Sammy Jo

Sadly, Sammy Jo had to be put down this past Tuesday. It was not unexpected for his health had quickly deteriorated in the past two weeks. He had finally used up all nine lives and then some.

I did not mean for this post to be sad because one thing is for certain, from the moment that cat showed up in my back yard all bedraggled and scruffed up he brought with him nothing but joy. I always thought of him as a precious gift. So I will now relate Sammy Jo's last kick of the paint can. Last Friday I was painting on my art table and Sammy Jo was sleeping on the blanket that I always set up on the corner of the table for him. So I'm painting away when that cat wakes up stretches clear across the table sending tubes of paint everywhere. He then tried to drink from the dirty paint water. I was trying to shoo him away while telling him he can't drink paint. Suddenly he sprang onto my lap and down onto the floor and off he went toppling over the jar of water and sending everything on the table crashing down in the process.

I spent the next few minutes mopping up the dirty paint water and when I finally took my destroyed, soggy painting to the garbage I passed the bathroom and noticed bright crimson red slashes of paint on the toilet. I then looked down for the first time to see a trail of red paw prints leading all the way back to the livingroom. Guess what I ended up spending 20 minutes trying to scrub off?

In the evening when I went to sit down at the kitchen table I discovered three bright red paw prints on the chair.

One of my students said he figured Sammy Jo had a list of things he needed to destroy before he could leave this world! I rather liked that idea.


This place is going to be a little dull without Sammy Jo's antics livening things up. The day he moved in was one of the luckiest days of my life. Miss him.