Day 161 - Cats and Dogs

Bunk

I am not really a dog person. I prefer cats. I am allergic to both, but I am somehow less bothered by cat allergies than dog allergies. When I discovered the allergies, I went through desensitization treatment, aka shots, which may explain why I am not so bothered by cats. It can't just be that I like them more than I like dogs.

In spite of my preference for cats, I have recently become somewhat attached to Bunk, Simon and Sarah's boxer. Bunk stayed with us for a week, while both Simon and Sarah were in Ohio. Bunk is such a placid animal, spending most of his time looking for just the right amount of sun or just the right amount of cool tile to lie down comfortably.

I have shared my life with lots of cats. There was Bilbo Baggins, aka Cat, and Karley, aka Kitty, in California. There was Sheikha and then Sharifa in Doha. The two of them made the trip to Barbados to join us and later Pooky joined the family. We lost Sharifa there. She went through all nine of her lives. And when we left for Moldova, we had to find new homes for Sheikha and Pooky because we knew we would be living in a hotel room at least initially. Sheikha stayed behind in Barbados and Pooky went with a

Sheikha

colleague to Iceland.

At that point, I agreed with Alex that we would have no more cats because it was just too hard to let go. But when we were about to leave for Abu Dhabi, a friend who was just about to leave asked if would take their cat, Violet, because they couldn't take her with them. And that opened the door for Fudge, Marmelade, RF, Missy, Eddie, and Missy's six kittens to move in on us. Missy, Eddie, and the kittens never really moved in, but they settled down quite permanently in our back yard where I fed them twice a day.

It was all Violet's fault. She was such a fussy eater. She would only eat from a freshly opened can of food. If the can had been in the refrigerator, Violet wouldn't touch its contents. And they didn't sell small cans of food in Abu Dhabi. She also wouldn't eat dry food, or Tender Vittles. So we ended up with large cans of cat food that Violet wouldn't touch.

Sharifa

 When we threw the cans away, the feral cats in the neighborhood dumped over our cans and ripped apart all the bags to get at the cat food.

That is when we decided we had to pick out a cat or two to feed in order to avoid the cat fights on our front porch. Fudge and Marmelade were just kittens. Fudge was very friendly, so he is the one we decided to feed. The plan was to keep feeding them outside, but they were so small and the bigger cats in the neighborhood harrassed them, loudly, leaving us with one good option - letting them move in for the sake of our sanity.

Violet wasn't happy. She wouldn't share the kitchen with them. She parked herself in the doorway and wouldn't let the two of them pass. So we had to put her food on the top floor to separate them so Fudge and Marmelade could eat in the kitchen.

Fudge and Marmelade

And that is when we noticed Missy, a calico we were pretty certain was their sister. She started hanging around in the back yard, so we would feed her, too. She had two kittens, a male and a female. The female disappeared, but the male, Eddie, kept coming back. In a few months he was bigger than any of the others, twice the size of either Fudge or Marmelade. And Missy had her second litter, this time six kittens. Eddie would settle down among the kittens and suckle from Missy along with his siblings.

Marmelade disappeared after a few weeks. That is when RF appeared. He was a miniature copy of Fudge, so there was no question he would join the family.

We had to leave them all behind in Abu Dhabi.

Bishop

Once again, we agreed no more cats. But we hadn't counted on Bishop appearing. Simon came to live with us and he also loved cats. He was especially interested in getting a black and white cat. He had a name already picked out - Hagrid. But on a stroll through a pet store one Sunday, he saw Bishop. And since Bishop was Simon's nickname where he worked in England before he moved to Virginia, once again, it was clear that there was yet another cat destined for our family.

Bishop, and for a shorter time his sister Ginnie, lived with us for 10 years. But when Alex and I left Virginia for California, Bishop stayed behind with our next door neighbor Carol.

This time there will be no more cats.

And no dogs either.