Cat Tales

An old cat lady, me? Nah!

My mother told me cats were nasty animals that they were dirty and they scratched people. I had that fear my whole childhood… and beyond.

When my kids were young, and we lived in an apartment, they begged me for a pet. Our bird had died and a lot of the people in the apartments had cats because they were inside animals. Dogs were not allowed.

We were offered a baby cat when the kids were little, and we adopted her. We named her Sugar and she was a sweetheart, at least in the beginning. I figured I wouldn't get attached to this thing because my mother made me scared to death of them. I thought I could feed her and she would be the kids pet.

Well I learned very quickly that you don't adopt a cat, they adopt you. And the more you don't like them the more they want you. Sugar became my cat very quickly. She slept with me, she followed me around, and, if anybody got to close to me, she growled and whacked them.

Before long we had three cats. One went to college with our son Jeffrey so we were down to two.

We then adopted a beautiful white Himalayan with blue eyes who also became my cat.

The family decided when the last cat went into “cat heaven” we were done. It was too hard losing these babies.

Well, God had another plan for us. Into our life came a stray and, of course, we adopted her. We took her to the vet to have her checked out. He called and said I've got good news and better news. She has no diseases and she's pregnant.

This city girl does not know a thing about delivering pregnant animals. I nearly went frantic trying to get a room ready that for the delivery. I had to keep it private from the other cats so she could have peace and quiet.

When the day finally came I was more excited than when I had my own children, and more nervous. We named her Mama Boots and decided she was going to give birth under the bed in the spare bedroom. I laid on the floor for hours sliding my head under the bed so I could see what was going on and make sure she was OK.  My back and neck were shot for weeks afterwards.

After the blessed delivery I counted four little babies. We made sure the room was clean and she had lots of food so she could feed her babies. After several weeks I counted not four but five babies!

I told my husband after all the stress I deserved to at least be able to adopt one of the babies. This would take our cat count up to more than the “legal limit”. By the time it was said and done we kept three of the five. Our house for the next few years was like a real cat house. Poop, pee and stink.

Everyone kept up as best as we could. Lots of space here to spread out litter boxes and cats.

We had lots of fun. Now all of the cats are gone except the three babies, all males.

Now I refuse to look at any stray cats. I wouldn’t even go into a pet store. People eventually stopped calling, offering me more cats. I think they know that I've had it.

I'm thinking when these three go we may adopt a dog!