“Cat person” is never a term anyone would use to describe me. I married into two stepcats — Ike and Flannery — and I admit I had a hard time understanding why, if I was willing to give up my leather couch, my husband was not likewise willing to give up his cats. I’ve since come around to living with them amicably, and somedays I even like Flannery.
My stepcats, Flannery (orange, the better one) and Ike (black/white, the anxious-neurotic one).
I keep my feeling toward cats relatively quiet. It has taken me a lot of introspection to understand what’s missing in my cold, hard heart to not want a human-like soul that can’t speak and sheds hair all over my beloved home as a housemate. My husband has yet to meet a cat he won’t try to coax into his arms, whether in a friend’s home or in an ally in another country. I’ve come to attribute my feelings about cats to the same thing I do all other animals: I grew up on a farm.
Growing up, we had dogs I LOVED. But when they inevitably got run over my the road grater — or worse, my mother — we had to learn to let them go. We trapped gophers for pocket money (you had to turn in the tails for striped gophers and the feet of pocket gophers, which were worth more, and which also meant that we always had a ziplock bag in our freezer of gopher parts waiting to be cashed in). We were an agricultural farm, not livestock, but we did host some of my uncle’s sheep in the summers, as they served as free lawnmowers.
Yet some of my favorite memories revolve around cats. Kittens, to be more accurate. Like most farms, we had one “mama cat,” who produced untold litters of kittens, usually due to the roving township tomcat. Our mama cat was named Bubblegum. She was black and white and so mellowed out by years of needy little kitties pawing at her for milk.
Me at age 2, barn kitty in tow.
A batch of barn kitties, c. 1990. We still use this same wood crate to keep kitties warm.
While my parents seemingly liked the cats, it was understood the cats were primarily there for mice control. Herein lies an important formative lesson: The cats were utilitarian, not pets in the way our dogs were. My mom, like my grandmother, would put stale bread into an old aluminum pie plate or a plastic gallon milk jug that had the top cut off, dump dry milk on the top, fill it up with water and have me take the cat food out of the horse barn. I loved watching the typically shy, darting cats come running. It was the only time you could get close enough to the bigger ones to pet them.
With farm cats, unless you spend a lot of time loving and taming them, they keep out of sight. Bubblegum tried to find the most kid-proof places to give birth. She had a few favorites: Under our concrete steps or a couple of hard-to-reach corners of our hayloft. But inevitably, when the kittens were old enough to start sewing, my brothers and I would find them. When I was really little, my brothers would find them first, and then set up a maze of hay bales. Once I found my way through the maze, a litter of kitties would be waiting for me. Pure joy! Can you imagine anything sweeter for a 4-year-old?
There are about 4-6 weeks when barn kitties are old enough to be handled but slow enough when you can still catch them. I loved those little kitties so much. As an adult, it’s been one of the sweetest things to watch my twin nieces discover the same thrill of new kittens I knew so well but had forgotten. The last time I was at the farm, my dad had put a heat light in the same old wooden crate I remember, along with some old quilts, to make a home for the latest batch of kitties.
My mom made up some kitty food and Dad, the twins and I were off to feed them. The “teenage” kitties were already skilled at disappearing. But the new babies were curled around each other in the far corner of the crate. They had the usual crusty eyes and would meow indignantly as little hands reached for them — rightly so. A + E were immediately delighted. And my kitty heart warmed itself up again.
This face says it all.
