The cat chair

When Mike’s parents sold their four bedroom house in Montreal to move across the country to a two bedroom condo in Victoria, there was a lot of downsizing to do. Some pieces of furniture that had been in the family for generations were dispersed amongst other family members.

Mike’s daughter received an antique dressing table. Mike was gifted a desk (which I’m sitting at right now), a loveseat (which has appeared in a number of plays over the past decade) and a chair.

The chair, when we received it, was upholstered in a sort of baby diarrhoea yellow, which, needless to say, I didn’t find particularly appealing. I decided to reupholster it. 

Here it is, with Tri posed elegantly upon it sometime in the 2000s.

Yes, some of the upholstery tacks had popped, so you can see a bit of the yellow beneath. It got to look more than a bit threadbare, so another round of reupholstering was needed.

That photo must have been taken in the summer, because in the winter months that chair, which sits beside the woodstove, became his sister Angie’s domain.

Tri didn’t mind. He was happier curled up on the rug right in front of the fire.

Flash forward several years. Tri left me in 2012, Angie (at the advanced age of 20) in 2013. That was the year when then seven-year-old Stella came into my life. Of course the chair became her chair in the winter. 

Woe betide thirteen-year-old Roxie, when she joined us a couple of years later, if she tried to curl up in the chair. Fortunately, like Tri, Roxie was just as happy on the rug. 

On her very first night here Miss Maisie claimed the chair.

Mind you, it hasn’t taken Maisie long to claim the entire house.

It is definitely a cat chair. So much so that when people surprise me by sitting in it I have to warn them they’ve probably got cat hair all over their bum.

Still, not just a cat chair. While not performing this particular role, it has, like the loveseat, also appeared on stage. Here it is in Cinderella.

What would Mike’s grandparents think?