I’m taking Megan’s slot today on account of on Sunday the Riskies are having a Celebration of Cats and a Super Secret Cool visit from Liz Carlyle (squeeee!!!!). Her publisher will be donating to a cat rescue non profit so you’ll want to stop by to leave a comment this coming Sunday. In the meantime, since I haz kitties and Megan does not, I am sharing stories and pics of the Jewel household cats.
First up: Jake.
Jake was born under the neighbor’s barn at the bottom of our driveway. There were two litters of kittens, but we were able to find homes for them all. I was living in San Francisco and the time and I took the smallest kitten because I wanted, doh, a small cat to keep my other cat, Jasper (AKA Devil Cat) company.
Jake is 15 pounds of adorable lap cat. The vet believes he must be at least part Maine Coon cat. This past February, he lost his best buddy, my 22 year old Tonkinese, Jasper. After Jasper died– I am still sad about that, but he had a very long life — Jake slept by the food for 5 days, thinking, I believe, that Jasper would eventually show up there. On the 6th day, Jake moved out of my room and basically lived in the kitchen for 3 months where he demanded (and got) lots of love and attention from everyone. Just about when I’d given up on him ever setting paw in my room again, he staked out my printer as the place to be. And my lap.
Here’s Jasper when he was younger, my friend and companion for 22 years:
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| Jasper (Devil Cat) |
Jasper is the only purebred cat I’ve ever had. The Tonkinese is a cross between Siamese and Burmese and as you can see from this picture, he took after the Siamese in him. He was very inexpensive as Tonks go because his eyes were not quite the neon blue they should have been. The lady advertised them as “Personality Plus” which he was! He earned the nickname Devil Cat. But he was also extremely affectionate. ALWAYS on my lap! He knew when I was due home from work (said those who were already home) and waited by the door for me.
Left to right:
Missy Mara — Jake’s mother, a feral cat who we finally managed to trap and get to the vet to treat a badly wounded eye and get spayed. For a year she lived in the box spring of the mattress in this room but finally decided people were OK. She rarely leaves this room, actually.
Whiskers aka Nightmare: Whiskers is another rescued cat. At about 3 weeks old she got separated from her mother at the ranch where my son was taking Aikido. She had such a loud meow that some of the students heard her and found where she’d been trapped in a woodpile. And yes, I showed up with my son in time for his class and came home with a kitten . . . small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. She had to be bottle fed and manually stimulated so she could eliminate.
Tiger: My son’s cat. He’d wanted a cat of his own for a very long time, but none of the cats and kittens we saw were right for him. At a soccer tournament, we had time between games and we went to a nearby mall for lunch and some window shopping. We came home with Tiger. She is an odd little cat who doesn’t know she’s a cat. She plays with my dog.
Do you have cats or did you? In the comments, tell us about your cat(s). Bonus points for linking your story to the Regency. And come back Sunday for the Cat Extravaganza!
I love cats but if I pet them, I start getting itchy, vampire-red eyes, so I must admire them from a afar. Which is not to say our family hasn’t had a lot of cats through the years. One cat had her litter of kittens in my husband’s Jaguar XKE (a classy cat), another had kittens on top of my middle daughter as she slept (quite the wake-up call). I just visited my grand-cat in Boston, where he has a view of the Charles River and a kitty city to play in.
With our current squirrel and chipmunk population dining at the bird feeders at our new house, we’ve been seriously considering getting a cat, but perhaps our rationale is not quite right. I doubt the birds would be any happier with a cat than the rodents.
Maggie:
Thanks for sharing your story. I have to say, though, that feral cats are in great part responsible for the decimation of ground nesting birds (such as the lark here in Nor Cal where I live), so I’m going to urge you not to get a cat that you mean to keep outside. Also, it’s best to keep a cat indoors. They will live longer and have happier, healthier lives.
I don’t know what I’d do if I were allergic to cats. I’d be devastated.
I don’t have cats…but four of them own me 😉 There’s Boots (he, well, has white boots) and his sister PJ (looks just like a kitty we lost so those are her initials), Mal (He named himself), and Bunny (she came to us this tiny ball of fur and reminded me of a dust bunny). My children are grown and moved out so I am now diligently working on the crazy part of “crazy cat lady” until they give me grandchildren 😀
Carolyn, your Jasper looks a lot like the Sealpoint Siamese we had when we were first married. His name was Brutus and we had him for about 10 years. He was probably the best cat we ever had!
e we moved to Hawaii. We found homes for 3 and brought to with us. Nikki, the 16-year-old female, belonged to my husband before we met – she thinks I’m the interloper (I also had a cat when we met, but he passed two years ago). Lucky – the 6-year-old male – was an outdoor cat that roamed Fort Meade as he pleased. We tried to find him another outdoor home, but the new owners thought he was so sad without us. So he has converted to an indoor cat in Hawaii.
We are washing cars this weekend to raise money for the Ten Lives Cat Rescue on Hickam AFB. Sadly, many military families abandon cats when the move, so there is a small colony. They compete with the mongoose for the garbage cans. The mongoose was brought to the islands to eat the rats in the sugar cane fields. But then they realized that rats are day creatures but mongoose is a night creature.
I can’t think of any connection to Regency other than my husband glanced at a book on my nightstand, Jo Beverly’s The Secret Wedding. He enjoyed the story since the hero “acquired” a cat from the heroine – a cat he learned to tolerate then love by the end of the book.
Oops! Something went wrong with my post above. It starts, “We had 5 cats before we moved to Hawaii,”
and I misspelled “two”. Not a good way to start the day!
Well darn, it ate my post too!
Lets try this again. I am litter box attendant, cook, maid and waitress to four cats.
My oldest, Bagheera, is a ten year old 24 pound long-haired cat with gold eyes. I have only owned him the past two years. His owner lost her home in a tornado and where she moved she could not take him. She had him declawed on all four feet. (Don’t get me started.) He does, however, have HUGE paws and holds his own with my dogs by way of a wicked left hook paw thump to the head of any canine who looks at him the wrong way.
Tigger and Pooh are almost seven now. Tigger is an orange marmalade who weighs 16 pounds. Pooh is a 19 pound caramel point long haired Siamese mix with ivory fur and eyes the blue of a summer sky. He is also deaf, born so, and depends on his brother Tigger to let him know what is going on. They were rescued from a feral cat colony when an interloper tom moved in and started killing the kittens. The tom was later caught and taken to the humane society. I’ve had them since they were about five weeks old and they are big mushy lap cats.
Rebecca was dumped on an attorney friend’s doorstep. She is a six pound tiger striped tabby who thinks she is a dog. She was about 5 weeks old when I took her in and when my deaf Great Dane, Glory, saw her it was love at first sight. Glory raised Rebecca and carried her around by the head for the first few weeks she was here. Poor kitten spend most of that time covered with slobber. Glory died two years ago after a valiant fight with bone cancer. Rebecca cried for days and walked the floors in search of her. She slept on Glory all her life so now she sleeps on Glory’s pillow. I left Glory’s collar and leash hanging on the rack by the door. I catch Rebecca going by to rub against it from time to time.
We have three cats and I am allergic to them. I am find as long as I don’t touch them and they don’t get near my face. One was to be a mouser and bond with the rest of the family. Then the eldest got a kitten as a gift from her boyfriend. She is not with him, and recently married to a different guy, so the cat stayed with us. The third belongs to my second daughter. Also from a boyfriend, whom she is no longer with. Oh well, my husband loves cats and they love him. As for me, they avoid me like I avoid them.
Amy and Maggie, I would hate being allergic to cats. I’ve had them my whole life.
Louisa, O Doggie One, your story about Rebecca made me wand to cry.
Kim, if I find a stray cat, I’m gonna come looking for YOU!
tsueversteeg, I know what you mean by cats owning you.
Oooh, that Jake. I could eat him right up! Good on you for taking Mamma Cat. We tried to catch our Mamma Cat but never did. So sad. There is nothing like taking in a feral cat to teach you patience, and the beauty of God’s creations.
Oh I love cats (and dogs and pets in general).
Last March we lost our beloved Kitty, a seal point Siamese who came into our lives by jumping into my car through the window a wonderful day in May 1998, when my daughter called her.
Then there is Candy aka Dragon Spawn, who commands the entire top floor as her own, private domain (she’s very neurotic and can’t stand my other pets–in fact, the only living being she tolerates is me). At 14, she’s a smallish cat (under nine pounds) but has all the attitude of a bad-tempered Dobberman.
Shadow, aptly named by the kidlets since she’s completely black (not one white hair on her, and the most beautiful, shiny, soft black coat ever), walked into our lives behind our dogs–literally. She was an abandoned cat (spayed and declawed, which… *grrrrrrr*) who took to following me and the dogs around the neighborhood when we walked. She would rub herself against my German Shepherd mix and play with my Lab, and eventually allowed me to pet her. She’s been a much happier, 18 lbs plus indoor-only cat since December 2004, and has enriched our lives beyond the telling.
Then there is Pounce, the latest addition to the household. Pounce, a black kitten with some white markings, was rescued in late July of this year from a busy road. The vet calculated that he was about five weeks old at the time, so when I got him the following week he still needed wet food and some stimulation to poop. In the intervening month he’s more than doubled his size and charmed his way into the hearts of both Shadow and Alana, my Lab*.
I have to be careful, though, and remember that I cannot adopt all the animals in need around me (of all the pets I’ve had in the past two and a half decades, only the ferret was bought–and that only because the kids wanted a baby ferret and saved for over six months to pay for it).
* Laika, my beloved German Shepherd mix, had to be put to sleep in December 19th, 2008. She was approximately 16 years old at the time, having lived just over eight of those with us–she walked into our lives and house on July 4th, 2000, and filled our hearts to overflowing with unconditional love.
Aw! Everybody has such wonderful stories about their cats! I’m sitting here getting all sniffly. Thanks, everyone, for sharing.
I don’t have any cats, but my best friend Jess does. I was completely enamored with the cat she had when we met. He was a large tuxedo tom, born with a missing back foot. He was, of course, named Byron. He did this wonderful thing that we called “carpet ottering”: he’d pull himself towards you with his front paws, with his fuzzy belly exposed and calling out to be petted. Allergies or no, I couldn’t resist.
Sadly, Byron passed at 16 . . . several years passed. Then some friends showed up for Thanksgiving with a story about a three-legged tuxedo kitten born to a stray in their garage. *grin* Jess named him Keats, and he now rules her world.
We haz 4 kittehs.
Papillon & Skibbleshanks are 10 year-old ARF kitties, and Lizzy Bennet and Mr. Darcy are a rescued tuxedo pair.
Only Mr. Darcy should really be named Bingley for all the world is agreeable in his eyes. He never met a neighbor he didn’t like. In fact, he’ll just walk in and make himself at home!
We have been out of town and I’ve missed all these cat posts. We currently have two cats. Our first one lived to be 17. These two are 14 and 8. Neither has a tail. The oldest showed up pawing at our door to get in. We had just returned a litter of lab puppies we had fostered for the pound. We kept one puppy and the kitten and she became fast friends. The other cat was given to us to be a companion to another fostered puppy. He resembles a grey bowling ball.
Our one daughter has a maine coon cat and he is gorgeous, when you get to see him. Our other daughter has had several stray cats show up in her barn and have litters. She had 5 or 6 litters one summer. We brought several to the pound (they were not very nice to us), but she kept most of them. She spent money she couldn’t afford to have the females spayed. She now has about 20 cats running around her little farm.