When I was little, my family always had dogs, but I was never allowed to have cats. My mom would tell me she hated cats because they had claws and they were mean, etc. So I grew up believing that I too, hated cats. Come to find out later, my mom didn’t want cats because they jump fences easier than dogs and the prospect of having to scoop our beloved kitty’s flattened corpse from the street was not something she was terribly interested in. Anyway, fast forward to my senior year of high school. I had been under the impression that cats had no personalities (this was a topic of heated discussion with one of my friends) and despite the fact that I had met a few friendly cats over the years, I resolved that I was merely just a “dog person.” Then I met Beau. He was a beautiful, striped, behemoth of a cat that radiated personality. He didn’t run away when I bent down to pet him, he stretched his back in a big arch and started pulling himself along the carpet with his claws, purring. I thought it was the cutest thing. Beau and his counterpart, Reggie, belonged to my husband’s family, although when I first encountered the cats, we were just friends. I decided when I got my own apartment I would have a big fat cat of my own. Ha, little did I know…
My husband and I were living in a little travel trailer parked on his family’s land (whole ‘nother post there. Lol) and spending most of our time at his Mom’s, which was only a few yards away from our door. At that time, she had 3 cats: Sassy, a Siamese who ONLY liked my mother in law; Neo, a big fluffy white cat that had been rescued from a drug lab; and Sammie, a tiny mean-as-fuck black cat. These cats were originally “indoors only”- until my MIL got an asshole roommate who insisted the cats be let outside. (Mind you, we lived in the middle of NOWHERE, and there were coyotes and mountain lions galore.) Luckily, the cats didn’t get eaten, but Sammie and Neo wound up pregnant in no time. They gave birth within a week of each other. Sammie had 2, Neo had 5. All together there were six white kitties and one black one. Sammy was so protective of her kitties, if you got anywhere near her box, she’d fuck you up. Neo could care less about hers and they wound up joining Sammie’s litter.
One day a few weeks after the kittens were born, I was at my MIL’s sitting on the floor with my arm propped up on the couch. I heard a noise coming from the box and when I looked over the black kitty popped his head out. He was trying to escape but having kind of a tough time of it. I decided not to help him because I felt that struggling would make him stronger. He finally made it out of the box and slowly crossed the room; his jelly legs quivering with inexperience. He made it over to me but he wasn’t done yet. He sunk his fledgling claws into the couch and began to make the 18” ascent to the seat. I watched him, resisting the temptation to give him a boost. Once at the top he walked over, put one of his tiny paws on my shoulder and said, “Ee-er.” I melted. I was his.
I became insanely protective over my little Bam kitty. When we took the other kitties to my MIL’s work to try and pawn them off on unsuspecting people (heh, karma catches up to me on this one) we took Bam with us so he wouldn’t feel left out. Everyone thought he was adorable because he was fluffy and he got passed around from person to person…One lady walked away with him and I about had a fit! When our time was up in our little travel trailer and it was time to move on, I packed my things, grabbed Bam and we were off…That was over six years ago. My, how our family has grown!
The next year, my husband and I had our own apartment and we were working at the same place, opposite shifts. My mother in law called me at work one day and asked,
“Do you guys want another kitty?”
“No! Well…..no we can’t. What color is it?”
“Black.”
“Oh god….mmm…Let me see what Sean says.”
Later, when Sean gets to work…
“So your mom called me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She wanted to know if we wanted a kitty.”
“What color is it?”
“Black.”
My MIL told me that she found these two kitties at her work and they had been abandoned. They were too young to eat solid food, so they had to be bottle fed. My sister in law had already chosen the grey and white kitten, and when I got there it was easy to see why. The little black one was the ugliest baby animal I had ever seen in person! He had these giant, alien eyes and huge ass jack rabbit ears. Still, he was a kitten and having to bottle feed him appealed to my maternal instincts. I looked at my new baby and said “Sean is going to be so mad; He’s so ugly.” Sean wound up doing most of the bottle feeding and it wasn’t until after we had named him Banky Edwards that we found out he was a little girl cat. Lol Her first vet visit was hilarious. When the vet gave her the vaccination shot, she looked up at him very matter of factly and said “Weeor!” Even he laughed and said “Well!” She’s our little miss attitude. Thankfully, she grew into her features as she got older.
Three years, new jobs and one apartment later…
My friends had just gotten a new cat, their third. They kept joking, telling us we needed a third cat to keep it even. Sean was adamant that we did not need a third cat. A few months went by and every so often I’d try to talk him into the idea of getting another cat to no avail. For a while, my SIL was living with us and one day while Sean was still in bed, she and I decided that we were going to go to the shelter “just to look.” So I woke Sean up to tell him where we were going and I said we’d send him picture messages if we saw anyone cute. He reluctantly decided he would rather go look for himself. He liked my friend’s cat Baxter, a striped long-hair, and wanted to find a similar wild-looking feline.
The shelter by our place is a dump, and as bad as I feel for those animals, I knew Sean wouldn’t be comfortable there, so we went to the shelter in the next town over. We walked in and asked if they had any kittens. The ACO at the counter said they had a “few” and led us to the cattery. There were a TON of kittens…SIL and I looked around in all the cages, but Sean had already made a decision. While all the other kittens were being rambunctious in their pens, one calm little guy stood out from the crowd. He was grey and black striped with little kitten fluff around his face. He was adorable. The ACO took him out of the cage and handed him to me. I said something about him being so calm and she laughed and said “Watch out, he’ll bite your ears.” I passed him to SIL and she passed him to Sean. I could tell this was going to be Sean’s new baby. We couldn’t take him home because they had to vaccinate and neuter him before he could leave and it was Saturday. The ACO had me fill out some papers, pay the fee (that my SIL so kindly contributed to) and gave me directions to the vet I would be picking him up from on Monday. The rest of the weekend seemed to take forever.
On Monday, it seemed like work would never end! When it was finally time to go get our precious little Buddha, my coworker suggested I take a box with me. Nah, he just got neutered! He’s going to be groggy and no trouble at all. Ha! You’d think this was my first cat or something…I get to the vet and when they bring him out he seems pretty docile. As I’m walking out to the car he starts spinning in my hand trying to get free, then he proceeds to claw the shit out of me. Luckily, work is right down the street so I beeped my coworkers (as in, “where you at?”) and told them I would need that box after all. Lol After Buddha was all situated in his box, we made the 20 minute journey home. He meowed LOUDLY the whole way (something he still does in the car) and I kept meowing back so he didn’t think I was ignoring him. You know in that 20 minutes, this tiny kitten managed to claw and bite his way out of the box that’s designed to hold 10 reams of paper? Struggle for strength, indeed! I swung by Sean’s work so he could see Buddha before I took him home. He gave him a shoelace to play with and people coming in and out of the shop wanted to pet him and hold him. I know he’s mine, but I really believe he is one of the most beautiful cats I have ever seen. His markings are perfectly symmetrical; he’s big, lean and strong. He can jump up to 7 feet. He’s amazing.
It took quite a while for Bam and Banky to get used to the idea of having a little brother. They were older (Bam 4, Banky 3) and weren’t much for playing rough or running around. Two of Buddha’s favorite things. We had a long adjustment period after we brought him home. Banky dealt with the change by screaming like a human child anytime he got near her. Bam tried to keep his distance, but made sure we knew he wasn’t happy by growling and then taking a fat shit on our rug in front of all our friends. That wasn’t embarrassing or anything. As time went by, the oldies relaxed a little more; well as much as they could, considering Buddha would stalk and attack them when they least expected it. All the cats had their spots they went to for privacy. Especially Buddha who took ownership over everything new introduced into our apartment: bags, boxes, cat toys, everything. Buddha quickly became Sean’s favorite, and still is today.
A year and a half after we adopted Buddha, we moved into a new apartment. It was the same one we lived in before, but remodeled with a reverse floor plan (I can’t tell you how many times I got confused looking for my silverware in the wrong drawer.) We were in our new place for a couple months, and lots of things were changing in our lives. I had been in a little bout of depression due to the stress I was under over finances and I was having a hard time pulling myself out of my funk. I had been trying to sell my truck for months, but since the economy was so bad, nobody was interested in buying an old gas-guzzler that needed a lot of TLC. Sean and I were making plans for the money we would eventually get and I half-jokingly expressed my interest in getting a small dog, possibly a Chihuahua for the cats to beat up on. Sean, the more rational one, was doing his best to deter me from wanting a dog, but the more he protested, the more I talked about it. I probably wouldn’t have done it though, because getting a dog from a reputable breeder can be extremely expensive.
Our 3 year wedding anniversary was on a Friday, and not being terribly romantic people we decided to just make a steak dinner at home. Early in the evening, we got a call from someone who wanted to buy the truck! Long story short, the guy decided to buy it and we were happy to be rid of that stress. After the truck was gone we had a few errands to run before we put dinner on. Walking down the sidewalk to our carport, I stopped quickly with a short gasp.
Sean “What? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, “Kitties!”
I pointed at a group of kitties playing with their dad on the grass. As dumb as it sounds, I’ve never seen a group of kitties playing in “the wild” before. I mean, I’ve seen pictures like that in calendars, but never in person. It was one of the cutest things I’d seen in a while. The kitties were making little squeaky noises and the daddy cat would hide behind a tree and jump out and wrestle them to the ground. We had to walk by them a few more times that night and every time I stopped and pet them. One little kitty got stuck up in a tree and was mewing frantically. He was right in front of my face, so I grabbed him and put him on the ground with his family. I said out loud how cute the little babies were and a voice from behind me said “Take one home with you, please!” there was a lady peering over her patio fence. I told her they were sweet, but I already had three and they might not be happy. We went back home and Sean could see I had kitties on my mind. We talked about the pros and cons, and surprisingly, Sean was reassuring me that one more cat “couldn’t hurt.” I thought for sure he’d be totally against it! As it turns out, he just didn’t want a dog, so he thought I’d shut up about the Chihuahua if I had a kitten in the house.
After dinner, we decided to go back and really look at the kittens. There were three left, and the owners had dibs on one of them. I saw a little grey and black spotted kitty that kind of reminded me of Buddha and I picked her up. We stayed outside talking to the owners for a while and she asked me if I decided to take her home. I looked at Sean and said yes and away we went. Once we got into the apartment, we just set the new kitty on the floor and walked away. We thought if we made a big deal out of it the other cats would get upset, and our plan worked. There was hardly a fuss when we introduced Bella into the family. The only problem was she was crawling with fleas and had a worm problem. We decided for the safety of the other cats to quarantine her in our bathroom. We set her up a bed on towels and gave her some food and water and a snuggle buddy. I felt bad because I couldn’t get her into a vet until late the next day, so she spent a long time locked in the bathroom. She meowed so much while she was in there that when she was finally allowed to come out, she didn’t meow for a couple months!
Once we got her healthy she could roam around our place and explore her new home. Buddha had mixed emotions over the whole thing. On one hand, he was no longer “The Kitty” and had to share our attention with yet another feline. On the other hand, he had a new toy. I was concerned about how rough Buddha was with Bella, but I felt if I protected her, he would be discouraged from playing with her all together, and she would become a soft little scaredy cat. So, I let Buddha beat up on her as much as he wanted. He would pin her down and bite her and she would be making these noises like she was mad as hell! When he would get up and walk away, she would chase him down and make him play some more (Mind you, Buddha was like 6 times her size at least!) for a while, he couldn’t get any peace, the kitty was hot on his heels day and night.
Something happened after we brought Bella into the family. The oldies, Bam and Banky, actually started to relax. You’d think having 4 cats in a small apartment would be stressful to these highly independent creatures. These days, it’s not uncommon to see all 4 cats sleeping on one couch. Sean and I have up to 3 in bed with us at night. Bam prefers to sleep where he can really stretch out, since he’s a bit on the heavy side. If you’re giving out treats or cat nip, they’ll surround your feet until all you can see is ears and tails!
One thing that comes with having a clan so large is people calling me the “crazy cat lady.” That’s funny to the point of insulting. I realize we have a large number of animals in a small space but we take good care of them so that’s our business. I just take it in stride because usually the offending parties don’t have cats, or they don’t have companion animals at all and I have my own judgments about that. I feel bad when people with allergies come over and do my best to keep the cats away and the fur on my couch to a minimum. But to the people who dislike cats: Seriously, if you have a problem with cats, don’t try to hang out at my apartment. It’s stressful to have to round my cats up and keep them away from picky guest when they live there and are used to doing certain things. Also, if my cats (especially Bam) come up to you, that’s a huge compliment, but I guess some people can’t appreciate that and it makes it hard for me to appreciate them. Sorry that sounded so snotty, it’s honestly how I feel. Cat people out there know what I mean.
So now we’re set. Me, Sean, Bam, Banky, Buddha and Bella are one big happy family. But seriously. No more cats. :)
My husband and I were living in a little travel trailer parked on his family’s land (whole ‘nother post there. Lol) and spending most of our time at his Mom’s, which was only a few yards away from our door. At that time, she had 3 cats: Sassy, a Siamese who ONLY liked my mother in law; Neo, a big fluffy white cat that had been rescued from a drug lab; and Sammie, a tiny mean-as-fuck black cat. These cats were originally “indoors only”- until my MIL got an asshole roommate who insisted the cats be let outside. (Mind you, we lived in the middle of NOWHERE, and there were coyotes and mountain lions galore.) Luckily, the cats didn’t get eaten, but Sammie and Neo wound up pregnant in no time. They gave birth within a week of each other. Sammie had 2, Neo had 5. All together there were six white kitties and one black one. Sammy was so protective of her kitties, if you got anywhere near her box, she’d fuck you up. Neo could care less about hers and they wound up joining Sammie’s litter.
One day a few weeks after the kittens were born, I was at my MIL’s sitting on the floor with my arm propped up on the couch. I heard a noise coming from the box and when I looked over the black kitty popped his head out. He was trying to escape but having kind of a tough time of it. I decided not to help him because I felt that struggling would make him stronger. He finally made it out of the box and slowly crossed the room; his jelly legs quivering with inexperience. He made it over to me but he wasn’t done yet. He sunk his fledgling claws into the couch and began to make the 18” ascent to the seat. I watched him, resisting the temptation to give him a boost. Once at the top he walked over, put one of his tiny paws on my shoulder and said, “Ee-er.” I melted. I was his.
I became insanely protective over my little Bam kitty. When we took the other kitties to my MIL’s work to try and pawn them off on unsuspecting people (heh, karma catches up to me on this one) we took Bam with us so he wouldn’t feel left out. Everyone thought he was adorable because he was fluffy and he got passed around from person to person…One lady walked away with him and I about had a fit! When our time was up in our little travel trailer and it was time to move on, I packed my things, grabbed Bam and we were off…That was over six years ago. My, how our family has grown!
The next year, my husband and I had our own apartment and we were working at the same place, opposite shifts. My mother in law called me at work one day and asked,
“Do you guys want another kitty?”
“No! Well…..no we can’t. What color is it?”
“Black.”
“Oh god….mmm…Let me see what Sean says.”
Later, when Sean gets to work…
“So your mom called me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She wanted to know if we wanted a kitty.”
“What color is it?”
“Black.”
My MIL told me that she found these two kitties at her work and they had been abandoned. They were too young to eat solid food, so they had to be bottle fed. My sister in law had already chosen the grey and white kitten, and when I got there it was easy to see why. The little black one was the ugliest baby animal I had ever seen in person! He had these giant, alien eyes and huge ass jack rabbit ears. Still, he was a kitten and having to bottle feed him appealed to my maternal instincts. I looked at my new baby and said “Sean is going to be so mad; He’s so ugly.” Sean wound up doing most of the bottle feeding and it wasn’t until after we had named him Banky Edwards that we found out he was a little girl cat. Lol Her first vet visit was hilarious. When the vet gave her the vaccination shot, she looked up at him very matter of factly and said “Weeor!” Even he laughed and said “Well!” She’s our little miss attitude. Thankfully, she grew into her features as she got older.
Three years, new jobs and one apartment later…
My friends had just gotten a new cat, their third. They kept joking, telling us we needed a third cat to keep it even. Sean was adamant that we did not need a third cat. A few months went by and every so often I’d try to talk him into the idea of getting another cat to no avail. For a while, my SIL was living with us and one day while Sean was still in bed, she and I decided that we were going to go to the shelter “just to look.” So I woke Sean up to tell him where we were going and I said we’d send him picture messages if we saw anyone cute. He reluctantly decided he would rather go look for himself. He liked my friend’s cat Baxter, a striped long-hair, and wanted to find a similar wild-looking feline.
The shelter by our place is a dump, and as bad as I feel for those animals, I knew Sean wouldn’t be comfortable there, so we went to the shelter in the next town over. We walked in and asked if they had any kittens. The ACO at the counter said they had a “few” and led us to the cattery. There were a TON of kittens…SIL and I looked around in all the cages, but Sean had already made a decision. While all the other kittens were being rambunctious in their pens, one calm little guy stood out from the crowd. He was grey and black striped with little kitten fluff around his face. He was adorable. The ACO took him out of the cage and handed him to me. I said something about him being so calm and she laughed and said “Watch out, he’ll bite your ears.” I passed him to SIL and she passed him to Sean. I could tell this was going to be Sean’s new baby. We couldn’t take him home because they had to vaccinate and neuter him before he could leave and it was Saturday. The ACO had me fill out some papers, pay the fee (that my SIL so kindly contributed to) and gave me directions to the vet I would be picking him up from on Monday. The rest of the weekend seemed to take forever.
On Monday, it seemed like work would never end! When it was finally time to go get our precious little Buddha, my coworker suggested I take a box with me. Nah, he just got neutered! He’s going to be groggy and no trouble at all. Ha! You’d think this was my first cat or something…I get to the vet and when they bring him out he seems pretty docile. As I’m walking out to the car he starts spinning in my hand trying to get free, then he proceeds to claw the shit out of me. Luckily, work is right down the street so I beeped my coworkers (as in, “where you at?”) and told them I would need that box after all. Lol After Buddha was all situated in his box, we made the 20 minute journey home. He meowed LOUDLY the whole way (something he still does in the car) and I kept meowing back so he didn’t think I was ignoring him. You know in that 20 minutes, this tiny kitten managed to claw and bite his way out of the box that’s designed to hold 10 reams of paper? Struggle for strength, indeed! I swung by Sean’s work so he could see Buddha before I took him home. He gave him a shoelace to play with and people coming in and out of the shop wanted to pet him and hold him. I know he’s mine, but I really believe he is one of the most beautiful cats I have ever seen. His markings are perfectly symmetrical; he’s big, lean and strong. He can jump up to 7 feet. He’s amazing.
It took quite a while for Bam and Banky to get used to the idea of having a little brother. They were older (Bam 4, Banky 3) and weren’t much for playing rough or running around. Two of Buddha’s favorite things. We had a long adjustment period after we brought him home. Banky dealt with the change by screaming like a human child anytime he got near her. Bam tried to keep his distance, but made sure we knew he wasn’t happy by growling and then taking a fat shit on our rug in front of all our friends. That wasn’t embarrassing or anything. As time went by, the oldies relaxed a little more; well as much as they could, considering Buddha would stalk and attack them when they least expected it. All the cats had their spots they went to for privacy. Especially Buddha who took ownership over everything new introduced into our apartment: bags, boxes, cat toys, everything. Buddha quickly became Sean’s favorite, and still is today.
A year and a half after we adopted Buddha, we moved into a new apartment. It was the same one we lived in before, but remodeled with a reverse floor plan (I can’t tell you how many times I got confused looking for my silverware in the wrong drawer.) We were in our new place for a couple months, and lots of things were changing in our lives. I had been in a little bout of depression due to the stress I was under over finances and I was having a hard time pulling myself out of my funk. I had been trying to sell my truck for months, but since the economy was so bad, nobody was interested in buying an old gas-guzzler that needed a lot of TLC. Sean and I were making plans for the money we would eventually get and I half-jokingly expressed my interest in getting a small dog, possibly a Chihuahua for the cats to beat up on. Sean, the more rational one, was doing his best to deter me from wanting a dog, but the more he protested, the more I talked about it. I probably wouldn’t have done it though, because getting a dog from a reputable breeder can be extremely expensive.
Our 3 year wedding anniversary was on a Friday, and not being terribly romantic people we decided to just make a steak dinner at home. Early in the evening, we got a call from someone who wanted to buy the truck! Long story short, the guy decided to buy it and we were happy to be rid of that stress. After the truck was gone we had a few errands to run before we put dinner on. Walking down the sidewalk to our carport, I stopped quickly with a short gasp.
Sean “What? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, “Kitties!”
I pointed at a group of kitties playing with their dad on the grass. As dumb as it sounds, I’ve never seen a group of kitties playing in “the wild” before. I mean, I’ve seen pictures like that in calendars, but never in person. It was one of the cutest things I’d seen in a while. The kitties were making little squeaky noises and the daddy cat would hide behind a tree and jump out and wrestle them to the ground. We had to walk by them a few more times that night and every time I stopped and pet them. One little kitty got stuck up in a tree and was mewing frantically. He was right in front of my face, so I grabbed him and put him on the ground with his family. I said out loud how cute the little babies were and a voice from behind me said “Take one home with you, please!” there was a lady peering over her patio fence. I told her they were sweet, but I already had three and they might not be happy. We went back home and Sean could see I had kitties on my mind. We talked about the pros and cons, and surprisingly, Sean was reassuring me that one more cat “couldn’t hurt.” I thought for sure he’d be totally against it! As it turns out, he just didn’t want a dog, so he thought I’d shut up about the Chihuahua if I had a kitten in the house.
After dinner, we decided to go back and really look at the kittens. There were three left, and the owners had dibs on one of them. I saw a little grey and black spotted kitty that kind of reminded me of Buddha and I picked her up. We stayed outside talking to the owners for a while and she asked me if I decided to take her home. I looked at Sean and said yes and away we went. Once we got into the apartment, we just set the new kitty on the floor and walked away. We thought if we made a big deal out of it the other cats would get upset, and our plan worked. There was hardly a fuss when we introduced Bella into the family. The only problem was she was crawling with fleas and had a worm problem. We decided for the safety of the other cats to quarantine her in our bathroom. We set her up a bed on towels and gave her some food and water and a snuggle buddy. I felt bad because I couldn’t get her into a vet until late the next day, so she spent a long time locked in the bathroom. She meowed so much while she was in there that when she was finally allowed to come out, she didn’t meow for a couple months!
Once we got her healthy she could roam around our place and explore her new home. Buddha had mixed emotions over the whole thing. On one hand, he was no longer “The Kitty” and had to share our attention with yet another feline. On the other hand, he had a new toy. I was concerned about how rough Buddha was with Bella, but I felt if I protected her, he would be discouraged from playing with her all together, and she would become a soft little scaredy cat. So, I let Buddha beat up on her as much as he wanted. He would pin her down and bite her and she would be making these noises like she was mad as hell! When he would get up and walk away, she would chase him down and make him play some more (Mind you, Buddha was like 6 times her size at least!) for a while, he couldn’t get any peace, the kitty was hot on his heels day and night.
Something happened after we brought Bella into the family. The oldies, Bam and Banky, actually started to relax. You’d think having 4 cats in a small apartment would be stressful to these highly independent creatures. These days, it’s not uncommon to see all 4 cats sleeping on one couch. Sean and I have up to 3 in bed with us at night. Bam prefers to sleep where he can really stretch out, since he’s a bit on the heavy side. If you’re giving out treats or cat nip, they’ll surround your feet until all you can see is ears and tails!
One thing that comes with having a clan so large is people calling me the “crazy cat lady.” That’s funny to the point of insulting. I realize we have a large number of animals in a small space but we take good care of them so that’s our business. I just take it in stride because usually the offending parties don’t have cats, or they don’t have companion animals at all and I have my own judgments about that. I feel bad when people with allergies come over and do my best to keep the cats away and the fur on my couch to a minimum. But to the people who dislike cats: Seriously, if you have a problem with cats, don’t try to hang out at my apartment. It’s stressful to have to round my cats up and keep them away from picky guest when they live there and are used to doing certain things. Also, if my cats (especially Bam) come up to you, that’s a huge compliment, but I guess some people can’t appreciate that and it makes it hard for me to appreciate them. Sorry that sounded so snotty, it’s honestly how I feel. Cat people out there know what I mean.
So now we’re set. Me, Sean, Bam, Banky, Buddha and Bella are one big happy family. But seriously. No more cats. :)
Bam and Banky enjoying a little nap.
Buddha and Bella battling it out.
