This page is devoted to many of the cats of my life, both past and present (not all are shown as I don't have photos of all of them).  I've always lived with a cat, ever since I was a young girl.  I don't know what I would do if I wasn't able to have cats.  My husband says I'll be one of those little ol' ladies with 50 cats!  Most all of these cats were strays that I adopted, with a couple exceptions.  Of course the first thing I did was get them fixed - I wouldn't have it any other way.  Enjoy!

	Just how many cats are there?   From left to right you'll see Mandy, Rocky, Boris and Max.  This was taken on a cold winter day - I must have turned the heat down for them to all pigpile like this.   Mandy, Rocky and Boris were adopted from the apartment complex where we lived in Renton, Washington - there were a ton of strays wandering around.
	Here's a slightly better picture of Boris and Mandy.  It was taken in front of a sunny window, which is why it's so washed out, but you'll get an idea of how Mandy likes to snuggle up to Boris, her sweetie.  Mandy's other favorite place to sleep is smashed up against my face at night.   She's also a rather insecure kitty and freaks at the slightest noise.   She loves to play the string game with her boy-toy (aka my husband Dirk) and even asks for it by name (and by pawing at his leg).
	Here they are again.  I came into the living room and found them like this one day.  Before laughing myself silly (and waking them up), I quickly found my digital camera and snapped a photo of them.  Silly kitties!

Here's Boris (all 27 pounds of him, although he might be a few pounds lighter in this picture) doing the cat-eating-grass routine.  Before I officially adopted Boris he thought he was a big ol' tough tomcat and would try to beat up on all comers.  Well, he must have been a lousy fighter as he was always coming back ripped up - once I thought his tail would be lost since it was so chewed up.  Right after that I adopted him (which meant he lived inside all the time) I had his fuzzy little balls whacked off by the vet.  Now he's a lover and gives the other cats baths and thinks he's the perfect lap cat.

This is Rocky in his most favorite spot of all - the dining room chair.  He especially loves it if you've pre-warmed it for him, even if you're only getting up for a brief moment.  We now look before we sit, just in case a certain grey kitty has claimed possession of it.   And then he pisses and moans if you have the nerve to move him!  Rocky also likes to race up and down the hallway yowling his head off.  Yet another reason he was called Rocky (short for Rocket and because he's the same grey color as Rocky the Squirrel from the Rocky & Bullwinkle show).

This picture of Max was taken before he lost weight due to becoming a diabetic.  He was diagnosed in April of 1997 and had a heck of a first year getting stabilized.  He's now doing really good (knock on wood), weighs in at 21 pounds (he should be a few pounds lighter though) and gets 3 shots of insulin a day (most cats get one or two shots a day, but he's gotta be different).  He's well used to traveling in the car since he has to be boarded frequently and all of the clinic staff love him.  He's spoiled at home and spoiled at the vet's, as well as by his sitter, Kelly, that takes him home at night when he's boarded.  Even her husband (not a cat person) thinks Max is pretty cool.  What more can a cat ask for in life?

Update:  Sadly, on Saturday, September 16, 1999 Max had to be put to sleep.  Thursday morning I noticed he was walking very stiffly and within 30 minutes he couldn't walk at all.  After going to his regular vet and two different specialists it was determined that he had cancer in his spleen, lymph nodes, bone marrow and spine.  Poor kitty!  It was too much for chemo, so I did the only humane thing I could do and had him put to sleep at 4:00 PM that day.  At some point I'll be scattering his ashes on our property, along with my mom's ashes, which is only appropriate as she loved Max and helped me rescue him all those years ago.  Rest in Peace Max.

At the feeding trough, from left to right, are Jackie, Max and Charlie.  Yes, Max was very skinny at one time, believe it or not!  This was taken shortly after my mom and I snagged Max during a raging rain storm in Bellevue, Washington in 1988.  The vet said he was close to starving to death, but fortunately we caught him in time.  Max hung out in the blackberry bushes and would always stay out of arm's reach.  It took us several months to catch him and I was the only one he trusted for years.

Here's Jack, the One-Eyed Kitty.  Isn't he a cutie?  He and his buddy, Guy, decided to live with me after their owners moved out (they lived across the road) and left them for the new owners.  The new owners took several months to move in, so the kitties decided I was a better bet.  They now gets lots of food and attention, as well as regular vet care.  When Jack came up here, he didn't have any vision in his right eye - I don't know when or how he lost it.  One night he was out catting around and came back with that eye poked in.  I took him to the vet and since he didn't have any vision in that eye they removed it.  After being at the vet's for almost 3 weeks (I didn't want him outside until the wound healed) he came home much plumper than he was before.  Both Jack and Guy are fixed and they're now inside kitties after several months of trial and error to make sure they wouldn't spray inside (they did when they were living outside).

Well, it's almost impossible to get a good photo of a solid black cat.  This is one of my better efforts.  This is Guy, Jack's buddy.  Most of the time, he's either sacked out somewhere or flopped down on your lap.  When he sees a lap, he's there in less than two seconds, regardless of what else you have on your lap.  We figure he's making up for all those years when he got hardly any attention and now he can't get enough of it.  Fortunately he loves getting brushed, otherwise he'd be covered in mats since his hair is long.

Toby appeared in the winter of 1998 when there was a ton of snow on the ground.  I have no idea where he came from as none of the neighbors were missing a cat.  Since we live in a rural area I suspect someone dumped him off thinking he could live by mousing.  Fortunately he found a very soft heart before he got too weak from lack of food.  After plumping him up a bit and having him create havoc with my four cats I found a home for him in Idaho with a friend and her family.  After a week of being there on speculation I was told in no uncertain terms that he was staying and that I couldn't have him back.   Toby is such a sweetie that he lets Colleen's daughter Cassidy plunk him wherever she wants, including the doll carrier.

Here's another picture of Toby that Colleen sent to me.  Colleen said that Toby probably was blinded by everyone taking a picture of him (and using a flash) as he decided to lay back.  He really is a very laid back kitty.  One of these days I'll go back down to visit him (he's about 3 hours south of here).

Puss was another stray I adopted in Renton.  She was brought over with us when we moved to Spokane (along with Boris, Rocky, Mandy and Max), however the first summer we were here (1995) a neighbor was pet sitting while I was out of town.  She didn't close the front door tight enough and the cats got out.  All were found (eventually) except for Puss.  I was devastated, to say the least.  She was a smaller version of Rocky and we always thought they were related somehow.  (Yes, there is a tail, but it's curved around the other side of her body.)

Callie lived with us for less than a year in Renton.  One day she stopped eating, so I took her to the vet and found out she had a stomach tumor that was too large to be operated on successfully.   I called her my Cackle Kitty as she would never meow, but would always cackle at you.  Callie never ran, but always trotted as fast as her stubby little legs would take her.  One friend called her The Zen Kitty as she would sit on the arm of the couch for hours on end staring off in to space. She was also the only kitty I ever had that didn't scratch the furniture, as she loved to use her cardboard scratching box.  I went through lots of those over that year.

Charlie was adopted from the Bellevue Humane Society in 1977.  He picked us out by reaching out and pawing at my brother's behind when he was bending over to inspect a cat in a cage below Charlie.   We decided that was the cat for us!  He had some Siamese in him which showed in his slightly crossed eyes and his voice.  He lived with my mom when I moved into an apartment that didn't allow cats and then when I moved into one that did allow them she told me I had to get another cat as Charlie wasn't leaving!  He's now in the Great Kitty Heaven bossing everyone around, including my mom who is up there with him.

And this is the kitty that I adopted when Mom told me I couldn't take Charlie.  Jackie came from the Bellevue Humane Society in 1980 and was the great love of my life.  She loved to ride in the car and we went all over the place together.  Here she's slightly puzzled as to why I had the audacity to hang a ribbon around her neck.  Most of the time she ruled my life, which was fine by me.  In 1988 her liver failed and I had to have her put to sleep.  We buried her under a tree.  I still miss her a great deal.

Here's Charlie and Kitty at my mom's in 1981.  Kitty had an official name, but as kids we couldn't pronounce it (I still can't spell it!), so we called her Kitty.  She was ¾ Siamese and my parents bought her in 1963, soon after we moved to Bellevue.  She lived for almost 20 years and during that time taught me much about being owned by a cat.  She lived with Mom her whole life and I have very fond memories of her.  She loved corn on the cob and went wild for marshmallows - she'd try to take them out of your mouth if you'd let her!  When I was a kid at Blue Bird/Camp Fire camp, I even wrote postcards to the kitty.

Zipper ran Sue Stewart's household in the Dallas, Texas area for 13 or 14 years.  He came to her as a very young kitten when she moved into the house he was currently residing in.  In July 1999 he passed away due to renal failure and is now hanging out with Max, Charlie, Jackie, Callie, Kitty and Puss.  I'm including Zipper on this page as he controlled just about all of my free time while I stayed with Sue in 1998 (but I had fun, of course!).  Even at his "advanced" age he still loved to play with string-type toys.  He liked to drink water out of people glasses - heck with a normal watering bowl.  One time Sue and her friend Kim were wondering where Brad (Kim's SO) was and they found him "trapped" in the upstairs bathroom by Zipper, who was flinging his paws under the door trying to catch Brad.  (We won't ask who won.)

Here's Zipper staring out at the birds he can no longer catch due to being an indoor kitty.  He wasn't always an indoor kitty and loved to ride around on the top of Sue's small pickup trying to catch the occasional finger that would poke out the window at him.  Sue has a separate model horse room and Zipper would never bother a single horse and loved his table.  I guess if you're higher up it's easier to stare at the birds.

Meet my newest kitty, Pearl!  She was my birthday present and came to our home on November 1, 2007.  Pearl was a rescue kitty that I adopted from my vet.  She's solid black, with a white patch on her belly and a bunch of white hairs scattered over her body.  She was about 1½ years old when I adopted her.  Spayed, of course! Dirk let me bring her home after I whined for some months that I needed a snuggly kitty, which I didn't have after losing Mandy and Rocky earlier in 2007.  Jack (the remaining kitty) is not snuggly, unless you're laying on the couch and he's in the mood for snuggles.  Pearl isn't super snuggly, but she's way better than Jack.  She likes using my ankles as a pillow at night.

More photos of Boris

More photos of Guy

More photos of Jack

More photos of Mandy

More photos of Rocky

More photos of Pearl

More photos of the cats in their new home

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