response 1 of 43:

Oct 29 21:35 UTC 1999

My 17-year-old moggie cat Little Bit was inherited from
the previous occupant of the apartment I rented in 1984.  I
actually knew the guy slightly, and he knew I was going to 
take the apartment, and asked if I would keep the cat,
who was about a year and a half old at the time.  She was
terribly lonely and neurotic when I finally occupied the 
place, since it had been empty for two weeks, and she had 
been fed daily by the landlord, but not petted very much.
Legend has it that she was found as a kitten in a snowdrift,
but I've never been able to confirm that story.  Her name
when I got her was Princess Little Bit, but I dropped the
Princess right away.

Our 3-and-a-half year old black Siberian cat Katya was
bought from a breeder at a cat show in March of 1997,
when she was a year old.  The breeder gave us a discount,
since she has a little white mark on her chest, and I think
also because she was already so old.  She still looked like
a kitten, though, since Siberians grow quite slowly to
maturity.  I would have guessed she was nine months at the 
time, if I didn't know her birthday.  Ken and I had been
talking about getting another black cat for several years, 
since Ken's old black cat had died, and we had also 
discussed a Maine Coone, since we had also had one of those
die on us.  Well, Siberians look a *lot* like Maine
Coones, and here we had stumbled upon a black one as well,
and she was incredibly sweet to boot, so we impulsively
bought her on the spot.

response 3 of 43:

Oct 29 21:59 UTC 1999

Lumpy Dave came from a litter born in the student house I used to live in.
I wasn't originally planning on taking a cat, but the person who had gotten
dibs on Dave was proving pretty negligent as a pet owner.

Years later when I finally had my own house, I added Conan (the "big baby"
aka "wild thing" aka "conehead") from the local shelter.

response 5 of 43:

Oct 29 23:29 UTC 1999

Sidney is an adoptee from the Humane Society.  He was a stray, found
wandering in a trailer park.  Basically he adopted us, climbing the
door of the cage trying to get to us when we went to adopt a cat.
One of the most easygoing affectionate people-oriented cats it's
been my pleasure to encounter.  Still acts like the kitten he was
when we adopted him, although he's six years old now.

response 7 of 43:

Oct 30 02:37 UTC 1999

Tonchi, our calico cat, is 11 years old now.  We got her from the Humane
Society, and like remmers' and beeswing's cats picked them out, Tonchi pretty
much picked us out. As we looked in the cage, she stretched out her paw to us.

The card on the cage said that her name was Tammy Faye.  Undoubtedly she was
named after the highly-cosmetized wife of a preacher who was much in the news
then.  The first thing we did was change her name to Tonchi, which is the word
Guadalajarans use for "kitty."

It's often said of calicos that they have a sweet disposition.  Tonchi is very
sweet with adults, but she's not good with children or short people.  She's
taken swipes at young nephews and nieces, as well as my sister (who's just shy
of 5 feet tall) and my wife's aunt who is even shorter.

Overall, though, we're pretty happy she chose us.

response 9 of 43:

Oct 30 06:54 UTC 1999

Mary Wilson's first cat came from a 'cat store' in Beverly, IL. after an
unsuccessful attempt to 'adopt' one from the local  chicagoland  pound -
too much paperwork and you had to attend classes on 'adoption' and you
had to be 'screenws'  to see if you were 'appropriate' and it cost more
- for crying out loud its a fucking cat, I can make a fur coat out of a
couple hundred of it!  Anyway, after convincing her that the 500.00
purebred siamese kitten with papers was not the route to go we ended up
with a 'tiger' mut.  Named 'go' which is mandarin for 'dog' and is the
usual evocative of an young mandarin for any small 4-legged furry
animal.  Cost 6 bucks.

response 11 of 43:

Oct 30 07:01 UTC 1999

The first of our current group, Paws, was acquired two days before 
Christmas a number of years ago.  She was a shy calico, and the family 
that was taking care of her didn't really know her.  Apparently, she 
had been found as a stray at the man's office, well pregnant, and they 
had given away her litter and needed to get rid of her.  We took her 
home, and after a couple of days of restricting herself to one room of 
the house, she began climbing the christmas tree, and the rest is 
history.  She is easily the wildest, smartest, most evil animal I have 
ever known.  She manipulates like nothing else, even though she's 
mellowed over the years.

The second, and oldest, is Coffee, who we picked up a year or so 
later.  She's a lapcat.  She and paws didn't get along well at all at 
first, and we thought we might have to give her back, but she grew on 
us.  She's my kind of color, black.   

The idiot, Duey (short for the French "Duve," which means fuzz) 
appeared one weekend after I had been out of the house, readily named 
and litterbox trained.  Our only kitten, he was stored in the spacious 
upstairs bathroom adjoining my sister's bedroom where he could be fed 
and cared for in safety from the big girls.  Videos from the period 
prove that we weren't above throwing him into the frying pan and 
letting Paws play with him.  In retrospect, she was fairly gentle.  
They fight a considerable amount more these days.

I don't know what I'd do without them.

response 13 of 43:

Oct 30 07:19 UTC 1999

"Mrs. Bigglesworth" is a purebred but spayed female siamese that is
incredibly friendly with children - Mary Wilson carries her around like
the _Peanuts_ cartoon character (nobody knows that reference for sure).

And, after the initial cost of making sure she/it had all her shots she
was 'declawed'.  Seems "Mrs. B." was slightly neurotic (as are most
siamese cats) and was lonely on account Arnoldt and most everybody else
in the houshold either worked or was going to school.  Seems she would
sometimes 'throw up' her food (Arnoldt is a German and by defintition a
neatness freak and I can see how this might bother him).  After the
lawsuit where our neighbor's neighbor's daughter's ex-roomate attempted
to get the cat back after abandoning it for about a year (we offered to
give the cat back for simply the cost of the 'vet' bills) and Arnoldt
was finally deported we had the cat 'put down' (drawing the line at the
cat's Dr's opinion that a CATSCAN (costs less for cats than humans for
some reason even though it uses exactly the same machine) would reveal
the 'cause' of the cat's illness)).

response 15 of 43:

Oct 30 07:28 UTC 1999

Oh, forgot to mention, the now three thousand dollar or more cat was
burried in the front 4x6' 'lawn' where nai-nai raises various chinese
herbs and vegitables, onions, tomatoes and sweet corn.  So at least we
get to eat better as a result.

response 17 of 43:

Oct 30 09:40 UTC 1999

'cat' is rather tasty. It is served in many korean restaurants.

response 19 of 43:

Oct 30 13:01 UTC 1999

Winston came from The Age of Aquarium pet shop.  My son was in King School
and I had taken on the duties of fish tank caretaker.  I was at the pet
store to buy some aquarium supplies when I walked by a cage holding a
number of very tiny kittens.  One in particular, looked too sad for words.
He was extremely thin and way too tiny to be away from mom, his eyes were
running goo, his ears held lots of crunch black stuff, and fleas were
running around his hind end in plain view.  But his eyes locked onto mine
and he never looked away.  Not for a moment. 

I paid the $40 on the spot and a whole lot more in vet bills over the
next 3 or 4 months to get rid of the malnutrition, dehydration, intestinal
parasites, ear mites and fleas.  I bulked him up on liver Gerber baby
food.  And in return he has been a respected friend for the past 15 years. 

I still have no defense for that eye contact thing he does so well.

response 21 of 43:

Oct 30 14:18 UTC 1999

I was going to write more about my beeyootiful cat, but he just used the 
litter box and hence stunk up the entire apartment. 

Pleh.

response 23 of 43:

Oct 30 18:26 UTC 1999

My Sasha came to me from the Midland County Animal Control.  She and her
three sisters were found at about 4 weeks old, and their picture was put
into the paper.  My brother and I went to the office'just to look' (I knew
I would be taking one home, I brought a kittky carrier with me).  Sasha's
two grey and white sisters were loud, obnoxious and kept biting hard on my
fingers.  She was quite and just licked them, the fourth kitten wouldn't come
near me.  So I took Sasha home (I said 'how about the name Sasha' and that
was it...) and found out that yes, the little darling did cry... a lot... she
still hates to be too far from me.  So while she's not much of a lap sitter
yet (I have hopes, more and more she comes begging for attention and crawls
all over my lap purrring her lil heart out) she insists on being in the same
room with me... watching me... <grins>

My roommate got Willoughby from the Huron Humane Society... He was two and
a half, but looked healthy.  His original name was Teal... we didn't like
that... <laughs>  The Humane Society said a vet looked at him and he was
perfectly healty- eyes, ears, nose clean.  So we take him to the vet... Three
different types of ear infections- two bacterial and one yeast... Given that
his first few weeks with us involved being forcibly held down and having his
ears scrubbed- it's amazing that he's the slut he is.  Anyone who comes over
to my apt. now meets Mr. Willoughby and must love him up.