Kelly With Lime »

Although we had several dogs growing up (mostly big labs), I SO longed for a cat. A soft furry kitty that I could call my own! Suffice to say my history of cat-ownership has been less than positive. Allow me to recap:

Cat 1: Came with the house. The home my parents bought when I was 9 years old came with a cat, Misty. My parents used to joke they bought a very expensive cat. Misty was quite old, at least 16 or 17 and as she was an outdoor cat used to roaming the neighborhood, they didn’t want to take her from her the only home she ever knew so they passed her along to our family. To this day I distinctly recall the smell the the wet cat food that I scooped into a bowl and left in the garage for her. One day about two or three months after moving in, Misty didn’t greet me for her morning food. I believe my father later found her near our wood pile where she apparently settled in to spend her last moments.

Off to a good start!

Cat 2: Grocery store return. I must have been 13 or 14 when my mom gave in to my pleadings for a kitten. The box of soft, furry kitten bodies outside the grocery store was too sweet a sight to resist and I came home with a mewling little boy kitten. By the next morning the cat was returned. You see, my poor mom is terrified of cats, absolutely petrified. The story goes something like this. When my mother was a child my grandmother was watering plants along a wall and accidentally sprayed a cat that had been sitting on the wall. The startled cat jumped off the wall and landed on my grandmother, a site my mother witnessed and misunderstood as the cat attacking her mom, and ever since, she fears the same fate. My mom desperately wanted to give me the cat I’d always wanted but it was either that or her sanity. Sanity always wins.

Cat 3: AIDS, enough said. Last summer, two decades after my last attempt at cat ownership and after much deliberation, I brought home the sweetest cat you ever done saw. My little Lars. It wasn’t but a few days before I came to love how he would plop is furry body on my head in the middle of the night. Oh, how he loved to cuddle! He also loved to not eat, a behavior that, as it turns out, was indicative of his declining state of health due to an unknown diagnosis of FIV. Cat HIV essentially, and Lars was in an advanced stage of decline. After just two weeks together and many tears, I returned him to the shelter, knowing he was not likely long for this world.

And that brings me to Esme.

Cat 4: Oh, Esme! Poor (not so) little six-year old Esme was adopted this summer from a Chicagoland shelter where she’d lived for over a year. (So sad!) I went to the shelter to see another cat and was convinced to take this “poor sweet girl” who “just needed some love.” Esme hid under the bed for at least a week, maybe two, and until about week three, I wasn’t sure we would work out. You see, Esme didn’t want to be my friend, or so it seemed, and it didn’t help that I had cuddly Lars to compare her to. “You are nothing like your brother!” I would tell her, in a sweet voice, of course, as I tried to lure her out from under the bed with fishy treats. To this day she is no Lars. But what she is, is an Esme. And after nearly 6 months together, I’ve decided I really like her. Nay, I LOVE her.

I love her soft questioning meow in the morning or when I come home, as if to say, “Are you here to awake? Here to stay?” I love her furry white belly (like frolicking in the back hair of angels!) that she plops down and displays in a blatant appeal for some belly-rubs. I love the way she’ll sleep in the strangest of positions and as I quietly start to take a picture, she opens one eye to let me know she’s always watching me. I love the way she bumps her head against my hand, insistent upon getting some scratches. I love how she sits next to me on the couch while I watch an entire three seasons of Project Runway Australia over the course of a weekend. I especially love it when, on those very rare occasions, she bravely climbs in my fuzzy-blanket-covered lap and lays there for a short while. With Esme, that’s pure gold, the highest of compliments.