Cat Lady.

I don't often talk that much about my cats.  I've been an animal lover since before I could walk and I grew up with just about every domestic pet you can imagine - hamsters, rabbits, dogs, horses, a bird, fish, and yes, cats.  There were always at least two cats roaming around the house, usually more.  While I adore dogs of (mostly) all shapes and sizes (yippy dogs need not apply) cats are, simply, easier to keep in an apartment when you live on your own.  Yet there's a rather unfortunate stigma that comes with being a single woman with cats.  Owning one cat is enough to begin the "cat lady" chatter.  Admit to having more than one and suddenly the adjective "crazy" is on the tip of every one's tongue and ready to be placed in front of "cat lady."

And I am not a crazy cat lady.

Plus, and let's be totally honest here, doesn't it get a little annoying hearing too much about any one's pet/pets that you have never met and/or don't know personally?  Right?  Exactly.

 

Tonight though, I'm going to write about my cats.  For tomorrow, these two little critters, adopted from the same litter when I lived in Brighton forever ago, turn ten.

(TEN!)

In the spring of 2004, I decided I was ready to move into my own apartment.  I was tired of roommates and I was certainly tired of Brighton.  The minute I decided I was actually going to go through with the solo move, I started thinking about getting a cat.  Long before I even knew what cat I'd get, I had already picked out the name, Nolan, after my favorite heroine Francie Nolan, from my favorite book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.  Despite my then-boyfriends warnings about just how annoying it can be to have to deal with a litter box all the time, I never once wavered on my decision to adopt a cat.  I was a young professional moving to a fifth floor walk-up all on her own and I was going to have a cat there to greet me day in and day out.  It was simply part of my plan.  No question.

As luck would have it, the neighbor's cat was due to have kittens just about twelve weeks before I was planning on moving into my new apartment.  Mere days after the kittens, a litter of five, were born, I walked over to meet the tiny little creatures and pick out the one I would eventually take home.  I approached the cardboard box quietly and cautiously, not wanting to scare either the kittens or Momma cat.  There, as tiny as can be, were three solid black ones, a tabby, and a black and white one.  I handled each one as gently as could be - their little blue eyes were barely open at this point - but the black and white tuxedo wearing fella was the one who stole my heart immediately.

I looked up at Frank, the crazy neighbor, while I was holding tiny little Nolan in my hands. "This is the one I want.  Don't let anybody else adopt him."

That summer flew by, much like they always do.  There were weekends out of town, a job to head to each morning, a move across town to pack and prep for.  Still, I would walk next door almost every other day to visit my kitten. I grew to be such a constant presence that the neighbors eventually insisted I come into the mudroom without ringing their bell, as I would then be free to cuddle with Nolan and all of the other kittens as much and as often as I wanted, without disturbing their nightly routine of too much television.  As the weeks wore on and the kittens got older, the number of fuzzy little fur balls climbing over one another in that old cardboard box dwindled, until eventually the only remaining kitten was my little guy, Nolan.  My crazy neighbor kept "forgetting" that I said I wouldn't take him until I was actually moving.  I began to fear that he would think I was bluffing about actually taking the poor kitten and would give him away to someone else.

Finally though it was moving day at last! Type A person that I can be from time to time, I had the big day planned out hour by hour.  I was going to take Nolan to the vet nearby for his first round of shots before we loaded up the moving van.  While my Dad, then boyfriend, and I were busy carrying box after box after box up five flights of stairs during the hottest weekend we'd had in Boston all summer (that was fun) I'd let Nolan camp out in the bathroom of my new place, where he'd be out of the way and content with his bowl of water and a litter box all his own.  Up at the crack of dawn to finally officially adopt Nolan, I walked next door to the neighbor's house one last time.  Looking down into the cardboard box, I expected to just see one little ball of fluff (by now even Momma cat had had enough of this litter) when, instead, there were two kittens.  Nolan, of course, and then, curled up in the corner of the box, was one of the solid black kittens.  

Frank, the crazy neighbor appeared.

"I thought all of the kittens had been adopted?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. They were.  But a little boy took that one," he sighed, nodding his head toward the tiny black one, "but didn't ask his mother's permission.  So last night, she made him bring her back."

I paused for a nanosecond.  Nolan was cupped in one hand, already climbing up my arm.  

"Oh what the heck,"  I shrugged.  "I'll take her too."

"Really?  Are you sure?"

"Why not.  How much more can another kitten cost?"

And so their fate was sealed.  I arrived at the vets office asking for not one round of immunizations, but two.

(Turns out, another cat can add quite a few extra expenses.  It also, turns out, however, that she was totally worth it.)

 

Nameless for what seemed like an eternity, I finally settled on Sophia for my surprise kitten.  People always ask me why I chose the names I did.  For Nolan, I have my answer.  For Sophia?  Well, I just really like that name.  Plus, the apartment I'd moved into at the time was located in the heart of Boston's North End, the Italian section of the city.  And it was quite entertaining, in my mind at least, to call out for Sophia at dinnertime in my mock Italian accent, a la Sophia Loren.

Looking back at pictures I took of Sophia when I first adopted her, I'm reminded that she was a bit of a homely little thing.  I'm pretty sure she was runt of the litter, whereas her brother was absolutely the biggest of the five.  Funny thing about that old fable about the ugly ducking growing up into a beautiful swan though, as Sophia, has grown into one of the most elegant, beautiful cats I have ever owned.  Friends, family, even the vet has remarked upon what a stunning cat she is.  Damn straight, sister.  Let's hear you roar. (Or, meow, as it were.)

Oh these cats.

 

They have caused me so much frustration over the years.  Between the vet bills and the cost of food and cat litter and trying to find someone to take care of them when I go out of town and the endless sea of black cat hair I find all over my furniture and throughout my apartment, there have been times I have wanted to throw my hands up and scream.  In fact, I did just that when I came home one night to find this stunner of a bowl I purchased in Provence years and years ago smashed to smithereens because they'd been up on a very high shelf where they were not supposed to be.  I've had one of them diagnosed with diabetes, which involves a lot of money and twice daily insulin doses.  Along with the Provencal bowl, they have managed to knock over my Venetian glass frame, from, yes, Venice, shattering it.  (I carried it all the way home safely while backpacking for crying out loud and it goes the way of the garbage thanks to two domestic house cats.)  Just recently I noticed the tiniest tear in an Aboriginal art piece I brought back from Australia last year and stared at both of them with an intensity that is not often seen.  They can't break the items that cost me ten dollars and are easily replaceable at Target. Oh no. Of course not. 

I've yelled at them to "shut up!" when they start yowling or fighting in the middle of the night, I've threatened their lives if they scratch my brand new sofa.  I've quickly shooed them off the bed, mildly embarrassed when I've had a boyfriend come over during the early stages of courtship.  There have been nights when I'm exhausted and cranky and all I want to do is collapse on the sofa when I walk in the door, but no, instead find myself cleaning up cat puke or scooping out the smelly litter box, or worse, bleaching an area of the floor that they suddenly deemed better than the litter box.  In moments like those I have wondered aloud about what in the world I was thinking adopting these two.

But.

Oh these cats.

These two little munchkins have moved with me to five different apartments.  Only a little over a year old, they sat in their crates next to me in the U-Haul when I drove down to New York City, scared out of my mind.  They lived with my Dad for a period of time when I was deep in the middle of the moving back to Boston shuffle.  They've explored every nook and cranny of every Boston apartment I've called home since I moved back from New York more than seven years ago.  They have been there through thick and thin and they have seen it all. 

These two.  Oh, these two.  Their differing personalities crack me up; I'm often so amazed that two cats that came from the very same litter could be so different.  My brother once remarked, that if they were human and both had just smoked pot, that Nolan would be the chill stoner.  He'd be that guy that high-fives everybody in the room, invites you to sit down next to him, shares his pizza.  Sophia, on the other hand, would be the paranoid one.  The minute she heard any sort of noise she'd be all: "Guys. What was that? Did you hear that? I definitely just heard something.  Seriously.  Guys."

Nolan and Sophia know all of my secrets.  I talk to them about anything and everything.  They have seen me in good moods and bad ones. They have met friends, the book club girls, neighbors, potential suitors.  Neither of them talk back to me, neither of them offer any sort of an opinion (though I like to think Sophia would high-five me often if she could given that I use her as my fashion consultant).  They are always just there.  Hanging out  and enjoying their own prerogative as cats are known to do. The difference, of course, is that these are my cats. 

Still, the best moments, to me, are the surprise ones.  The winter nights when I'm sprawled on the couch reading and Sophia jumps up into my lap completely unannounced, content to snuggle in the folds of my PJ pants for hours, her head buried underneath a paw.  Or the moments when I'll wake up in the middle of the night to find Nolan curled up in the crook of my leg, purring away, despite the fact that I went to bed alone. Ten years old or no, I still find it endearing when I stumble upon the two of them spooning one another, content as can be.  They still make me laugh with their random idiosyncrasies - the way Sophia scoops her dry food out with her paw one kibble at a time, almost as if she was human, or the way Nolan immediately puts his arms on my left shoulder whenever I pick him up, as if he was a human.  And Sophia, she makes this noise, when she runs from one room to the next that is the cutest thing on the planet to me.  I doubt anyone else that has been around her has ever even noticed it, but it is probably my most favorite little unique thing about her. 

If I'm lucky, I have another ten years with these two.  And while I know today certainly won't be the end of my sometimes complaints about them or my frustration with writing out yet another check for the woman who cat-sits for me when I'm traveling, I already know I'll be heartbroken some day when they are gone.  For these two have been my constant companions throughout the past ten years.  When I think about my life at 24, the morning I put two little kittens into the navy blue cat carrier I'd recently purchased, and then to my life now, at 34, as I sit here typing away and watching the sunset, I am comforted by the fact that Nolan and Sophia have never really cared about any and all of my external factors.  Those two have simply loved me (and yes, the fact that I'm the food provider) from day one.  I'm sure if someone else had adopted them they would have loved them from day one instead.  But no one else did.  Just as these are my cats, I am their owner.  We belong to each other and for that I am grateful. 

If that makes me a crazy cat lady, so be it.  But I'm a lucky crazy cat lady, to be sure.