Cats
are Cool
When I first discovered these furry little creatures when I was about four, I became immediately
connected and entranced. I could never get enough of kitties. I was always trying to sneak them into bed to
sleep with me. Somehow their softness and little kitten purring would make me
drift sweetly off to sleep. I was
heartbroken when the little black kitten I had chosen in an all white litter
died either from a Tom or from something else soon after he was born. From then on I think I always had a weakness
for black cats. I settled for a white kitten that I called Snowflake. I grew a fondness for white cats too. When my
kittens would disappear as they did sometimes when I was young, I was so
heartbroken that I wrote a letter to all cats and kittens. I still have it in an early scrapbook. The letter says;
Dear Cats and Kittens,
We are gathered today to find the lost kitten. We all must try.
Thank you,
Me
When I was six or seven , playing house in my little play
house was a lot of fun but I liked to have my cat with me in the play
house. My cat wasn’t very good about
sticking around so I decided to put her in the oven of the little wooden stove my dad had made for my
playhouse. I got distracted and went off
to play forgetting that I had put her in the oven. The next day I called and
called for her but she didn’t come. I still
hadn’t remembered where I had put
her and became very upset and starting
looking all over the neighborhood for her.
I went around knocking on all the neighbors doors to see if
they had seen her. One neighbor said
that a white cat had shown up at her house and brought me the cat. It looked like my cat but when I petted her
and held her close, she didn’t smell like my cat. I have noticed that all cats
smell differently and I prefer cats that smell a certain way. I knew it wasn’t her but took her home anyway
thinking I might become attached to her.
About a week later I was playing
in my play house and opened the door to my little stove and my cat weakly
sauntered out. I was so glad to see her
but was very upset that I had forgotten
that I had put her in the oven. It was a
miracle that she was still alive. Cats are pretty strong and resilient I have
found since then.
When I was young, I also had
another color of cat I liked and that was a calico. The Calicos were always short hairs. I read
once that if you had a Calico they were considered the luckiest of cats. I had several
Calicos and we named them Figaro I,
Figaro II, and Figaro III. Then I
kind of evolved into liking long haired cats.
One of my first long haired cats was a black tortoiseshell. She was the funniest cat. We called her Calicocoa because she kind of
looked like cocoa. She was a cat clown
and was always full of antics and
fun. She liked to surprise people that
came to visit. She would hide in the oak
grove and as they came up the stone steps, she would run out and jump in the
air spread eagle in front of them and then scamper away. I know she scared a
few guests. I guess that’s why they sometimes call them them “Guard Cats”.
Another
one of my favorite cats was Sylvan. She
was a longhaired silver cat and she was elegant. She was a little mysterious but always
loving. Other long haired cats growing
up were Mr President, a huge long haired white cat and Ebony and Ivory. I played the piano and sometimes my cats
enjoyed playing cat tunes too. That’s how they got their names. Ivory was a lovely cream colored long hair and ebony was a black cat, her fur
as shiny and black as coal.
After I
was married I always needed to have a cat or two. One of my favorite first cats after I was married
was Cozy Kitchen. She was a black
longhaired tortoise shell. She was so
pretty and friendly as a kitten that one
day a child picked her up on the way to school and took her to school with
her. I started searching for her and
couldn’t find her. A few days later I
found her down by the school. Cozy
Kitchen was always getting in trouble.
She used up seven of her nine lives in the first four years of her life.
She liked cars and one day we didn’t realize she was on top of the car
when we left. As we turned the corner
she went flying off. We luckily saw her
then and took her home but she had a lot of the fur scraped off her back. Cozy always drooled a lot when I would pet
her. I guess it was an instinct when mother cats groom their babies it
stimulates their salivary glands. One
day she disappeared. I called and called
for her but she didn’t come. I knew something bad had happened to her. After she didn’t come home for a week I kind
of gave up on her coming home but I was pretty sad. Two weeks later there she was by the back
sliding door mewing. She looked pretty
rough like she been through something horrific. Her nose was split and I could
feel a couple of ribs that felt broked.
There was a big lab behind our house that cruised the field. I wondered if he had gotten her and when she
was hurt she had crawled into a pipe or something to try to mend. I nurtured her and nursed her and soon she was as good as new. She did seem to have a problem of wandering
off and getting lost though.
To be continued with more cat adventures……………………….
