Welcome to my April 2023 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

I’ve revealed my theme (My life in first drafts), but this year, instead of pretending there were ever plans, I am unashamedly blogging my theme letters on the fly.  So, here goes nothing!

So, without further ado, C is for Cats.

Yes indeed, and I have had a lot of them. Or really, many cats have deigned to cohabitate with me over the years.  As I work on my memoirs, each cat will have their own chapter (or chapters!)

We got our first cats when I was in grade 6. Some friends of mom and dad had Siamese cats who had kittens, and we got two of them. My brother and I each had one, you know, in the name of fairness. Mike imaginatively called his Sy (mom quickly changed this to Cyrano), and the little girl I called Taya. While they had the run of the house during the day, mom and dad shut them in the basement at night so they wouldn’t bother everyone trying to sleep. I never thought about it at the time, but now it seems weird that you would not invite kittens to drive you crazy while you are trying to sleep. Sy and Taya lived long lives – until 18. I was gone and back from university and had met Kevin before they were both gone.

When Kevin and I met, he had a little street cat (well he was a street cat when Kevin brought him home) named Luther. Luther never warmed to me, except one time when I was really sick and he decided to take care of me. Or maybe he was waiting for me to die….I will never know. Luther had feline Leukemia and while it was I remission for awhile, he died at four.

Kevin swore he didn’t want cats again any time soon, but one month later we found two black kittens in the newspaper (yes, before Kijiji there were paper want ads) and thus Simon and Bailey came into our lives, followed a short time later by Finnegan, the yin to their yang. They hated Finnegan for awhile, and while Bailey never did like him, he and Simon became friends. We moved from the apartment to our first house with these three. Bailey left us at 10, and then we moved Simon and Finnegan from Regina to Victoria when Kevin got his first optometry job here. It was traumatic for them because I stayed behind for a month to sell the house. But they adjusted. After we moved to our first house here in Victoria, Finnegan, who suffered from urinary tract disorder for years, succumbed to it at 13. Simon was alone.

But not for long, as we adopted Dexter to keep Simon company, not thinking that a 13 year old cat and a wild kitten might not be the best mix. And thus Nicholas entered our lives to keep Dexter company. Nico was a feral kitten and never did like to be around us, but he adored Simon and played with Dexter. When Simon died a couple of years later, It was just Nico and Dexter. But again, not for long.

In 2011, we brought home Jasper. Kevin had been googling Savannah cats and wanted one. Jasper fit the bill. A month later we traveled up island and after meeting a huge, tattooed, Latino mobile hairdresser who raised monkeys and Servals, we brought tiny Elliot home (half Bengal, half Savannah) to join our crew. Four cats, but I assured myself that two cats per person did not crazy cat people make.

In 2012 we uprooted the lot and moved the to our current house. Dexter left us suddenly in 2015, and last summer Jasper got cancer and our sweet sensitive angel was also gone.

But you all know that we love lots of cats, so Kevin, cruising the Kijiji net, found our latest family members, Lucy and Oliver. And so, the adventure continues.

Simon

Bailey

Finnegan

Dexter

Nicholas

Jasper

Elliot

Lucy and Oliver

Small, Medium, and Extra Large (Elliot, Jasper, and Dexter)

Jasper and Elliot

Thanks for visiting my 2023 A to Z Challenge – Letter C.  You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at Letter A, A to Z 2023 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).

Guess I’m kind of a rebel too…although I do like using the “official” letters…