The Zoo

Tigger (Squeak)

One evening while my husband was at work, a doctor he worked with mentioned she had found a litter of kittens in a trash can and was trying to find homes fo them. She'd found three of them homes, and was trying to get him to take the last two. He called me from work, and I said no, knowing he would bring them home anyhow, which he did. One was much more outgoing than the other, with tabby stripes and black wing tips at the tops of her ears like a lynx. After a while we named her Nike, for the Nikean statue, Flying Victory. The other one is black with white spots (or is she white with black spots?), and depending on how you look at her face, you see a funny white moustache, or a little skinny black one. The funny white one made us think of silly professors, and the fact that the black one is reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin or Hitler makes an interesting statement about the first image you get when you look at her-- in fact, her perfect side-to-side symmetry and multiple possible images led us to call her Schach, for Rorschach, the man who developed the inkblot test as a psychiatric tool. These two came to us together, and in general have been inseparable since. Often, out of all of the cats, we still find them curled up together. They're about two years old now.

Roscoe | Ti | Velcro | Tao | Raine | Scamp | Nike | Schach | Cinq | Puck | Velcro? | Tucker | Kiska | Monty | Top

Cinq

For those of you who remember your French numbers, Cinq was named for the fact that she was our fifth cat. We were just going to call her "Number Five", like the Star Trek character, but my husband rightly pointed out that saying the same thing in French added just a little touch. A friend had two cats who had had huge litters at the same time and was having a horrible time giving them all away. Somehow we ended up with one. She is just gorgeous, and for a while was a little prissy, in fact their name for her had been something like Priscilla or Penelope. She is our only cat to come from a house of high standing, with known parentage-- everyone else has dubious backgrounds. Now she's very dear. She's about a year old now.

Roscoe | Ti | Velcro | Tao | Raine | Scamp | Nike | Schach | Cinq | Puck | Velcro? | Tucker | Kiska | Monty | Top

Puck

Ah yes... Puck. I had seen a small, skinny black kitten with white markings at the laundromat, with big fat women throwing plastic laundry baskets at it: "Shoo! Go on home, don' you come aroun' heya and bite me now, shoo!" But I couldn't get the cat to come to me (I can't imagine why it wouldn't trust people). It came inside the laundromat to get out of the hot sun, and sit just inside in the shade of a chair, but once anyone made a move towards it, it was gone-- it would sneak back a few minutes later. I knew perfectly well that I could love this kitty, but we couldn't possibly take in another cat and I would be embarrassed to bring it home. What would my husband say? It was about a week LATER that he brought Cinq home (see above paragraph). The next day after work I stopped at the laundromat to see if the kitty still hung around. It was there, under the chair. After a moment it was obvious it didn't want to come to me, and it went outside and sat under someone's car. When it was time for the person to leave, I got down on the ground in my dress clothes and pulled the cat out and threw her in my car. "For your own good, kitty, I promise," I said. Now Puck, though sometimes genuinely a terror and living up to her namesake, has been such a dear to have. I can't imagine this house without her now. She's about a year old.

Roscoe | Ti | Velcro | Tao | Raine | Scamp | Nike | Schach | Cinq | Puck | Velcro? | Tucker | Kiska | Monty | Top

Velcro?

For those of you still paying attention, you would know that Velcro was with us at our first place, then disappeared with Ti while we were gone for a trip. A year and a half later, this was last fall, my husband and I were taking a walk and admiring fall colors on a dead-end road which extends across the street from our own. We came across an enormous grey cat who was acting strangely. When it heard our voices it looked up, and on a whim we called out "Velcro?" And at the sound of his name he came right up to us. We couldn't believe it, and even though he let us pick him up and madly purred while we pet him, we still weren't sure it was him. The coloring was right, but he was enormous! Either someone has been feeding him-- well-- or our wimpy little boy kitty had become a raucous tomcat and was living well off mice and birds. He had no collar, so we didn't think he'd been adopted by a new family. He let us carry him home and he's been with us since! We kept him sequestered for a couple of days at first-- after all, we had a house full of female cats and one quck look told us he was most definitely still a fully-functional male cat. After having him"fixed" up a bit, he's as happy as any male cat would be in a house full of women! Velcro is five years old, and though he's lost a little weight he is still a big kitty. Most of our kitties have come from malnourished beginnings and so are on the small side, but I suppose a tough outdoor kitty packs on muscle and meat.

Roscoe | Ti | Velcro | Tao | Raine | Scamp | Nike | Schach | Cinq | Puck | Velcro? | Tucker | Kiska | Monty | Top

You're not DONE yet, you say?

Tucker

My husband greeted me at the door one afternoon, saying "Now, before you wonder about my head, there is a kitten in the bedroom but it is Nez's. He saved it-- it was crouched in running water in a gutter on a busy street." "Fine," I said, and went about my business. After some time though, my curiosity got the best of me and I went to look at it. It took some searching, as it was very tiny, very black, and very frightened, and had wiggled into a shadow behind the headboard of the bed. We kept her for a couple of days, and by the time Nez said he wasn't going to keep the kitten, we already knew it and had made a space for her in our hearts. Once time when Nez was over, the kitten had been tearing about the house as little kitties do, and was curled up on the end of the couch in a tiny black ball. "She's all tuckered out," he commented, and Tucker stayed with her. She'll be a year old next spring, though she's grown like a weed and isn't much smaller than the other kitties.

Roscoe | Ti | Velcro | Tao | Raine | Scamp | Nike | Schach | Cinq | Puck | Velcro? | Tucker | Kiska | Monty | Top

That is all for OUR zoo, but wait! Here are some pics of Kiska, a seven-year-old eighty-five pound Alaskan Malamute who owns my parents.


This is Monty, a Sheltie who owns my brother and his wife. Monty has starred on Pettsburgh, USA on the Animal Planet cable network!


Back to Top

Roscoe | Ti | Velcro | Tao | Raine | Scamp | Nike | Schach | Cinq | Puck | Velcro? | Tucker | Kiska | Monty | Top


Uriel and Thaera      Family      Friends      Biking      The Zoo      Other Pics