The Holler Eats Cats

Now that I've got that taken care of-- not Arabic, but Hindi, by the way-- I can get on with what I was going to say.

The Mark Haley Holler eats cats. When we moved here, we had K'Tigu. she adopted us about a week after we moved in, announcing her presence from the darkness under the car and never looking back. And though she is long gone, chased off by a mongrel whose owner should've been shot along with him, I think she will always be my favorite of our feline interlopers. Maybe it's because I could tell she liked me. She would come and sit by me out on the porch steps, but she never wanted me to pet her. This is a good thing, since I'm allergic to cats.

After her came the sibling kittens, Bob and Nightcat. Bob was the last cat even mentioned in a blog and that was months ago. When they arrived, the kittens got to live in the laundry room for a while, one inky black shadow and one jaunty gray tiger, eventually to be ousted for pooping behind the washer and dryer. They made it just fine outside for a while. Bob became "Bob" when he lost his tail in a freak accident involving high winds and a heavy door, but he never was resentful. Bob was always a lover while his dear sister was a fighter/hider/hunter. Evidently, Nightcat decided to hunt a car tire one night, however. We found her in the morning, to put it mildly, much the worse for wear.

I never knew cats mourned, but for a couple of weeks after that, Bob was not himself. He searched for her all over, repeatedly sniffing the spot where we'd found her. He wandered around keening in the most distressing fashion. Maybe Bob just had a special soul, but it seemed he never quite got over the loss of his litter-mate. Some couple of months ago, Bob departed from us for what I suppose to be good. I like to think he shacked up with a girl cat somewhere and thinks of us fondly, but maybe he left because the three roosters (fodder for another blog) were eating all of his food. Wherever you are, Bob, may the road rise up to meet you and all that jazz.

Between losing Nightcat and losing Bob, we had two kitten friends that didn't last long. One was Noodle, named and given by a neighbor. He got stuck in a tree across the street in the underbrush where I couldn't get to him and might've become a snack for an owl. He was a rather small kittie. After him, there was a kitten so tiny it prompted my mother to look up dwarfism in cats. He/she never got a name, though I toyed with several. This kitten had the most astonishing fir: long, and black, but shot through with even longer pewter colored fir so that he looked like he'd stolen the coat off of a silverback gorilla. At eight plus weeks, little Pewter was no larger than my hand and he never got any bigger. But whether heartworms or genetic defects got him, the little one was not with us for more than a month, and that was one of the least fun things I've ever had to explain to a four year old.

So we were catless for a time, and thinking we ought to remain that way, until the night when, returning home from work, I almost ran over a friendly kitten. When I got out of the car to chase her away, the little one trotted up to me and said, in kitteneze, "You're mine now, sucker!" When we got her home and saw her in the light of day, this kitten was the spitting image of Bob. Charlie christened her "Daisy" and we like to think she was sent by her sire to take care of us.

Shortly after that, two gray-eyed, orange wildcats took up residence behind the library where I work. Rather than have them be run over, I lured them out with Chinese food (works every time...) and took them home. We didn't even have the chance to name them before one disappeared. The other, dubbed "Boots" by my husband is still skittish. How not, when the dog and the three stupid roosters think it is a sport to follow the poor fellow around looking hungry? We'll see how long these two last. Eight cats, three years, two survivors... we're a B-grade reality show in the making!