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| "Playing Dress-Up" 16x20 oil on canvas (acrylic underpainting) |
When I was a child, I loved cats. In good weather, I brought home every
stray cat within walking distance. My mother was patient and supportive. She
placed a litter box in a recessed nook on one side of our big kitchen and
indulged my love for cats, at least for awhile. The only rule was: one cat at a
time.
I enjoyed cat ownership. I dressed each furry friend in my
doll's clothes and pushed it around in my doll buggy. The strays were so hungry
for attention and fondling that they never complained, even when made to wear a
bonnet tied under the chin.
I lavished each cat with affection, but there was something abhorrent
about having a litter box in the kitchen. While I was eating my breakfast, the
cat was always doing its business in the litter box. Maybe that's why every
winter, without fail, the "cat-in-residence” managed to disappear. Mother
would claim it wandered off or got lost, but I began to suspect that each cat I
brought home was never going to stay for long.
I can't really blame my mother. We lived in a small upstairs
apartment with no utility room and a teeny-tiny bathroom that caused grownups
to lean inward with the eaves. The kitchen was the only room wide enough to
accommodate the "box;" a name my mother said with disdain.
When I grew up and had a home of my own, a cat was given to
our oldest son as first prize in a soap box derby for Cub Scouts. It was a wild
little thing that scaled my draperies like Mt. Everest, leaving a trail of claw
tracks and snags in its wake. He clawed his way up my sofas, my chairs, my
bedspreads, and, as a last straw, up the kid's arms and legs. The product of a
feral cat's litter we decided. We never knew for sure. We returned our wild
kitty back to the giver of the gift (adequate punishment, don't you agree?).
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| "Madison Morgan" from "Madison Morgan, when Dogs Blog" by Pam Torres |
After that we became dog owners. As the children grew up, we
enjoyed several canine lifetimes. It was while we owned a white and tan Shih Tzu
named Pooky that a beautiful black cat with white socks came to live with us. My
daughter dubbed him Demetrius.
We had no sooner gotten attached to him when we discovered
that her younger brother was terribly allergic to cats. “Deme's” fur caused our
son's skin to break out in bright red patches, followed by bouts of hay fever
and asthma. Needless to say, the cat had to go. I cried like a baby when we had go give him away, but I didn't miss those patty-paw footprints all over my kitchen counter
tops; a habit I was never able to break him of, even when I sprayed him with
water.
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| "Winston" 11x14 oil on canvas |
Today I admire cats from afar. They're beautiful, they're
soft, they're cuddly, and they belong to someone else. A friend's cat brought
her a gift in my presence: a tiny gray mouse that he laid at her feet. As I
watched the blood trickle out on the floor, I remembered those unsanitary
patty-paws on my kitchen cupboards. I determined then and there that I was a
dog person, and I've been one ever since. I don't mean to be catty,
but...
(Repeat of a blog from 2009)
