This isn’t a dog blog. I have them, 2 dogs, to be exact and I LOVE THEM. But, I know how they work. It’s super rare for them to take the time and cuddle and listen to me and take a long loving gaze into my eyes. Especially when I’ve just spilled my guts about my bad day. Or when I had an amazing day and I want to let someone know, but the husband isn’t home yet. My cat babes are always there…they always have my back. Hence, the Loca Cat Lady was born.
We had rented a home that didn’t allow us to have any animals. Our children were still very young, but my husband and I knew that we wanted them to grow up with the companionship of a built-in bestie. A furball to call their very own. So…we paid the ridiculous deposit to the landlord and went to the shelter to adopt our first cat. I couldn’t help but go to the back of the shelter to look at all the older cats that had already been overlooked. Not over a year old yet, but not as small as the tiniest kitten…a black cat with a crooked broken tail made his way over to me while all the other cats just ignored me. This jungle-looking cat was super vocal and seemingly very loving and showed you that he was a keeper. He wanted to be the one that you took home with you. Well, he did it. He won me over. That guy was our new fur baby and we named him Hurley.
Shortly after adopting Hurley, we saved another cat from an online ad that said something along the lines of “I have a lot of cats in my trailer and have to get rid of them or I lose my home.” So…we took one off his hands. This pretty, white with black spots, sweety girl was named Gracie. However, her name evolved to JuJuBeeNina. Or JuJee, or NeeNee…the list goes on and on. Safe to say that she answers to just about all of those names.
One day at one of my jobs, a coworker was telling us how they saved a tiny kitten at their barn and how its mother abandoned it between two bales of hay. Also, she couldn’t keep the cat. I wanted to tell her I would take it, but I didn’t think my husband would go for it. So– I fostered it!! And then…I foster failed! His name is Lupe. At first, since he was super small, we thought that he was a she…but the vet told us otherwise. Whoops! So it went from Guadalupe to Lupe. Now it has evolved to Precious or the same name in Spanish; Precioso. I call him Papa Cabron. He is the most loving, the most cuddly cat of them all. Papa is always licking us, calling for us, asking us to pick him up. Neverending. He always wants to be with us.
It was only these 3 for a long time. About 10 years to be exact…because that’s when we said our goodbyes to Hurley. He lived a somewhat long but short life. It gutted me to let him go. The pain was indescribable. My first baby kitty was gone. It took me over a year to not cry when I thought of him. Precisoso missed his buddy, his cuddle buddy. Juju missed the only cat she got along with. She has turned into a loner now. And grouchy. But she still comes to us and asks for love. We see the change tho.
Not long after, we adopted a Maine Coon Mix from another shelter and named him Mister JoJo after my husbands’ father that had just passed away. Mister is a bit of a handful. He isn’t the nicest cat in the bunch…a bit finicky but loves my daughter. So; I’m not mama to him, she is. I’m grandma, I guess. [insert rolling eyes here.] Mister also has cat asthma…a bummer to have to deal with, but he does take inhalers.
Soon after Mister came home – our neighbors told us that they had trapped a feral that had babies. UGH. “Let me see them.” A GIRL ORANGE TABBY. A rarity. I could not say no to bringing her home with me. So we waited until she was old enough to be separated from Mama and she was ours. Her name is Kiki! My kids couldn’t ever say kitty…they said kiki…and so that’s her name. I love how she gives a tiny chirp and asks to be pet but at the same time, she doesn’t want to be held for too long. Kiki is very independent and I just love that about her. Her tail is amazingly majestical; fluffy as hell. She’s a gem.
I swore to everyone under my roof that that was the LAST cat I was bringing into the house. Heh heh…then I met some ferals that were living nearby…baby kitty cats at that. I fed them. I trapped some and fixed them. One of them got used to me first but before I could catch her, she had babies on the side of my house. I was able to rehome all of them! 2 of the babies went to a friend of mine…and the other 2? Well…we named them Wicket and Cleo. Do not judge me! I couldn’t bare to send them to the shelter! They are a bit skittish as well but still love to get the pets. Before you get too surprised, there is one more cat that joins our family that we didn’t plan for at all.
Her name is Harley. A play off of Hurley, the first black cat we lost – Harley was a feral kitten outside that was eating outside and that I was trying to catch when all of a sudden, she was in one of the houses on my porch and not moving, but staring at me. I knew something was wrong with her. As I got close she still wouldn’t move so I knew it was bad. I grabbed her by the scruff and picked her up. Harley’s right leg was just hanging there. It must have gotten run over or caught in something. We rushed her to the pet emergency room and had to have the entire leg amputated. We did not have the full amount to cover because we weren’t expecting this – or expecting to keep her…so we asked for help through neighbors and GoFundMe. People we didn’t know came through for Harley like you would NOT believe. People paid the vet personal donations in the thousands to help her. I paid half of the bill. Harley was saved!
And that’s how our family grew. Our cat family. I love them so much!
The moral of this story is…once you start loving cats, you can’t just take in one.
