K is for Kitties #AtoZChallenge

Let me tell you about my kitties!

Oh my, I have had so many cats. So many, many, many cats.

It all started out with Nigel. He was a feral manx that showed up at my childhood home one day. We kept him for a while, but... well, there's a long story. The short version is, I hugged the cat and he scratched me so badly that I almost lost my eye. Some day I'll tell the whole story, but not in this post.

Nigel

Chi-Chi

There was a second cat that came along and lived with us, at the same time as Nigel. Her name was Chi-Chi.

Chi-Chi was my first experience with pet loss and grief. Well, I guess Nigel was, but his departure was so confusing, I never really thought of it as loss and grief.

Those two cats would, I did not know until decades later, be the catalysts (yeah, I wrote CATalysts) that started this whole thing. THIS whole thing.

Chi-Chi had a few litters of kittens. We always managed to give them away, free, with no problems. This was the 1960s and people didn't really spay or neuter then.

Slippers

After Nigel and Chi-Chi, the order of who came next is hard for me to remember. I think the next cat was Sylvester (no pictures!), and after him Slippers (aka "Hendrix" don't ask!). 

Ratsky

Idgy

When I moved out of my parents' house, the saga continued. There was a gray feral cat that had no name. He was beautiful, but he wouldn't stay put. I never did find out what happened to him. He was gorgeous.

Then, I had Idgy and Ratsky when I lived in Princeton (Mass.)

Filkin and Charlie (and Timba the dog in the background!

After that, I got Love Kitty, Filkin and Charlie. Then, all the Long View Farm cats came along. There were 20+/- of those, and most of them didn't have names. We kept three when we left the Farm: Mr. Kitty, Maggie and Louise.  Love Kitty, Filkin and Charlie, of course were still with me at the time, too; and someone "dumped" an orange cat at our house that we also ended up keeping for many years. We named him Pointy, 'cause he had the pointiest nose we'd ever seen on a cat!

So, we lived in this little, tiny house with 7 cats, one dog, and two humans! It was pretty crazy.

Love Kitty

Filkin (daughter of Love Kitty)

Pointy. He was "dumped" at our house, and became one of our favorite cats.

Mr. Kitty! One of my all-time favorite cats. He was just an amazing creature

Maggie

Believe it or not, when the last of those cats died (Maggie), I went two years without any cats. For the first, and only, time in my life... I had NO cats!!  It was weird!














G started bugging me to get a cat. I've never been able to buy just one of anything, so, I adopted THREE kittens at the same time. "Hey, I'll take three, please!" Well, you know what they say: Cats are like potato chips, you can't have just one!

Cali and Tux on the day I adopted them

Cali, Tux and Newman are still with me today, and I love them so much, I can't even put it into words. They entertain me and make me smile every day.

Homely, scrawny Newman on the day I adopted him!

Newman and Tux go paw to paw!

Bonus! One of my cats (can't remember who!) had a litter of kittens. I thought it'd be a great idea to give one of them to my mother as a gift. Please, don't give people an animal as a gift. What a dumb idea! This cat ended up with someone else in the neighborhood. I had named her Patches. She looks remarkably like my current cat, Cali.

So, K is for Kitties. Give yours a hug today!  But don't get scratched!