This is for the cats. Because I tell you how much I love my loony, whippersnapper of a dog Lulu and our old dog Blair that died last month, I’m posting this one of the cats. As a mom (and a vegetarian) I love that my kids are growing up with furry friends and a genuine desire to respect animals.
These cats are indoor/outdoor cats. Tonight it’s 18 degrees outside. So like any smart cat would do, they found their way inside. Sometimes they enter through the upstairs window in the sewing room if they see the light on. But tonight they used the backdoor. And let me show you, they are making themselves right at home tonight!
For a bit of the backstory, the black cat is Vera. She has been with us since October of 2000, when we lived in in a carriage house in Midtown Atlanta, off 10th St. – one of the busiest streets in town. We called the joint “The Love Shack.” She was a stray that my aunt found mangled with a broken tail. Around Halloween we took her in for her own safety, given bad people do bad things to black cats on Halloween. She HATED being inside. Since the days of The Love Shack we have called her the Alley Cat with 42 lives because she hung out on the sidewalk of 10th St., along with the homeless people who stopped to eat my tomatoes growing in the front yard.
Vera is sassy, snarky and gives a mean bitch slap. She still hangs out on the sidewalk. She even sleeps in the road! But when it’s 18 degrees outside she comes in to sleep on the heat vent. She’s also smart.
Then there is Fruit Punch, our newest furry family member. Some of you who used to read my Brown House News blog may remember when I was trying to find him a home. It turned out he found a home with us.
He showed up on our back porch on Easter, with a missing toe, an oozing pirate eye and weighed about five pounds. My middle child insisted that we take him to the vet for help. On the way there she named him “Fruit Punch.” Then we found out he was Feline Leukemia positive. Some awesome pet loving friends helped get him into a free spay/neuter program and all fixed up for a very low cost to us. Since then he’s done nothing but stick close to our home, and eat and eat and eat. He is HUGE now. The term fat and happy definitely applies to Fruit Punch, in the best way possible.
Wanna know the best things about these cats? They know when to go outside to use the bathroom. That’s right. There is no litter box in our house. And that makes us all very happy pet owners.
