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Disclaimer: lots and lots of kittie pictures to follow.

I regularly mention my kitties here on this blog. See, I don’t have children. I have no desire to have children. I do, however, have cats, and think they are my children. Which is why I though I should formally introduce them to you.

Meet Gale. I adopted her in 2006, shortly after moving onto the remote outdoor school campus in San Luis Obispo, to work as a naturalist. I lived alone in an old trailer in the middle of a field, and had mice. They director also could tell I was super lonely so she suggested that I get a cat.  As a nod to my geeky love of natural disasters, named her after the storm at sea.

I left a window open and she was welcome to come and go as she pleased. She cleared my trailer of mice and would greet me everyday I came home for lunch. She would curl up and sleep next to my side. After leaving SLO, she traveled with me back to Santa Cruz, then to Tahoe, then to Sonoma County.

When we lived in Healdsburg, she was regularly chased by our landlords cat, and I had to save her from the tree on my deck on an almost daily basis. But I think she still enjoyed life, and she regularly played with Matt & I.

When we moved to Petaluma, she now had a garden to roam and chickens to watch.

In March of 2011, we adopted Gaia. I wasn’t planning on getting another cat, but I had an extra $20 and went to the shelter to make a donation. There in the hall was a small orange kitty, who only had 3 legs. The story on her cage said she was found wrapped in a bag with her leg chewed off, and was almost starving to death. I went home, told Matt about her, and started to cry, so we went back to adopt.

I knew Gale was afraid of most other moving creatures, but I thought Gaia was a good choice. She only has 3 legs and seemed exceptionally timid. I named her Gaia after our Mother Earth, who still remains beautiful after so much abuse. After a few days, I quickly learned she should have been named Crazy, because I think when they removed her leg, they also removed half her brain.

Needless to say, Gale was not impressed.  Toleration is the best word to describe the new cat dynamic in our household.

Even now, as she’s no longer a kitten, she has lots of personality and is a total cuddlebug. I love her. She also begs like a dog. And eats bugs.

Then, in June, two kittens showed up on our windowsill, meowing. I thought they were lost, so I let them in and put up found posters. Turns out they were from the apartment across from us, and they belonged to the girlfriend of the guy who lived there. Apparently they were “too much” for her, so he brought them here to be outdoor cats.

There is either a neighborhood or feral cat who regularly passes though our yard, that we call Pepperoni. Matt decided to continue with the pizza topping names, and we called the two new kitties Bacon and Pineapple. We started giving them food because it was apparent the guy wasn’t. And then he moved, leaving the cats.

A few month ago, we had to make the hard choice of putting Pineapple down after she was hit by a car and broke many bones.

Bacon is funny little cat. He likes to hide in bags, boxes and crawl in all the nooks Gaia can’t get to. Without his partner, he has started to play with Gaia. He also is flicking his tail, which I can’t tell if its because he’s happy or perpetually annoyed.

Gale hates Bacon. If they are in the same room, even if Gale is asleep, Bacon will bother her. She has turned into a fit of hisses and peeing everywhere because she is either scared, or super angry. The best situation I have found is I let her out in the morning, she spends her days happily outside, and then when she comes in once it gets dark, she goes on her bed in the craft room and I close the door to keep Bacon out.

Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.  ~Pam Brown

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