I have lots of friends who have cats. I too have cats-a few cats, not a ton of cats. All you cat lovers out there know what I mean by "a ton" of cats. That's what happens when you try to save them all and end up spending your time rescuing them and doing capture and release and taking just another poor kitty into your home and being bitten and having to take the complete rabies series, etc., until you finally run out of money and energy, (around the same time,) and you and the cats end up carted off to separate institutions, by separate departments of our loftily far-seeing government.


      The fact is, by having cats, and becoming a devotee, you are on your way to being a dues paying member of a very old and strict congregation, one in which the members give up health, wealth and sanity to the Insatiable Cat Goddess. In turn, Sekmet Bast-Ra gives you the beauty of a living sculpture on your couch, warmth in your lap, a secret and mysterious kneading love, as well as huge vet bills and fleas, which are mostly what your husband notices.



      I have four cats, well, actually, five, since Wolfi of the stumpy tail is moving closer or perhaps moving in-like the spy who came in from the cold. Whether she makes it over the Berlin Wall, one raised by her own tragic life experience, or by the territorial nature of the already resident tiger tribe--or not (here, take a deep breath) is still unfolding.


      As all cat keepers know, (we're servants, but to admit this is so humbling) which cat goes in, (or out,) and when each cat comes in or goes out, gives structure and meaning to your day. If you had any other plans, forget them. Orangeo is slamming his feet on the window with the speed and force of a boxer working out in the gym. Either that, or he's inside, pissing on the chair he favors, because he needs to be out. It's always something. My mother-in-law used to protest. "I'm not here to be a damned doorman to a cat!" But she was.


      This is one reason why cats are so good for old people whose children have flown the nest. Cats keep them (us) busy, feeding and cleaning up after them, as well as petting them while we sit in front of the television-but not watching Sesame Street anymore. IMHO small children are almost impossible to handle well at the same time as cats, unless you have a lot of will power and a strong nurturing streak. My hat is off to those who manage it.


      True confession: cats and small kids was not my finest hour. Bad things happened, and I am not proud. Although the above mentioned inability may be entirely mine and not a condition of cat owners generally. If you are managing it with any grace and style, you are a champ.


      Keep hanging in there; I will get to a point, eventually. This began with the notion that many (I don't say "most") people who have cats- aren't from large families. The cats fill a void. BTW you end up with cats like my Aunt Joan ended up with blue eyes. It's in the program, exactly the way some large families end up resembling old-fashioned, cheerfully flag waving totalitarian states, the kind that excelled in gymnastics.


      If you have lots of friends who have lots of cats-you will have a huge collection of names, faces, (fur faces, but, faces, nevertheless) and a whole selection of cat personalities to remember, exactly as if you had relatives in similar number. Cats, as a rule, are beautiful and pleasant to look at, comforting to have around. The same cannot be said about relatives.



      Relatives have names and relationships, and so do cats. Groups of cats live with Rufus, with Joy, & with Patzilla, with my sons and with an ex-daughter in law. All these cats are families within a family, with interactions and likes and dislikes, special dietary needs, illnesses, & odd ticks that must be indulged, like faucet drinking, or the cat who bites my youngest granddaughter in the ankles when she swings her legs at the table. The darling little girl doubtless has it coming, but there is quite a lot of storage required for keeping feline data.




      Patzilla just had to put down one of her beloved feline soulmates. Nik Nik was a gorgeous and totally crazed female Siamese. The members of the Siamese Fancy among you will now mutter, "and what else is new?"'


      The late lamented was indeed a most beautiful cat, with those long chocolate evening gloves they all wear. She was also, to the naked, untrained human eye-a psycho kitty. Nik Nik died, quite suddenly, of a brain lesion, which may have accounted for some of her more bizarre (even by cat standards) behavior. She stalked things that weren't there, although that is not unusual with cats. However, she became violently sick-and violently violent--when taken to a new modular home that arrived with too many modern chemical smells. Her owners, being good owners, were not able to keep her there.


      It is a time of black veil mourning now that Nik Nik has returned to the womb of Bastet, even though I confess I did not know the deceased well. Whenever I visited, she growled at me, as only an oriental cat can. Next, she'd take a couple of steps forward with that characteristic Siamese tail whip that is slasher movie scary to anyone with a grain of sense. I would respond with a couple of slow, prudent steps backward, while paying her soft, florid baby-talk compliments.


      Finally, Niki would accept that I was going to chat with her Mommy, but while Patzilla and I were having the ceremonial cup of tea that cat lovers are required to share, Nik Nik would huddle beneath a bench, from which vantage point she would glare with eyes that flashed a neon change back and forth from cerulean into pink. Hell's kitty!


      She was a chocolate point, and moved with the grace and pride of the Goddess Bastet strolling the pigeon filled limestone plaza of her massive shrine in Bubastis. Nik Nik's fur must have been heaven to touch just like the song, if anyone other than Mommy and Daddy were ever allowed to touch. Her ashes will be combined with those of Swartze, Simon and Pandora who are already stored in the mantel vase. Eventually, they will be commingled with Mommy's ashes, and all of them delivered to the sea.