I never wanted a cat.

I grew up with various small creatures, gold fish, hamsters and guinea pigs who all gave their lives in the name of my learning to be responsible. To their spirits, I say thank you for your sacrifice, as I grew into an adult who has managed to sustain the lives for which I am now responsible.

If I wanted for a larger animal, it would have been a dog, but my mother argued that we just weren’t home enough to consistently care for an animal. My husband’s family on the otherhand had lots of pets growing up fish, gerbils (who committed unthinkable acts of cannibalism, but that is for another blog post 🙂 cats and dogs.

Early in our lives together we lived in apartments, most of which did not allow pets. If we were going to get a pet, I wanted a dog, but even I recognized that our lives were not suitable for a dog. So, I caved and agreed to a cat. It was fairly easy to convince the landlord to let us have a one given that the tenants upstairs (his daughter Lisa and her husband Jim) had a cat.

We resigned the lease just before our wedding and Lisa and Jim offered to get us a cat as a wedding gift. We joked that while the majority of the wedding gifts are of interest to the bride (China, small appliances etc.), this one was definitely for the groom.

They took us to Angel memorial, the SPCA in Boston and we waited with the other hopeful adoptive parents. It was a busy Saturday, but fortunately, they had some kittens. A-man’s original pick was a male tiger kitten, he was alert and feisty and spoken for. There were others in the litter, that A-man was considering. Then there, way in the back under the newspaper was a pair of bright green eyes. They were attached to a tiger and white kitten. Her nose was mostly white with a spot of tiger stripe. The coat on the top of her body was mostly tiger stripe with a small sploch of white. It sort of looked like she hadn’t waited for the paint to dry before she stuck her nose in it. She was skiddish and definitely the runt of the litter, but she was ours.

They dipped her and cleaned her up for us. We provided proof we had permission from the landlord to keep her and off we went. She yowled the whole way home and I was not optimistic about this endeavor.

We did as instructed and allowed her to explore her surroundings. We waited for her curiosity to bring her to us rather than chasing her. For her part, she whined and yowled A LOT. We named her Winnie. The thinking was that if she didn’t tone down the MmmrrOOWWWWs, we could just call her Whiney.

She did eventually adjust to her surroundings, and it wasn’t too long before she had me wrapped around her little paw. Through the years, she has provided us with lots of love and some great laughs many of which will make excellent blog entries on their own.

She is 13 and a half years old and even though she is the smallest occupant of the house, she rules the roost. That said, most people don’t even know we have a cat as she is not fond of strangers.

I didn’t want a cat, but then again how can anyone resist this face?