never made any move to run away. In the car, she climbed around, talking a little in a scratchy voice but perfectly calm. At my parents’ house, we gave her bread and milk, which she ate while purring. She slept in a cat carrier in her room. In the middle of the night she started crying, and I stuck my fingers into the carrier. She bumped her head into my hand for a scratch, then settled back to sleep.

I said that we already had 2 cats at home, and that it would not be fair to her or them if I took her home with me.

We got in the car to the airport, and I started crying. I cried all week long. On Friday, I called my father from work (right out in the middle of the room, on the one phone in the department).

“I have to have the kitty,” I said.

He was not surprised. But he did note that my mom was not going to be happy about not getting to keep the kitty.

Kitty was now christened Boadicea, and my mom complained (for the rest of Boadie’s life), because she had already named her Tigerlily.

There were further adventures in NC: Boadie had worms in her lungs and nearly died, and my parents’ cats had to go on medication. I paid to have their carpets steamed. After a month she was healthy and certified to fly.

She came to Chicago and was supremely unconcerned to be introduced to two large adult boycats. She liked to run at the sofa at top speed and slide under it on her belly until just her tail stuck out.

Once she was investigating a paper bag and got the handle stuck over her back leg. She raced from one end of the apartment to the other probably 4 times before anyone could stop laughing long enough to help her.

She slept on my chest.

When I left the Bedbug, I took the tea kettle, a mug, the stereo, the futon, and Boadie. She was the one thing I would’ve fought him tooth and nail for.

We lived together for about a year and a half in a 600-sqft apartment that I called GirlHaven. For the first month or so, she slept on my chest, just like she had as a kitten. She liked People Food (especially beans), so sometimes I would put some beans or a little cut-up chicken on a saucer and put it at a place at the table while I ate dinner, and her little head poking up over the side of the table just made me laugh and laugh.

I dragged that poor cat all over the place. She hated to travel and would cry in the car. During the drive from Chicago to TX she finally gave up on life and sat in her litter box in the carrier, moping. I wrote a diary for her that started out “Hell. I am in hell.” During that trip, the only thing she would deign to eat was the meat from an Arby’s sandwich, so we ended up having to make special stops just for her.

Not that she was spoiled, mind you.

Austin was where she learned to hate other cats. The windows in our apartment started at ankle height, and one night at 3 a.m., a giant black cat came crashing through the screen. I woke up to bangs and yowling, and when I went running out, Boadie was on her back under the screen, all four legs up, fighting a cat 3 times her size, keeping it out of Her House. She was furious (and the management folks were much bemused the next day: they locked up the office to all troop up and see the cat-shaped screen).

After that, she would howl and throw herself at windows, fighting with any cat she’d see. The cats in our Houston neighborhood would come sit calmly outside and watch her have her fits. I wonder whether they miss the entertainment.

She was pretty shy, and was not the kids’ biggest fan. When they would visit, she spent a lot of time sitting on Dingo’s shoes in the closet.

When we lived alone together, I got into the habit of talking to her constantly. We would have long conversations in which I would take on both parts, but she would sit and stare at me when I talked.

Any time I put out my hand, she would run over for a scratch.

At 9:45 every night, if she wasn’t already next to me on the sofa, she would hop up and start the Bedtime Stare.

Every day when we arrived home from work, she would be standing in the windowsill by the door, waiting for us.

When I was broken and safe and free all at the same time, it was me and Boadie starting out fresh in the world together. We had some goofy, crazy-cat-lady habits. She was my companion and comfort during some really dark times, and she always made it clear that I was the thing she loved most in the world. She was mine.

Missing her is still sharp and difficult. I think it will be for a long time.