“kitty cats”
V-MP gets me because her prompt was simple and effective and struck close to my heart.
Now, I was raised with dogs. Literally, my parents got a puppy months before I was born, so we grew up together. Buff and I were a team, which you can see on the same profile photo I use for my podcast Going on 50:
We GOT each other. We also both loved kibble, apparently. (I don’t remember that part, and also, parents lie.)
But when I went off to college and, presumably, adulthood, I knew that the responsibility of a dog was beyond me. I could afford neither money or time for a dog, so instead, I grabbed on to the idea of getting a cat. I really had no idea what I was setting myself up for, I had no earthly idea about cats at all, but in theory a cat sounded like the perfect pet for a young, busy working woman. And they are cute, I knew that even BEFORE the Internet.
After a series of unfortunate events (a story for another time), I ended up with twin black kitties whom I named Thing One and Thing Two as only I could tell them apart (one was a boy, the other a girl). In the way of cats, they eventually became Princess and Pirate when I moved back home to take care of my parents. This was in 1993.
Princess was too smart for her own good and died in 1995, but Pirate, damn, Pirate lasted until July, 2007. He was, by that time, 18 years old, blind, nearly deaf, and light as a feather. Towards the end I carried him around the house in a sling like a baby, because he wanted to follow me but could barely walk.
I wish I had more photos of Pirate in his prime, but we did not have cameras in our phone in the 1990s and I am a pretty lousy photographer. The few times I did own cameras, I tried to snap pictures of him but…he was a black cat, he kind of absorbed light. One shadow and he was gone. I mean, I have photos I think he’s in? Maybe? That’s a tail or another shadow, is what I’m saying.
But here, have a blurry photo of him in his elderly years, eyes dimmed with cataracts, lounging in the heated cat bed I got for him along with Pookie, his favorite nap companion at the time (if I wasn’t available):
I didn’t know anything about cats when Pirate came into my life, but I’m so very lucky I had him to show me the way. I’ve had other great cats, including his sister Princess and his adopted kin Wacko and Dobby, but Pirate was and is always first kitty of my heart.