There are actually four cats in the house. Horshoe is the oldest,
now about ten; he is a foundling, rescued from the Doberman next door one
late summer evening when the lady there called in horror that a young
kitty was scratching at her patio screen door. He is the alpha cat and has
gone through bouts of both meningitis - with x-rays, an MRI, and a
spinal tap to diagnose it - and diabetes.
Mimi Köttursdóttir (the Icelandic grammar here, I have been told, is incorrect, but I figure
it is ok since the kitty's mother's name was Köttur!) was rescued from
the daughter of a friend, who found an entire litter-cum-mother beneath
some power lines, dumped in the early Fall about six years ago. She is a
darling and has tolerated a year's worth of cryptococcus (our pocketbook
didn't do quite as well = a small fortune).
Holmes is actually John's cat, sent to us "for a
year" somewhere over four years ago when John moved to New York, and is
roughly ten years old as well. He looks huge, but it is all
fluff. He is a "watch cat" - have you ever hard a cat growl?
Kali, named after the Indian goddess of destruction, was found in the
neighborhood a couple of summers ago. A neighbor (a different one) said
she would feed her until bad weather came and then would take her to the
vet for you-know-what; we wouldn't let that happen. When we took her to
the vet to have her spayed, the doctor called to tell us that the cat was
having a good sleep: as she started the procedure, a scar revealed that
the cat had previously been spayed.
I would certainly be remiss if I didn't remember their predecessors and
forebears in the household. Oklahoma, actually Miss Oklahoma P. Pusser,
was our first kitty and lived with us in Oxford, Ohio, Champaign, Ilinois,
Kokomo, Indiana, East Lansing, Michigan, and Kent, Ohio. What a sweetie.
She was the only kitty who liked to ride in the car, getting up on the
back ledge and enjoying the scenery; we also used to take her out to buy
Twinkies so she could lick the cream. Buddy was named by Mary after a
character in a Truman Capote novel. Buddy came to us from the blacktop
of our apartment complex in Kent. He was wholly black and probably
the most affectionate kitty we have ever had. He could get up on the
range hood and open the cabinet doors to get the catnip out. We would
always let him out to range the neighborhood. Bootsie was another Kent
rescue. She was so large everyone always asked if she were pregnant.
She always came when called and used to like to waddle around the
backyard. All of these kitties are still with us in the back yard. We
love you guys.
