Reply #39: My husband's old front door had a window about face-high

[Flaxbee]

and one day he said he looked up at the door and Tom the Cat's orange-and-white tabby face was peering in at him. Tom had jumped to the little ledge, done a kitty pull-up and stared in until noticed. When my husband went to open the door, Tom strolled in, jumped up on the counter and asked for tuna. That was 1993, they were bachelor buds until I came along in 1999. Tom is my permanent lap-warmer.

Meanwhile, in 1998 I adopted my sort-of psychotic mostly white (calico tail and ears) Clarisse from a no-kill shelter in NYC. I had squatted down to look at a big gray tabby in the cage below Clarisse's when she reached thru the bars and grabbed my hair and purred. That was it, she'd chosen me (and later, upon meeting my husband for the first time, sat in his lap and purred like she was about to levitate - I guess telling me he was OK to marry, and if I didn't, she would).

Neener Pea (LindaKitty) came to us while we were in rural Virginia; lots of cats got dumped and our kind neighbor had 18 cats. Neener was an older girl, a calico with so much heart and soul, and the best mouser ever. You could hold her to you and just feel your sadness or anger being pulled out of you by her - she'd absorb your bad emotions and make you feel OK. Then, the day we were moving, she rolled off the second story deck (she had WILD, FLAILING dreams) and broke her tail at the base; we couldn't drive with her she was in so much pain so the kind neighbor (who secretly loved her) volunteered to care for her. Then the neighbor was unable to part with her - neighbor's husband was sick with cancer, and he loved Neener so much and she would sit with him all day after chemo and radiation and he just needed her (he hadn't bonded with any of the other cats, only Neener), so we let her stay with them. Sweet Neener Pea died last year (old age).

A feral we trapped, had fixed, and fed and loved wouldn't come to me (never let me hold her) when we were moving, but the people who bought the house were cat people and said they'd care for her; she eventually integrated into their family. That was Petunia.

Once in NC, hurricane Ivan ripped up the mountain valleys and brought us our massive, 20+ lb male tuxedo Ivan, skinny and very sick with an upper respiratory infection. He's got the biggest head I've ever seen on a cat, and the highest little meow. He's wonderful, but can get pissed pretty fast so you have to make sure you don't lose an arm if you scratch him inattentively. He was probably a little over 1 year old when we found him 18 months ago.

Then, last May, a small tortoiseshell showed up, obviously nursing or about to give birth. I fed her regularly, and caught her to take her to the vet for a check-up (and to see if she was preggers or had had her babies); they said she'd already had her litter. So I kept feeding her morning and night, whenever she'd show up, and one night she brought us her three girls. I cried, I just felt so honored. We kept the babies, I couldn't stand to give them away. The girls are Ingrid (short haired orange and white tabby, the spitting image of Tom); Marilyn (long-haired orange/blonde tabby); and Hedy (long-haired silver tabby). MommaKitty is incredibly bossy and affectionate, Ingrid is studious and quiet but quite the huntress and has a very, very deep purr, Marilyn is just a head-case - gorgeous and flirtatious and a movie star, and Hedy is beautiful, sometimes forgets to retract her tongue once done grooming, and is the fastest toy-feather-catcher in the east.

So, total seven cats. Two boys, five girls. All neutered or spayed, as the case may be. I LOVE my kitties!