The Tank gets cold these days. He spends a lot of time
lap surfing, in between visits to the heat vent when it's
on. This increased affection as he gets older seems so
bittersweet.
He's still our big guy, even with his skinny old man
hips. He makes as much noise as ever as he prowls
around the house, and if Mr Fuzzypants gets out of line,
he reminds him whose house he lives in. But our boy
is changing.
He limps more often than not, and he'll allow you to
lift him into your lap (a move he disdained even as a
kitten). He purrs the same rumbling, deep bass, and
he still sleeps behind my knees every night. We tell
the girls that he's an old cat now, and that our time
with him is getting short, but I think that is as much
to prepare ourselves as to prepare them. (I avoid even
thinking about what Mr Fuzzypants will do when his
friend and Godfather (think mafioso) leaves us.) Perhaps
our warnings are premature; he may go on for years
as he is. But with all of the changes we've seen in
him during the past 18 months, it is hard to imagine
the landslide of age leveling out into a plateau.