Feline Babies, Part 1

Little Foot the grey Tuxedo cat with a white belly and boots was born feral. He was found when he was probably only a few days old, near dead with his litter mates, sans mama. Some animal loving humans took him in, fed him with a bottle and gave him a chance to live.

His little Tuxedo yanked at my heart the moment I saw him in the pet store. Even though I knew the tugging was probably the pain of having just lost my Ms. Kitty to Radiator Fluid, I couldn't help but take him home to the first apartment where I lived alone, a converted garage behind a house in Hayward.

As soon as we got home he became Mr. Kitty. One of his nick names was "Little Lion". His legs were bowed and the way his body moved reminded me of a Lion on the savanna. He answered to just about anything that I called him though: Bub, Bubby Boy, Big Boy (because even after he was neutered he had the biggest balls!), Mama's Boy, Hunny Bunny Bubby Boy, and just about anything else that rhymes with the word 'Boy'. Oy!

He sleept under the covers with me cuddled up under my chin, purring and periodically licking or nibbling at my neck. When he was really comfy his tongue would stick out of his mouth ever so slightly. He just couldn't help any of it, having never really had a cat-mama to speak of. He spent a fair amount of time alone in that funky apartment in Hayward as I had to work full-time to pay the bills and was attending Junior College too.

Soon after Mr. Kitty came to live with me, I was accepted to Fresno State. We moved there and I started working on upper division units to complete my Bachelor's Degree. I was busy extra curricular activites and working to pay the rent and tuition. I spent a lot of time away doing all that stuff. When I was at home he stayed under the bed most of the time, didn't visit guests or just hissed at them, and was pretty much afraid of his own shadow. He was always a one person cat. He had issues.

Mr. Kitty and I were together for 16 years. He was a really sweet guy. I Miss him.

In the earliest days of College in Fresno, I didn't know too many people. Some burly bo-hunk of a jock that had befriended me (he actually was a right-wing christian missionary assigned to the College to lure young girls into Church with his good looks so as to save their souls) had some friends living in College sponsored housing who had been threatened with eviction because they had a kitten. Jock had been to my house and knew I had a cat. He had probably pegged me as a Crazy Cat Lady (as well as in need of soul-saving). And correctly too because the moment he told me that the cat was going to be sent to the pound (apartments are much harder to come by than cats after all), I said I'd take her. With not one ounce of hesitation, I agreed to take in the cat. No, that's wrong - I didn't agree to take the cat, I decided to.

A couple of days later, Jock arranged for me to go to the girls' apartment to pick her up. I would have never been invited to, nor willingly visited these girls or this apartment building under any other circumstance (much different worlds we all existed in). So I cautiously walk in the place and see a sweet and rather demure cat sitting on one of the dining room chairs. I thought "poor kitty," swooped her up and ran her home to Mr. K as quickly as I could.

This is Maggie. She came with the name and for some inexplicable reason it never seemed right to change it. She's also known as: Mistress, Mistress Maggie, Mama, Sweet Mama, Mama's Girl, Old Lady, or Maggit (tone, volume, and/or cadence dependent upon her behavior at any given moment, of course).

Maggie and I have been together for 17 years now.

This picture pretty much sums up her personality.

She's a piece of work.

Birds Of A Feather...