Erin

Rykah's father moved in with us (as a roommate) in mid-2005 for just over a year, and took over my garden during that time and so it was he, not me, who was often outside and in the garage.

A small orange tabby turned up in the garage, about six weeks old, slightly too young to be away from its mother. It was definitely wild, and seemed to have been traumatized by something--it refused to leave the safety of our garage. Rykah and I had never even been able to see it, as it hid whenever we came near! But Lu put out food for it, and gradually drew it to him, and it gradually let him pet it, and it gradually let him pick it up and pet it.

After awhile we opened the house door so it could come in, and then I had Lu take it back to his room with a litterbox for a few weeks so it would have its own territory, not have to battle the other cats for box time or food, and it lived in his room for quite awhile, becoming a fully indoor cat. He named it Aaron, I can't remember why.

One day when I estimated the cat was about six months old, Lu finally was able to bring me the cat and really SHOW me more than just a head poking out over his arms. "That cat is female!" I exclaimed, astonished. I have never known of any orange tabby to be anything but male. I'm sure a female orange tabby is not as rare as a male patch calico for example (my cousin had one of those), but it was very unexpected. So we changed the name from Aaron to Erin, as that was feminine.

When I took her to the vet to get her shots and spayed (not that she would let me touch her, Lu had to put her in the carrier), the vet's assistant (who is his wife) mentioned that she had never seen an orange tabby female either. I hoped that spaying her would "mellow her out," but it's been months and I have seen no sign of it!

At times, if I am kind to her constantly, she will let me pet her, usually just once, sometimes a few strokes... I don't dare more or she freaks out and attacks. Sometimes she is very weird, and I can pet her a few strokes, back off and not be touching her or even looking at her, and she will literally jump out and attack me. Like Boo, our other orange tabby, she seems to have claws longer/sharper than all the other cats.

She is still half-wild. The current status (Dec 06) is that she had better get used to us or she will become a fully outdoor cat -- since a wild cat that draws blood has the petting quotient of a goldfish in my view--but even worse. :-)

Her saving grace, of course, is that she is one of the cutest things alive. I mean she is utterly adorable, loves to play, and looks (deceptively) sweet and innocent!
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Boo

It was a cold Autumn morning in 2005 and I had gone to visit my grandmother. My aunt was there, and happened to mention that there were some wild cats living under my grandma's house. She said they had tamed the kittens by feeding them at least once in awhile, and they would let you pet them.

We went out to the backyard. It was bone-chillingly windy and drizzly outside, and my aunt clapped her hands and three little kittens, probably 8-10 weeks old, ran out from under the base of the house, skidding their little butts sideways in their rush toward excited thoughts of food. They sat in a perfect row and looked up at us. There was an all-white one, an all-black one, and in the middle, an orange tabby.

I had a black cat, and a white cat. I had never owned an orange tabby. The idea of the poor kitties shivering in the cold wet was hard. He looked up at me and meowed, and I was so taken with him that I just picked him up on the spot and carried him through the house. My grandmother and aunt followed me saying, "Hey -- what? Are you going to take him home?!" and I said over my shoulder as I went right out to my car with him, "Yep! I'm taking him!"

We debated names for him and finally Rykah decided on "Boo," because first of all it was nearly Halloween and he was orange, and also because we had already come up with many "extensions" of Boo. We call him Booster (like a rocket booster), Boo-man, Boo-jangles, and we tease in that Yogi-Bear voice like, "Ehhh boo-boo?" and things like that.

He has always had a problem with his claws being longer and sharper than the others cats' for some reason, and poor Boo spent much of his young life with us, seriously hurting us, and then we would bleed and cry and get mad at him and he would be in disgrace. I don't know if maybe orange tabbies simply have longer nails than other cats. Anyway, he eventually grew into a teen and got neutered.

We have a love-stress relationship with Boo at the moment (Dec 2006). There are two other male cats and he is the youngest and least dominant. There are also five females, of which two are far more dominant than he and one maybe. He seems to really want "a place of his own" so to speak, his own territory. He loves Rykah fiercely, but he keeps going into her room and peeing on her bed and often all her clothes if they are anywhere available. Then he is in disgrace again!

I think he just wants her to be "his" and wants her room to be his territory. But now we have to lock him out of it unfortunately.

He is a very loving, sweet, sensuous kitty who would really like nothing more than to curl up with you in the sun and take a nap.

Tigris

My friend Cindy is a psychic beacon for lost and wounded animals. You name it: birds, dogs, cats, and other critters simply show up at her house in a rural neighborhood, as if some light goes into the sky from wherever she is and they see it. As a result she has always had far too many cats and dogs etc. than anyone should have in her tiny house for sanity reasons. One cat who showed up was hungry and pregnant, and when it had kittens, she had three left and had to find a home for one.

She brought them over to us. One had a manx bobtail, the other had a regular tail, and one had a half-tail, with a crook at the end. Rykah got to choose, and she chose the latter kitten. We were going to name her Tiger, as she is tiger striped, but I decided on Tigris, like the Tigris river, as I thought that was a neat variation.

Tigris has a big butt and hind legs, apparently from her partly-manx heritage. She was not happy about losing her family, but I think the fact that my friend saw her weekly helped her adjust.

She is very loving and very possessive, but easy to offend, as if she feels innately "the outsider" and it doesn't take much to make her avoid us, as if she's had her feelings hurt. But once you make it clear to her that you are paying attention to her and you really do love her, she relaxes and then wants to sleep with you all the time.

She has a lot of "sheer personality", like some kind of "cat-charisma", and next to Georgia she is the most outdoorsy, hunting sort.

Cosmos

Silent Cosmos and the Ways of the World

Cosmos is the only cat I ever was so inspired by that I wrote a poem for him.
He came to me in a rather unusual way. It was 2001 I think, and I was working 100+ hours a week, very stressed out and exhausted. One day, completely out of the blue, I was overwhelmed with a feeling I blurted out to my assistant: "I really want to go to the local animal storage place and see if they have an adult male cat!"
I couldn't believe I heard myself say that. First off, although I do believe in being open to adopting adults, I would usually choose a kitten. Secondly, I would always choose a female cat, I am biased that way. Thirdly, I had a house of cats already -- the LAST kind of cat I would voluntarily choose to add to an existing house full of cats would be an adult male, as they are the most likely to have (or cause) problems with the others!
It seemed very weird to me and I said so. But, the feeling wouldn't go away. It bothered me a great deal all day. The next day, I decided it was the time to go see if maybe such an animal were available, but circumstance prevented it until the end of the day, and then the animal control fellow wasn't around.
I need to explain that our city does not have a 'humane society'. Or if it does, it did not then. Animals here have about 3 days to be 'found' by owners before they are either put to sleep or sent out to one of the outlying rural farms that usually tend to starve animals in the hopes that they will eat the local rats, mice and snakes. It also doesn't have any real facility for it. There is one long room, which is filled with cages floor to ceiling and a walkway down the side. Usually, at least half are filled, and most with dogs. If there are any cats -- which is rare, actually, except for an occasional wild bunch of kittens -- they are in a cage in the same room, the upper level in front. That noise of the dogs barking in this room that echoes like a bathroom is DEAFENING. It's a total nightmare for any cat. The police officer that runs that told me he usually tries to get any cats that happen to come in, out within a couple days for the sake of their sanity. But, there are seldom cats there.
So, that was a Friday. I had to wait until Monday.
I called Monday and left a message (I knew enough to yell into the answering machine, as he has to hear it over the dogs!) and then went that afternoon to see if he had any cats at all, let alone an adult male.
When I got there he said, "Amazingly, I actually DO have an adult male in right now, and I am SO GLAD that you want this cat because he is SUCH a GREAT cat!" He told me the story of the cat.
The cat had belonged to a family for probably 5-6 years or so, since kittenhood. And then one day the family packed up and left -- abandoning the cat behind. (People like that just make me want to..... grrrr!) So he was lonely and not used to being on his own, trying to forage food, getting in lots of fights for territory in trying to find food, and getting skinnier fast.
A man who had lived in an apartment across the street for years, knew the cat. He had often petted it over the years, and had talked to the family about it several times. He felt so sorry for it that he finally began putting some food out for it. He wasn't allowed to have animals, so he tried to keep it under wraps so his manager wouldn't notice, and he couldn't let it in even when it was miserably hot or freezing outside. But finally his manager DID notice, and told him if he saw the cat hanging around a week from then, he would evict the man for having a pet.
So the man called the officer who ran the city function that picked up stray animals. He did that Thursday -- the day I'd had that overwhelming urge. The officer was supposed to pick him up Friday, and when I went to get him, he was out to do the pickup, but the cat hadn't showed up so it didn't happen. When the officer came to get the cat, the man gave him the cat whom he'd tempted inside, and explained his story to him. They both agreed that it was a very mature and affectionate and "cool" cat and it was such a shame that first its family had abandoned him, and then once he finally found another almost-home, now he had to get taken from that too.
The officer told me, "It seemed impossible to hope that anybody would show up within two days and actually WANT to adopt "an adult male cat" -- I was so pleased when I heard your message!"
So funny enough, I had forgotten my checkbook at home, and I didn't have quite enough cash to pay the cat's fee. I was a few dollars short. I was digging through my purse for change when the officer found enough change and a dollar bill of his OWN to add so it could happen!
I took him home and I named him Cosmos, for the Night Sky, because he was pure black with just a little bit of star-white on his chest. I put him in the garage during the night while all the other cats were in the house (we had a couple others then -- and a rabbit!) and during the day I put them all out and brought him into the house, so they could all get used to each others' smell.
When I would open the garage door, he wouldn't come in unless I went out and got him and brought him in to sit by me, in the back room that was my office at the time (I was doing computer programming and project management back then). Once I did, he wouldn't leave me except to the litterbox or food.
When I finally brought all the other cats and he together, I thought that there would be a real problem. But there wasn't. Even though he was a gnarly old tomcat, with scars and fight-notched ears, he was a perfect gentleman to the other cats. And every time we have added another cat to our household, it has been Cos (as we call him) who finally makes friends with it and "shepherds" it and ends up sleeping curled up with it and being nice to it -- even the boy kitty. Even the rabbit! Cosmos sat patiently, if warily, while our rabbit sniffed around him and he didn't move a muscle until the bunny put his nose directly into Cosmos's nose -- at which point he slapped it upside the head, haha! -- but otherwise didn't move, and didn't pursue it.
So about a year later when we got another cat I realized that unusually for me, I had never taken him to the vet to get shots and such. We'd had our "primary" cat (a female) die and when I went to put Cosmos in the cat carrier to take him to the vet, I realized that it was the box I had put Yummy in (the cat who'd died) -- and he could still smell all that!
After having been abandoned horribly once, and then betrayed by the guy he thought was his friend who only brought him in to pet him to give him to some fellow who took him away and stuck him in a cage... now the family he finally thought he might open up his heart to, put him in "the death box" and was taking him somewhere!
The vet I use is outside town and quite a drive. I promised him over and over again, all the way to the vet's, "It is OK. You are coming home! I am bringing you RIGHT HOME after this! Baby nothing will happen to you, I PROMISE! I promise it will be ok! I promise nothing bad is going to happen to you!"
So I get him to the vet who says, "He has a serious case of Feline AIDS. He needs to be put down."
I refused. I said, "My grandmother is diabetic and we don't kill her for it, sheesh! He is not in any pain to my knowledge." The vet said "Well, theoretically he could give it to other cats." I said, "I will immunize them and hope for the best, and if I am wrong, or if someone else doesn't immunize their cats from this incredibly common illness, then that is just the way it is. He is FAMILY." The vet said, "I don't want to see him eventually get sick or be in pain, it is tragic when people don't want to harm their pets and so they suffer instead. I'd say he is old, maybe 7 to 9 years old by those fangs, already."
I said, "He is my friend, and I promised him that no harm would come to him here and I would take him back home. If he gets to seeming very sick or in pain, I will bring him in, but until then, I am taking him home." And so I did.
If ever there were an animal SO SENTIENT that you could almost believe they were "an enchanted prince," it is Cosmos. I love him more than any of our cats, even though I love them all. I don't know how to put it into words, although the poem was an attempt of sorts.
08/28/02 7:07am
Silent Cosmos and the Ways of the World
He was abandoned.
After years, his familyjust moved away without him.His grief was as silent ashis paw-steps, hunting for survival.
A surprisingly heavy bundle
of solid, furry muscled black grace.
His self-restraint over instinct matches
his maturity–; too odd for words.
He watches like a thoughtful human,
his sentience overwhelming form.
He could be one of those enchanted princes
immortal in fur.
The last human he owned
had him taken to the pound, where
he called for me to come get him.
He’d been just another inconvenience.
Did he find me? Or I him?
He accepts my fawning love,
not trusting a human to loyalty
but, pleased with the small favor
of having us for awhile.
A tragi-comic blood sport of grace
I am honored to call my friend.

Katrina

Katrina was the 'runt' of Rene's first and only litter, and born last.

She was not breathing. Her mom Rene looked at the still little form lying there, and looked at me, her very expressive little face seeming both sorrowful and worried. She nudged the kitten with her nose, and looked at me again, as if pleading with me to help her somehow.

Not knowing what to do, but having heard that sometimes kittens would start breathing if you massaged and cleaned them, I began stroking the newborn kitten with one finger and encouraging Rene to lick her, to just keep loving her and see if it helped. She did so, looking at me a couple times for more encouragement. Within a short time, suddenly the kitten began breathing!

She had some kind of ouchie on her eye when born, and it was crusted fully shut. When the kitten was about three weeks old, I held her and used a fingernail to try and loosen some of the scabby-crust, and her mom cleaned up the rest and she seemed just fine.

Katrina is pure white but for about 10 black fur-hairs. She is very nearsighted. Between being the runt and being nearsighted, she makes a "shy" impression.

The old man cat Cosmos watches out for her to some degree. When he eats, he will meow at her to tell her to come, and she will eat with him (the other cats, except Georgia who eats first, have to wait). If he did not do that she would not get to eat until last.

She was named Katrina by PJ, who used to call her "the little White Russian princess."

Georgia

Georgia is Rene's first daughter. She is one of those cool looking tortoiseshell calicos that have many autumn-like colors scattered and woven all over and into her darker-fur body.

She likes to hunt, and is by far the best hunter of all 8 cats. She prefers to be outdoors most the time. She has a tendency to follow us if we walk somewhere such as a few doors down to the store.

One day Rykah's dad saw this squirrel at the base of the big tree, standing on its hind legs with its front paws up on the trunk, looking up into the tree and apparently "yelling at" Georgia, screaming sounds at her like it was really mad! She just sat there looking down at it like she was amused.

Although Cosmos is the alpha cat right now (Dec 2006), for some reason, he and Georgia always get snippy and slappy at food time, and he usually lets her eat first. So she must hold some rank!

She was named Georgia by PJ after the song "Georgia on my Mind".

Brynner

Brynner is the firstborn and son of Rene. His daddy was a siamese apparently, as his lovely self attests to. He is very loving, lolling about like a ragdoll most the time.

He has the characteristic "siamese yowl" that he mostly uses at 4am outside my window when he has gotten stuck outside. He spends most his days asleep on one of the beds.

He sometimes gets the wild hair to chase Tigris or Katrina, which has made them both distrustful of him. When he gets really weird and stalker-like, his gorgeous blue eyes literally turn red (maybe blood behind the eye??), which is kind of scary!

He is nice to all the other cats with those exceptions. He is not the alpha male but he is more dominant (and years older) than our other male (Boo). He is probably the most relaxed and sensual cat for petting of all of them.

He was named by PJ, after Yul Brynner.

Rene

Back in 1999, I pined for a cat. We had two big dogs, but no cats.

Back then I was married to Ry's dad. I called home from work. "Honey," I said, "I want a cat. I love grey tabbies, and I like female cats. Let's see if we can find one at the shelter tonight." He agreed.

An hour later, he called me. "You won't believe this," he says. "The dogs were going nuts, barking like crazy, and I went out there to see what was wrong. It was pouring rain. I thought it was a tiny rat or gopher at first, but then I realized it was a tiny kitten in the corner, inside the wooden fence somehow, soaking wet, crouched and hissing and spitting and swiping claws at the noses of the dogs.

"So I picked her up, and I took her outside the back gate and set her down and walked away. But she sat at the gate and yowled pitifully. I came back to talk to her a couple of times, and then finally had mercy and picked her up and took her in the house. I dried her off and fed her, and then suddenly realized -- she is a female grey tabby! Exactly what you asked for!"

She "imprinted" onto Lu, who was at home with her, like a duck, and they were inseparable. She loved to stand on his shoulder, so he named her Rene (for Rene Descartes, to whom is attributed the famous saying, "We stand on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before").

The day I drove into Oklahoma several months later, she went into heat, before I'd had time to spay her--we had only guessed at her exact age. We ended up not being able to move into our rental house for a week due to plumbing, so she lived alone with a catbox and food/water except once a day when we visited for a couple of hours to begin unpacking things. And wouldn't you know it... she got out and was pregnant at the speed of light.

When she was near to giving birth, she came into my room one evening. I was meditating and praying, and she crawled up on my lap and sat there, purring very heavily. I laid one hand gently on her for awhile, then removed it and had nearly fallen asleep when I heard, "MEW! MEW!" and realized she'd begun having her kittens -- on my LAP!

I was able to place her and the kitten in the box with towel I'd prepared, and she had the rest. See "Katrina's" story for our little birth drama!

Rene had a fourth kitten we named Peacemaker, who looked a little like Tigris. He got his name because he seemed to be the goodnatured kitty that always made peace between the others. Unfortunately he disappeared when very young, and as he was our favorite kitten we were very sad!

In late 2001 when Lu had been visiting Rykah and was leaving back to Canada, we put Rene, Brynner and Georgia in hard cat carriers and shipped them on the airplane home to Canada with him. They lived with him until he (temporarily) returned in summer of 2004, when they came back to us!

Rene is so light in weight it seems almost unnatural. She has a very expressive face and is able to "look mad" and other emotions with remarkable clarity. She still bosses her kids, especially Brynner whom she slaps upside the head regularly whether he needs it or not (apparently she thinks he does!), which is funnier when you understand that he is about four times her size. He could just sit on her and she'd be helpless. ;-)

Rene is a study in extremes socially. Very intelligent. She has a tendency to go "hide" somewhere and come out not more than once a day for potty and food -- she virtually disappears for a week at a time in a cupboard, box or bedroom. Then suddenly she is there and insisting on being right on your keyboard and driving you crazy for awhile.

She is the queen as we call her sometimes, and the dominant female of our brood.