Ananke

How my cat got her name

I was working at the engineering school's computer center for Elizabeth Palazzi, a major cat lover. I was poor, going to school, trying to earn a little money and Elizabeth kept telling me I should get a cat. I was reluctant to be responsible for another mouth to feed since I was having enough trouble keep my own fed.

On one of my trips through the library, I picked up a book of essays by Isaac Asimov. The good doctor was his usual amusing self. I remember a faux paper (On the Chronological Properties of Resublimated Thyotimoline) on a substance's solubility that is affected not by temperature but by temporal attributes: the faster you poured this stuff into a solution, the quicker it would go into solution. There were all the graphs and empirical data that you'd expect from a paper published in the usual obscure chemistry journal. And then there was an article on the moons of Jupiter. You see, each moon of the great planet were named after women: those women in Greek mythology that had, um, shall we say, a relationship with the great god? And so there's this little tiny moon, Ananke. Asimov complained that the astronomer that named the satellite must have had a second PhD in mythology because he had to wade through 3 concordances to find a reference, which described her as mother of the fates. I thought the name was cute.

I sent Elizabeth an e-mail with the background of Ananke and finished the letter with "Wouldn't this be a great name for a cat?" That night, when I arrived at my little chopped up row house apartment, there was a box on my doorstep with a little black and white furball, a can of kitten food, a can of flea spray, and a toy.

To this day, Elizabeth has never admitted to being the "anonymous" donor.

Ananke

Plato called Ananke the mother of the Moriae or Fates and is the personification of necessity or the force of destiny.

The Moirae

The Moirae are the Fates, the personification of the destiny of humans. The three Moirae are Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Clotho("spinner") spins the thread at the beginning of one's life, Lachesis ("measurer") weaves the thread into the fabric of one's actions, and Atropos ("inevitable") snips the thread at the conclusion of one's life. Gods as well as mortals have to submit to the will of the Moirae.

Rest in Peace 1987 - 2001

Ananke died due to old age on Saturday, November 17, 2001. She was 15 years old, and still had a lot of love left, but the fight was over. She had been battling a variety of geriatric illnesses for the prior several months and at the end she could not walk or eat without assistance. We put her down with the help of Dr. Thomas Rodriguez in La Paz, then buried her in her bed with a few toys and some other mementos. We were blessed with her for the all years she was with us. She was a great cruising kitty! She never got seasick, nor was she afraid of the engine. In fact, when we did start up the iron genny, most of the time she would just cock an ear, open one eye, as if to say, "Here we go again!" When the weather got rough, she would hop into her "duty station:" Several pillows tucked behind the lee-cloth on the salon settee. Except for important business, she'd snooze through the whole passage. We wish that she could have gone on the rest of the journey, but it was her time and I did not want her to suffer any longer. A friend, Tom, on Blue Chablis, who raised sled dogs, gave us this gift:

From the pad of Blue Chablis A dog (or cat) does not live as long as a man and this natural law is the front of many tears. If a boy and a puppy might grow to manhood and doghood together, and together grow old , and so in due course die, full man a heart break might be avoided. But the world is not so ordered and dogs will die and men will weep for them so long as there are dogs and men.