In case you haven't noticed, I'm a cat person. It's been this way since I was five and I played with the Maine Coon across the street from my house. This is how long I've wanted a cat, something my mom wouldn't allow because she claimed allergies. * When I moved out on my own at 25, I figured this would be a perfect time for a cat. Of course, the only cheap apartment we found didn't allow pets. This still didn't stop me. To mark my one year of dating now-Hubby, he told me he would get me a cat. While, the cat would stay with him, I'd get to sneak it in every so often. The Search Stripey Then, 3 Months Old For six months, we looked for a cat. I stalked petfinder.com, looking for the perfect cat. (Perfect cat = orange marmalade kitten. This goes back to some picture book I read as a child that had said cat.) The number of kittens matching description was zero. Pet stores didn't carry cats, and at the time, I didn't know that places like Pe...

Stripey is a natural jumper. As a kitten, she would launch herself from the floor into the freezer to cool off whenever my roommate or me would be rummaging.She was small enough that she could find a space just for her. Since then, there have been no freezer-jumping shenanigans. A few mishaps with closed closets, but nothing involving the refrigerator until a few weeks ago. That's when she discovered the top of our refrigerator. The apartment Hubby and I live in is small and lacks too much storage space, so the top of the fridge is loaded with all things kitcheny. We stacked things according to usage, but we also made it so The White One wouldn't be able to fit up there. (He was a fan of opening the unused bread box.) I should've expected that Stripey would find a way. For a week straight, she would perch in the farthest corner and stare. Every so often her eyes would glow with her inner demon. Why do they always like the most difficult places? The devil shows thr...

Earlier this month (and late February), I blogged about superstition , ritual , and habit . These were geared towards you and I, but cats have their version of each too. Like The Stripey One. Superstition Stripey believes that we're trying to poison her. Whenever we offer her people food, she sniffs at it. Yes, this is what cats do, but she does it with every single piece. Cat treats too. So, if you have ten treats in your hand and are feeding them to her one at a time, she will sniff each piece. Her paranoia prompts this. Ritual To avoid her paranoia poisoning, Stripey has taken to crossing her eyes when she takes her initial sniff. This must aid in determining whether it's safe to resume with the rest of the test: lick, re-examine, narf. Rinse, repeat. Habit Stripey's small - much smaller than The White One - and she gets cold in the winter. She likes to find the place that has the most warmth and stay there. This winter, she found a place that she really loved. ...

This is Cheyenne. I generally call her Kitty. You'll see reference to her here, on Twitter , and Facebook as The Stripey One, or Stripey for short. She was my first non-imaginary or non-fish pet and I love her, even though she's stand-offish and prefers to stare at you from across the room or attack your feet from underneath the bed. I spent the first year experimenting on what people food Cheyenne would eat. Surprisingly, she eats a lot of people food. This includes pineapple. With the feeding of people food, Stripey developed a people mindset. This is the only explanation I have for her hatred of cat collars. When we got her from Animal Rescue League, they already had a collar on her with a huge tag. It was bigger than her. I replaced it with a different collar which she pulled off with her teeth. Teeth. If you have a cat with a collar and an ID tag, go take a look at the location of the tag in relation to your cat's mouth. Go ahead, I'll wait. ... Welcome ...

I previously stated how my cats are the best form of distraction ever. I still hold to that, but would like to add a disclaimer: DISTRACTIONS ARE BAD WHEN THEY HIT BEFORE DAYLIGHT. In case you've never seen the cats, look here: Cute, huh? They are the devil incarnate. Cheyenne (the stripey one) is viciously clever and somewhat of a trouble maker. She has a tendency to open doors and tear open bags of treats. Lucky (the white one) is rather dumb and quite possibly can be considered the Tommy Lee of the feline world. He also likes to destroy things - vases get smashed, video cards cracked, keyboard keys pulled off... you get the idea. He's also some kind of Oriental cat so he talks. Frequently. We've gotten used to these kitty quirks. They're cats, this is what they do. It's summer, so they like the windows to be open. We have a small one that stays open in our bedroom during the summer that overlooks our driveway and the side street. Since they're indoor cats, th...