Amanda’s Introduction

Hello, I am Amanda, a friend of Melissa’s who also happens to have three cats.

I would not characterize myself as a Cat Lady, however.  I have a life that in some ways revolves around these cats, but I think that I have had cat ladiness thrust upon me.  Each feline showed up in my life, unannounced, and immediately took advantage of my kind nature, as all stray cats do.

These cats are not particularly unique, but they are large, and I am around them so much, that I can (and will) exhaustively tell my Cat Stories along with the most vehement lovers of cats in the whole wide world.  This has less to do with my fondness for these little tabby burdens and more to do with my desire to be conversationally competitive, I will admit, but you’ll still get to read!  Minutes of your day will be filled with the feline personalities I get to experience every minute of mine.

But as this is my first post, I will merely give you an introduction, in order of appearance in my life.

The Captain

Cricket

Zesta

Peeps and Poops

I called my sister right away but she never answers her phone. I left a message. “Hey I have a cat question.”

My sister, a veterinary graduate student, usually doesn’t take my problems seriously. I guess “If I wet my cat will she cool off?” and “Do cats need love or can I just feed them?” aren’t the normal questions she entertains during the course of her studies. But they’re valid! I need to know how to make my cat stop panting and how to get it to stop being so affectionate. How else will I survive with these animals in my home?

As I sat, watching Seinfeld, I wondered what’s a cat owner to do next? I had never had a sick pet before. Did I have to go to the vet? Maybe I was overreacting. Will I be broke tomorrow because I was confused about my dumbest animal? Is she even hurt? Did I imagine it? Did she even notice?

Thank Seinfeld! My phone rang, it was her.

“Hey, I’m on call so I’m not answering unknown numbers. What’s up?” I wondered if that explanation made sense. Jerry was on the phone with his parents. I remembered why I called, without realizing I had forgotten.

“Oh uhhh… there was blood near Haircut’s litter box yesterday and we thought she cut her foot, but today we realized it was her poops and there was more blood.” I described the problem as quickly as possible so she wouldn’t get bored and go back to her nap.

“How are her peeps?” she asked. Would she talk this way to other patients’ owners? At least I understood.

“How are her peeps?” I repeated to my friend in my room, as he watched over Haircut.

He also understood. “I don’t think there was any blood there. I don’t know. We can’t tell. Lovelace says hi!” he concluded, referring to his own cat.

“He doesn’t think there was any. I guess. Well, we don’t know. We can’t tell.” I left out the greeting. I don’t pass greetings along, not for people, not for cats. I wondered how Lovelace was doing. Wait, no, I’m worried about Haircut, I remember.

“Well there’s nothing I can do.” That was usually her answer. She was going to tell me to keep her litter clean and pay attention to see if she gets any worse. “Keep her litter really clean and make sure she isn’t acting different. If she gets worse you might have to take her in somewhere.”

“Okay, that will be easy. She’s on vacation next door so she’s the only cat. We can watch her poops.”

“Okay I’m going back to sleep. Goodbye.”

She said something about sleeping in a living room at a horse farm. I didn’t really understand.

—-

The next time that I called my sister, there was significantly better news. “Nothing at all,” I informed my sister.

I had followed Haircut around for weeks, making sure everything was fine. With three cats, it’s hard to tell apart things that are left behind.

When I finally got around to calling my sister, the problem had so far disappeared from my mind that it occurred to me she might have forgotten what was even wrong.

“Hey, remember Haircut was sick?” I said to her.

“Yeah, she’s fine since right? It was probably nothing.”

“No more blood or anything. Clean poops, clean peeps.”

“She cut her booty hole, that’s my official diagnosis.”

“Thanks, what do I owe you?”

“Just your love.”

Holiday Cats

Holiday Olive

Holiday Haircut

Holiday Tuff Ghost

Tuff Ghost’s Story

Tuff Ghost is the youngest cat I have and the only male. He is now about 4 years old.

About three and a half years ago, I was shown a picture of two blurry, black and white kittens that another fraternity brother had rescued from the street. She had no room for them in her apartment because she already had three cats. They were brother and sister and identically patterned, except the girl was much smaller, both adorable tuxedo cats. They were named Hansel and Gretel.

It took about three seconds for me to decide I wanted the kittens, but about three weeks to convince my roommate we should have more cats. At this point I already had Olive and Haircut, and I guess my fraternity brother who had the kittens assumed I could handle more. Olive and Haircut were even getting along!

When Hansel and Gretel showed up, they ran straight from their crate to behind our boiler and stayed there for about three weeks. I would put food and water behind there, but we started to be concerned about whether they were eating at all. We scared them out from their little hidey-hole and covered it up with some big boxes, which remained there for about 8 months. They found new hidey-holes anyway.

I renamed them Tuff Ghost and Sea Ghost, after songs by the Unicorns, now that I finally knew what they looked like. Tuff Ghost is still afraid of me to this day.

Tuff Ghost Silberstang

One of the oldest pictures of Tuff Ghost.

Olive’s Story

Olive is the oldest cat I have. She is about 6 years old, I think. She is the alpha cat around the apartment. She got accustomed to being on her own when I got her and she still acts like she owns the place, even with two other cats around. Sometimes she tries to treat us humans like she is better than us too. She will steal our food and knock over our glassware while looking us right in the eyes.

She is not just the oldest cat I have, but the one I have had the longest. I got her almost as a kitten, at maybe a year old.

In 2008, a friend of a friend had a kitten. I met this little grey kitten at a party. Her name was Olive Zissou (surname via The Life Aquatic). She was miniscule, except for her big ol’ feet. She’s polydactyl and has 2 extra toes on her front feet. I picked her up in that smoke-filled hipster party and said “I’m gonna take you home!” I didn’t of course. She belonged to someone else. But goodness was she ever cute!

A few months later, Olive’s owner moved into a new apartment where cats were not allowed. It was probably incredibly hard for her, but she asked me to foster Olive for a semester. She brought the now not-so-little kitten over in a crate, with a scratching post and a toy assortment. The kitten predictably sniffed every inch of my apartment before settling down with a toy mouse on a blanket. With a heavy heart, her owner left. Olive spent the night in my bed, already used to the place.

A semester turned into a year. I fell in kitty love. Olive’s previous owner asked me about getting her back. Reluctantly, I almost handed her over. It was terribly difficult. Olive cuddled with me every night, she even spooned! We drank tea together and sometimes she ran away with one of my french toast sticks, but we got along swimmingly. I told a friend that I didn’t want to give her up,

That friend spoke to Olive’s previous owner and I received a message from her. “You should have her,” to sum it up, since I had already had her for most of her life at that point. She stopped by one time to say goodbye, then I became Olive’s new mom.

When I got her, I had no other cats. She was Queen of her domain, the whole apartment. I’ve moved twice since then, she seems to like the newest place just fine. She owns the new place too. She prowls around like a big cat, taking what she wants and sometimes bullying the other cats, though she is generally nice to them. She is always nice to me.

Olive Zissou Silberstang

Somehow the oldest picture of Olive.

An Introduction

I have three cats. They are good cats, and usual cats.

Some people like to say, “oh my cat loves to jump to high places!” or “awwww she plays with yarn” and I really wish I could. My cats are tricksters, escape artists, bold.

If you lean over, they will jump on your back. They can open my refrigerator and pee in the toilet. I have never taught them any of these things, or any other trick. They just know. They learned.

This is not to say that my cats are different than other cats. They are all pretty much the same. They will purr and eat and lay in sunbeams and jump on the shelves and even chase bugs. It is just that I didn’t know cats could open doors. And I didn’t know cats could work as a team.

They are less like pets and more like shiftless roommates, forever late on the rent and refusing to clean up after themselves.

Anyway, here is an introduction to my cats.

Olive

Haircut

Tuff Ghost