01.13.05 - 10:54 p.m.

I was standing at the 77th Street stop late on a Tuesday night when one of the MTA work trains rumbled by me. It reminded me of late nights years ago waiting for the Path, and how I'd watch the yellow work trains shuttling back and forth, carrying debris from the crushed World Trade Center site.

TC, the cat who was ostensibly mine and my sister's (hence the dorky initial name), was put to sleep yesterday at the ripe old age of 16. It was his time, with his myriad ailments of blindness, deafness, orneriness, old age, kidney failure and most recently a mini-stroke catching up to him. I'm almost numb about it, but am simultaneously amazed at how long he managed to hang on to his little angry life. He jumped off the second-floor deck TWICE as a young cat. He ran away a few times, but would usually return at the shake of a Pounce can. He was obese (reaching a high of 23 pounds!) for most of his life. When Kodi died, he went through a mini-depression, but his mood much improved when he lost his hearing. He was tormented by my father much of the time, but got his revenge in the end by realizing that it was more fun to snuggle up in Dad's lap once he stopped grooming himself and started smelling kind of bad.

TC was the most beeeyoootiful black and white cat ever, with his little fluffy ruff of white fur and his chubby white paws. He had an awesome habit of looking surprised and affronted when you pet him for more than 30 seconds, and would rev his paw up and prepare to administer the swat of doom. Kind of like a nun slapping your hand with a ruler, only he'd try to hit you himself. He liked to sit in the upstairs bathroom sink, and at his fattest, would literally fill the sink with his body. Even when you turned the water on, it would take him a while to register what was happening.

TC had devastatingly potent farts as a kitten. He would sense when we were on vacation, and would leave strategic "presents" throughout the basement for us to find as our punishment on our return. He never begged at the table, but managed to hog all the cat food. He ate the bows off the Christmas presents. Even though he "belonged" to Tessa and me, he only loved my stepmom and would follow her around like a puppy, even waiting outside the bathroom door for her to be done with her showers in the morning. Actually, he figured out our ancient doors in the house weren't too tight and would often bust into the bathroom while the rest of us were showering, trying to figure out who was in there and if it was the one human he could tolerate. He was hilarious, and the best worst cat ever.