City Cats

Lynn Patrick and Sheena and Magic...

Sheena was a country kitten before I adopted her during Christmas week 2003. My sister had seen a notice for “free kittens” in a local Iowa newspaper and told me about it when I visited my family for the holidays (I live in Chicago). We drove far out into the country and down a private lane where there was a small house and a kind woman who had quite a few cats and several dogs, all rescues she was taking care of. It was love at first sight when I saw my little orange girl and we brought her home.

Sheena as Pharoah

The next day I took Sheena to the vet for de-worming, ear mites, and shots. I was staying with my mother and I worried that the cat might bother her, so I locked the kitty in the laundry room that night, Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, half-asleep, I woke to hear soft beating on my closed bedroom door. I wondered if my mother was playing a trick on me. However, the soft pounding continued, accompanied by what sounded like “ooh’s” and the door opened after a few minutes. But no one came in! No one human anyway. Surprised, I turned over in bed to come face-to-face with an orange, purring, fuzzy ball of affection. Sheena had come to tell me she was my Christmas present. Though my mother had let her out of the laundry room in the middle of the night and my mother’s bedroom door was open, Sheena knew who her person was and was willing to beat the door down to get to me.

Sheena made the journey back to Chicago in my rental car and has been leaping on my bed every morning since. She made friends with my old kitties before they passed on and trained the new addition to our family, Magic.

Since moving to the city, Sheena has become a bit punk or edgy (note photo of her as Pharaoh) and won a prize from Nicole Hollander (Sylvia Comics). See http://edgycat.com/contest.html

Magic aka Magical Mystery Paws

Magic, short for Magical Mystery Paws, is a large 15 pound torti whom I got from a rescue organization in Chicago in 2006. I found her in a PetSmart with her sister, both several months old. The two kittens had been “donated” to a cat rescue society by owners who brought them in imprisoned in a large bird cage. I adopted Magic that very day and her sister went to another woman with several cats. Once home, Magic liked her new surroundings but was very needy . . . and still is. She will wake up, discover I’m out of sight, and run through the apartment mewing desperately until she finds me. Like all cats, she likes to “hide,” but, unlike many cats, she thinks she’s out of sight if her head is stuck in a blouse sleeve (with the rest of her body outside) or under the bed. Magic helps me write and lies on the desk while I’m at the computer. In fact, I put a box on the desk for her but she’d rather be right in front of me, in place of the keyboard, so we go around and around from time to time as to who gets what space.

I think Magic also likes Country Music, since I woke in the middle of the night one time to find her on my computer desk with a Dixie Chicks CD playing loudly. She had her ears back but wasn’t going anywhere. I have no idea how the CD got turned on – busy paws?

Lynn Patrick

The Alpha Male

Kay Hooper and Felix...

Felix the Alpha Cat

My name is Felix, and I am the Alpha Male in the multi-cat household of my person, Kay Hooper. I was what she refers to as “one of the original seven,” meaning that when she finished this dream house of hers, there were seven of us felines who moved here with her (plus two canines). I was the Alpha even then, of course, by virtue of my size (18-19 pounds, none of it fat), and my calm but assertive attitude.

Nobody messes with Felix.

Renny the Beta Cat

I am nine years old this summer, a birthday I celebrate with my littermates Renny and Isabel. Renny is Beta to my Alpha, content to be the “sweet and affectionate” one who also takes it upon himself to welcome the (really bordering on too many!) rescued cats and kittens Kay has added to the household over the years. Isabel, far more standoffish, has a tortie’s spitfire personality, is all of half my size – and possesses my meow. Yes, she does have my meow. Something got mixed up in our mama before we were born, and Isabel ended up with my deep-throated, husky meow.

Me? I sound like a squeaky hinge. A small and rusty squeaky hinge. It’s embarrassing! I try not to use my voice very often, but Kay and others have discovered I have a...soft spot...just at the base of my tail, and when they gently pinch, I for some unknown reason have to meow. If I were a mean cat, I’d smack them for that. But I’m not mean. And I’m the Alpha, after all, with an image to maintain. So I merely stroll away without a backward look.

Isabel

Anyway, my duties as Alpha Cat are many, but I make the job look easy. I keep watch from several good vantage points around this large house, from the back of the couch in the living room to Kay’s desk in the study. I’ve never broken anything on her desk, but I do admit to having the knack of napping on just the piece of paper she needs for the WIP. How should I know what’s important? Alpha Cats can do many things, but we can’t read. Is it irony then, that my person is a writer?

I do move when she asks me. Okay, I move when she nudges and pushes and mutters under her breath. Or when she finally resorts to putting on hand lotion. I know, I know, it sounds like I’m a wuss to be driven away by the scent of hand lotion. But it’s patchouli. And green tea. I just don’t like that smell, and she knows it. It’s getting to the point where she only has to hold up the bottle and wiggle it, and I move off her paperwork.

Bandit

One of these days, I’m going to roll that bottle off her desk and encourage the dogs to play with it.

Ahem. I was talking about my job as Alpha Cat, wasn’t I? Right. Right. So I keep watch over this clowder of cats, and I generally keep order. Generally. Some of the youngsters get too full of themselves from time to time, but I usually only have to head in their direction for the fracas to die down quickly. Sometimes the dog Bandit plays referee, bounding into the middle of a melee, which I don’t mind at all. (Don’t tell anyone, but I adore Bandit, who is only a year older than me.) It’s usually a peaceful house, though, especially when you consider how many cats make their home here. And I don’t mind the crowd, really.

Just as long as they remember that I’m the Alpha Cat.

Felix