Published on April 28, 2026

Toupie 😾

7 minutes read •

Toupie is a 18 (almost 19!) year old long-hair blue cat. This cat always sports its grumpy face despite being (I presume) pretty happy. That's even the first thing my father said when he saw the cat for the first time. I got Toupie from a local refuge, during the crazy day of the 1st of July (if you live in Québec, you know why!), at the age of 8. The first weeks were a disaster! Toupie was constantly crying out loud all night long, and everytime I was out. It was so loud, that even outside the appartment, with windows closed, I was able to ear it. I even though of giving up, went as far as calling the local refuge and all. But hey, that little grey ball had probably tromatic experiences in the past and need time to adjust to this sudden change. New place, new smells, new pesky human to deal with 😾.

Looks like the end is near...

In the recent weeks, she started to lose weight again. Last time was 2-3 years ago, when we found out our beloved Mémé was afflicted of not one but two medical conditions. Pretty standard for a cat her age, she had a stage 2 (borderline stage 3) kidney disease, with thyroid gland malfunctions. We got her on a strict Y/D diet and things improved greatly! She was the lady she once were and she gained weight!

Now.. She started to lose some weight again.. And this time, it's not the kidneys or the thyroid. Those numbers are looking great! No, this time it's the liver and it does not look good. From the last appointement, she lost a lot of weight again, despite feeding her with quality food. She stopped eating and drinking. She's so weightless, it's heartbreaking :(. We might have to take the difficult decision soon, as she even have trouble keeping herself clean.

The end has arrived

On Thursday April 30th at 18:45, Toupie died of a peaceful assisted death, surrounded by her two favorite creatues, me and Vermarine. Peaceful for her maybe, but very difficult for us. I was trying to be brave when arriving at the clinic. The act didn't last long. As long as I entered in the corridor leading to "the room", I started to have tears rolling up. It came all of a sudden. All those years with Toupie are coming to an end. I tried to attach myself to this idea to counter the tears. We got a lot of years together, amazing adventures and hard moments.

Letter to Toupie

Hello Mémé, I still remember vividly the day our path crossed and I'm sure you do as well. You were at the shelter for a long time, and I was looking for a companion to grow with me in this new step of my life, the one of fully living alone. I went to pick you up the very next day I moved into this big empty appartment. It didn't take long before I stopped in front of your cage. You stood in front of the door and we looked in each other eyes. I felt compelled to scratch your little head with a single finder, through the door of your little space. You started to purr and this is when I knew. I was so nervous someone else would pick you up! You were the best cat to pick in the whole shelter! So I stole the description sheet placed in from of your cage and went straight to a clerk. I had a couple of documents to sign, but the whole time, you were sitting in front of the door, like you knew your days at the shelter were over. I don't know if I was a good cat dad (I think?) but I sure hope I gave you the life you wanted. I remember when we were chasing each other in that U-shape appartment, you seemed to enjoyed that a lot, and I did too. Or when i was hiding in the bed and you dug up the sheets to find me. So great memories. You were also there for me in my lows. You gave me something to come back to when I was out. It made a huge difference when I was hospitalized. Thank you for being there. Thank you for all those years we shared together. Thank you for all those times you kept me in check when it was time for lunch. I've learned so much from you. Writing this, I have tears coming up, but not of sadness. Sure, I miss you a lot, but I'm happy that I got to share my life with yours.

Thank you Toupie, you'll be missed but you'll stay forever in my mind and my heart.

Adventures

The Poopocalypse

Toupie gave me a lesson on this one! Ahah. It was not long after I moved in my first own appartment and got Toupie. This week was specially busy, with colleagues from Atlanta visiting us along with some Datastax vendors. The whole week was centered about brainstorming on this new project, how to model the data, training and such. I forgot one too many times to clean the litterbox. As usual, I left home around 8:00, and just before leaving, I started the Roomba. This day, I stayed particularly late. After a couple of drinks to various bars, I went home around midnight. I still remember when I opened the door. Something was off.... The smell! It smelled bad. Then I looked at tthe floor. Oh no. You pooped beside your litterbox just in time for the Roomba to pick it up and take it everywhere! The floor, the mouldings, the baseboards, everywhere! I stayed a long time to clean everything. I even dismantled the Roomba to scrub it clean. And yes, she got a clean litterbox. I wasn't mad, I even found it funny. I made sure to clean your litterbox a lot more often after that, so your strategy worked ;).

The numerous artists/attractions for Toupie

For a moment in my life (a long one at that!), I had the luck to work as a programmer (and later lead) in an industry that I hold near to my heart, the music industry. While some might see it as working for the devil, I really enjoyed my time there, working with people that had the same drive and connection with music than I had. On the systems I was managing, we had the one that managed artists/attractions management, including the pictures for said attractions. As we made changes to these systems, I had to create fake artists and upload images for them. At some point, the company I was working on was getting in trouble for using Wikimedia images without attributions (our systems did support those, but more often than not, attributions were not carried on by other applications). Being now aware of that, I started to use my cat Toupie as source of images to avoid any legal troubles. This means that Toupie the Cat, is currently used for testing in one of the biggest ticketing company 😸.