All this talk about pets got me thinking about my first cat:

I had a boy cat named Catie. We got him when I was 3. I was his only friend because my parents are not cat people. In any case, the reason we got "her" was that one of the kids in my Mom's class brought "her" in because the family had just got a dog and they couldn't keep "her." (Did I mention my Mom taught retarded kids in the inner city?) My mother has never turned an animal away in her life, which is why our front yard looks like it should belong to Snow White and why there is a permanent chipmunk infestation in the house. So when my mother picked me up from pre-school (this was right before I was kicked out for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance), there was a furry present for me that frantically was bouncing off the windows and my head.

We took Catie to the vet and found out that she was in fact a he. I was very excited to get to rename the cat, because I didn't like the name Catie. (I just realized, right now, at 25 years of age, why we spelled Catie with a "C", because it's "Cat"ie). Anyway, I thought that the perfect name for our new boy cat would be Rainbow! My decision was vetoed, mostly because Catie was already 6 months old and could respond to his name and the name was a little femmy.

So Catie stayed with us.

He weighed 23 lbs. and would only run if he heard the can opener going, his belly swaying with each step. When he slept in bed with me, he would take up the entire bottom and if I moved he would scratch the shit out of me. You could only touch him on his head, anywhere else would result in hissing and getting the shit scratched out of you. I rubbed him under his chin for hours and he grew to love me. He once fell in love with a cat named Princess who looked just like him (gray tabby cat with black tiger stripes) only about 14 pounds smaller. She stayed with us for 2 weeks while her owners were on vacation. She rejected him and he didn't eat for days.

When we got Daisy (the dog) he thought it would be funny to guard her food dish and then scratch her if she tried to get by. He also enjoyed blocking doorways and staircases. Daisy was terrified of him. But one day, when I came home from school, I found the two of the in the living room curled up next to one another, sleeping. I tried to take a photo, but as soon as the got a whiff of what I was doing they quickly got up, acting like it never happened.

There was a time when I, too, was frightened of Catie. I couldn't be in the same room with him and I wouldn't let him sleep with me. You see, I had this nightmare, where I was looking down a flight of stairs and I saw him down at the bottom. He slowly turned his head to face me and then his mouth morphed into this hideous Cheshire Cat smile and he had these maniacal, twinkling eyes. I woke up screaming. It was a good month before I forgave him for being so malicious in my dream.

My father referred to Catie as a "she" for the entire 13 years he was with us. Maybe that's why he would lay down with his front paws crossed. He died at age 13 of lung cancer from second hand smoke. So all you pet owners out there. Think twice about smoking around your animals. They have lungs too.

Catie still comes to visit me in my dreams and I am always happy to see him.