Just like with Sam, we couldn't stand being without a pet to lavish love on. A month after Adolph was put to sleep, my sister and I went hunting, in two different directions, and came home with kittens on the same weekend!

The above picture shows the kids about 10 days after we got them in September 1997. Cricket was 10 weeks old, and Flip was just over 5 months old. She was the daintiest, tiniest thing, and he looked fully grown! I call that picture the Lion and the Lamb. :-)

One of my girlfriends took me to the Humane Society to look for cats. I had a hard time deciding whether to get an older cat or a kitten. But I fell in love with Cricket's coloring when I saw her with her two brothers. They were either black or tigers, I can't remember, but her coloring made her stand out!

As we played with her in one of the viewing rooms, she kept jumping over our hands and arms. "Just like a cricket." said my girlfriend, and that's how Cricket got her name!

Flip's original name was Nestler and he was a rescue kitty too, but from a different Humane Society. My sister said that when he was petted, he would flip and squirm all over the place, so she changed his name to Flip.

I believe Flip is what people call a "tuxedo" cat, where he is very sleek and shiny and dignified looking. Cricket was my "turtle sundae" - Vanilla ice cream on the bottom, and caramel and hot fudge on top!

My family razzes me because I will take anything, throw it on the floor and say "cat toy!". LOL But, many times, cats like what I throw on the floor. These guys loved milk jug rings, the plastic safety ring on all plastic milk jugs. Preferably the full circle kind, not the strip one.

Cricket and Flip's favorite playground was the bath tub. They loved sliding down the back part! And it made a great hockey rink for the milk jug rings, too!

One toy they had was a fishing pole with a string and a fish on the end of it. The pole came unattached, and they loved to run around with the fish and the string. There was also a bell attached to the string, so you could hear them playing. One time, Cricket had the fish and was playing "keep away" from Flip! She would dash this way and that, and slow down a little then speed up. Very cute!

We tried teaching them to give paw, but Cricket wanted nothing to do with it, and Flip only learned it somewhat. Their personalities were quite a bit different than Mittsy and Adolph. They weren't as "doggyish". While Flip still liked to nestle, Cricket did not. Good luck trying to catch her! LOL

A neat trick we taught them was to play "Spin the kitty". My brother's cat, Mario, would lay on the kitchen floor, and my brother would turn Mario by placing a hand behind Mario's back and spinning him. We did a similar thing with these guys. One day, the garbage lid fell off the can, and one of the cats decided it made a nice cradle. Seeing the rocking, I started spinning it a little, and they liked it! We could get them both to do it, just not at the same time. I told my neighbor about this, and she was like "Oh, yeah, I'll be believing that one!" but we got the chance to show her one year. :-)

One thing that Cricket would do, though, was suckle. It was very cute when she was a kitten, and it still is to this day, but it can get annoying. She likes to get into your armpit area, grab a piece a cloth between her teeth, and suckle on it. God forbid if you aren't wearing a shirt! LOL

Of the two cats, Cricket has the stranger personality. She has an obsession about placemats. She didn't like them under her dishes. We liked them, because she often would play in her water dish (another obsession) and get water everywhere. Not good when you have hardwood floors in a rental apartment! Anyway, she would try and do the magician's trick of whipping the placemat out from under the dishes. Below are before and after pictures.

And here she is watching television! LOL She doesn't do that often, just something fascinated her about the guy.

When they were about a year old, I moved out to California to be with a boyfriend. Since Cricket and Flip got along so well, I made the hard decision to leave her behind. :-(

Since then, I am living on my own and now have my own cat, Homer. I have watched Cricket and Flip during various moves, and they get along with Homer, but only when they are here, with him. Homer is terrified to be at their house. :-(