Heavy like a feather: but feathers aren’t heavy, are they?
A heavy feather
No, you might think, they are light and volatile, but they can be very voluminous when you think about geese down. That’s why I thought of comparing Pallino with a feather because he was white like geese down and voluminous, for sure. He was like a feather in many ways, but, well, quite a bit heavier.
More exactly, Pallino was very heavy and round, hence the name “Pallino” which means “little ball” in Italian. And you probably already have guessed that Pallino was not a little ball, but quite a big one, but so sweet and sympathetic that I gave him this nickname and I smiled every time when I called him or even only thought of him.
Cats have their personality – like us humans
Pallino had a very special personality: he was what you would call “agreeable”, or was it “phlegmatic” instead? What I mean to say is: he was very friendly and very calm. Not only with us humans, but first and foremost with his brothers and sisters of the extended cat family. He didn’t allow anybody to bother him, not even the nasty queen SnowWhite could reach him with her poison and slaps. He either walked away, calmly or just sat down and showed clearly that he didn’t mind.
Pallino resembled an old and wise grandpa who, smiling, watches his grandchildren do whatever they do without taking it personally or even reacting to it. He actually was neutered in early age, so he had no grandchildren, but enough siblings and his own mom and grandma to deal with in this astonishingly disengaged manner.
Like this cat, Pallino enjoyed just lying in the sun
His preferred occupation was eating and resting in the sun, sleeping almost the whole time and, comparing this behavior with humans, you would think that he would be slow and lazy, maybe a little dumb. But no, not at all! Every now and then he surprised me when he – without any pre-warning – jumped up from his sleeping position and caught a bird flying by one meter above ground. Wow! Think about it! You, just coming out of your dream, do a high-jump of, let’s say, 8 meters! Even a well-trained human would hardly be able to do that, but Pallino certainly did. Like a strong wind blowing up a feather, that’s what he looked like when catching flying birds. And his overweight didn’t hinder him at all to do so!
Pallino didn’t look as bad as that, but…
Pallino had some other particularities. He was one of those rare cats who don’t like to clean themselves. Thus he showed up gray from burnt out ashes or black when he had chosen to explore the underside of my car. Instead of white he often looked like a very unorthodox harlequin, black and white and whatever other color was available to tint his fur, yellow from pollen, red from blood after a slaughter event, green of freshly cut grass: in short, an involuntary piece of art. I am really sad that in those times I didn’t shoot any photos yet, it would have been fun to show them to you!
The destiny for white cats living in southern countries
That’s how SnowWhite looked like after surgery (photo credit Dr.Scorzoni)
Like for all the other white cats, the Italian sun was fatal for Pallino. Like SnowWhite and 3 others, he got cancer on his ear tips and had to have surgery which hadn’t been done well the first time and so the cancer spread. This was the reason why I changed vet and found Dr. Elisabeth Scorzoni who has appeared here in this blog already several times and who, for more than 20 years, has become my trusted caring adviser for all my beloved pets.