An Introduction to my "Children"

Hello everyone,

I thought I would take a few minutes to make a gratuitous post and introduce you to my "children". They are the joy of my life. They keep me company, and they seem to be pretty good judges of mood. If I am in a good mood, they are in a good mood with me. If I am sad, they almost always know what to do to bring a smile to my face.

I have two sets of "children". . . my children and my stepchildren. I have two cats in my household and my girlfriend has five in hers, which I consider my stepchildren (five cats, you ask? - you'll see below). Both of my children are roughly three years old.

First there is Sylvester, a.k.a. Bubba, and occasionally Dammit. I don't remember exactly where the name "Bubba" came from. It just kinda' happened. You can probably guess where Dammit came from. He is the mischievous one in the family. He is also a heavyweight. He weighs in at 16 pounds.



Next is Ms. Kitty, a.k.a. Princess. She is the shy, timid one in my house. As you can see from the expression on her face, she doesn't like cameras. :-) I inherited her from my grandmother. She is the lightweight - less than nine pounds, and all fur.

Taking Ms. Kitty into my household was an interesting experience. As I mentioned, she is very shy, and she DOES NOT like other cats. My grandmother was the only one she would come out from under the furniture for. She spent the first couple of months in hiding, and I spent the first several months keeping her from getting attacked by Sylvester, or at least I thought that is what I was doing. He wouldn't hurt her, but he likes to push her buttons because he is twice her size. She wasn't real fond of him. He finally backed her too far into the corner one day, and that was when I learned she wasn't as helpless or fragile as I thought she was. She may look timid, but if backed into the corner, this is what she turns into:

Needless to say, he was licking his wounds for quite a while, but he learned not to mess with her after that. He still pushes her buttons every now and then, but he knows not to back her into a corner anymore. I quit worrying about her after that. I have decided she can take pretty good care of herself, when she needs to.

She has finally warmed up to me and has turned into quite the lap cat, at least when Sylvester isn't chasing her off. He is so jealous! They tolerate each other fairly well now, but they still are not best friends . . . one of these days things will improve, hopefully.

Now for the stepchildren . . . my girlfriend had one cat until a mother cat came along with four kittens. Of course, being the kind soul that she is, my girlfriend took them in "just until she could find them homes". She got so attached to them that she just couldn't give them up, so now she has five. Luckily, all of hers get along with each other.

First is Rusty. He is roughly three years old and he weighs in at about 20 pounds. Let me tell you something . . . when a 20 pound cat launches into your lap, you know it. I am surprised there haven't been any cracked ribs yet. :-) Then there are Harley, Socks, Spot, and Yoda.


This is Harley, Rusty, and Socks. Rusty is like the ambivalent dictator. He rules the house with a gentle but firm paw. The others all love him, but they respect his authority. He seldom strikes out at any of the younger ones, but he will "correct" them if they need it.

This is Spot. She and Harley are the girly-girls in the house. They are cute, and they know it. They can really turn on the charm. :-)





Here is another picture of Socks, this time with Yoda. They are the two youngest boys. They are both full of energy, and can be pretty mischievous when they want to be.


Anyway, as you can tell there is never a dull moment, between the battles at my house and four young cats at her house. It will be interesting to see how everyone gets along when we finally get married and merge the two groups into one big, happy Brady Bunch family. Wish us luck . . . I think we're gonna' need it.

The ironic part about all this is that before Sylvester came along and adopted me, I always thought of myself as a "dog person". You never would've guessed that, would ya?

Until next time,

--Voice of Reason--