Goodbye, Grumpy

In September of 2012, Bryan Bundesen posted a picture of his sister's cat named Tarder Sauce. The cat looked like she was frowning. She was soon named "Grumpy Cat' and a thousand memes were born.

According to CNN, "Grumpy Cat garnered 1.5 million followers on Twitter, 2.4 million on Instagram and 8.5 million on Facebook.".  CNN also notes "She was basically the Kim Kardashian of house pets".  That's a terrible thing to say about a house pet.

Grumpy Cat was a published author. Just a guess, I don't think she actually wrote the book. I mean, I've never seen a cat send a text message much less write a book. In any event, Grumpy Cat's book hit number seven on The New York Times How-To-Do bestseller list.

I have written three books myself which are still available on Amazon. I've been outdone by a cat.

Grumpy Cat also met a lot of famous people. She met Stan Lee, the late, great founder of Marvel Comics, J-Lo, and Hulk Hogan.  By the way, my wife says she saw Hulk Hogan in a Ryan's Steakhouse one time so she and Grumpy Cat have something in common.

All I'm saying is that Grumpy Cat did pretty well for herself. Her owners dispute a Huffington Post report that says Grumpy Cat brought in $100 million in 2014. However, the owners did win a $710,000.00 in a copyright infringement case in 2018. Not bad, for a cat.

When Grumpy Cat died the other day, she received an obituary in The New York Times. I can't think of any other cat that got an obit in The Old Grey Lady.  Morris The Cat, maybe? (For you younger folks, Morris The Cat was a cat used in several years worth of cat food commercials and was sort of a '70's version of Grumpy Cat).

Here's how the newspaper of record reported on the death of Grumpy Cat.

"Grumpy Cat, the ubiquitous internet celebrity whose permanent scowl spoke for all of us in our darkest moments, died in the arms of her “mommy” on Tuesday, her family said on Friday. She was 7. Her death was due to the Trump Administration along with complications from the passage of  Georgia's  Heartbeat bill and the Alabama abortion ban"

 Sorry, the last sentence I just made up. But, come on, "whose permanent scowl spoke for all of us in our darkest moments"?  Isn't that just a little bit much?  She was a cat. Cats are very libertarian. They speak, or meow, for themselves.

Grumpy Cat died from complications of a urinary tract infection.  We are dealing with some of that now.

Our Grumpy Cat is named Gracie and she is 21 years old. You might remember her from a previous post I wrote several years ago. https://manisville.blogspot.com/2013/02/gracie.html

We got Gracie from a no-kill cat shelter for our son for his seventh birthday. Although she hasn't written any books and never had one meme created about her, she's been a valued if a not bossy member of the family.

She has a nasty urinary tract infection right now. We took her to the Vet a couple of weeks ago. We got a call.

The Vet said that Gracie had a mass on her lungs.  It looked like cancer and they wanted to send the x-rays off to a specialist.  The specialist said it was "calcification" and probably wasn't cancer. But, she still had that UTI and she received an antibiotic for it.

But for now, we are watching the slow decline of this little cat, who we have fed and taken care of for so many years.  One of my friends from high school noted that a third of my life has been spent with this cat.

Gracie mainly wants to sleep or sit in my lap and sleep.  I could have sworn she liked watching "Stranger Things" with us, but I know that is simply personification.  I think.

I would like to think that somewhere in that feline brain, Gracie realizes that she won a form of the Cat Lottery. You get all your meals taken care of and you don't have to worry about predators. But, you know, she's just thinking about her next meal and if that fat guy is ever going to sit down.

So, goodbye, Tarder Sauce. Gracie will see you soon. Maybe next month. Maybe next year.