What Adrienne Thinks About That

I have the world’s best kitty, Amanda Kennerknecht-Scroger (Amanda K. Scroger, for short). With the exception of opening and climbing into the kitchen cabinets, she’s a really good kitty. She sleeps with me every night and greets me at the door when I come home. And, she has the cutest little purr/meow/chirp. She is a bit of a “leg-humper” because she’ll wait outside the bathroom for me or she’ll sneak in and peek at me in the shower.

She seriously sits in the cracked doorway of the bathroom during Kelly's shower. I walk past and it's as if I'm not there. I used to think she wanted to be fed, but I've fed her and it doesn't dissuade the Kelly shower fascination.

But I have to take credit for recognizing which cat was ours at the shelter, even though Kelly really wanted a kitten and Amanda was nine months already. I knew the second I made eye contact with Amanda that she was ours.

For the record, Kelly's first words to the cat were, "That's not a kitten." I wish Kelly had been there when I first let her out of the cat carrier in the appartment, that was fun.

I once had a kitten named Harley - because she purred really loud (not very original, I know). She used to like to sleep right on my chest so she could breathe with me. This would have been cute were it not for her lisp. When she'd purr, she'd spit at me, so I was constantly trying to drag her down on my belly so she wouldn't spit in my face. I'd wake up each morning with a huge wet spot on my night shirt.

Harley was cute and never grew up. She had a genetically stubby tail and never got bigger than a kitten. She was also all black, which added to the Harley name. I don't remember where she came from, but I seem to remember that she didn't adopt us the way all the other cats did (people with a barn never need to look for cats, they find you).

It took a cat about a year go from barn cat to house cat on the Scroger "farm." My father claims to not like cats. To someone who grew up on a real farm, cats are just another barn critter with the functional purpose of controling the rodent population. As Garrison Keilor says, farmers would as soon prefer to have a chicken fly up into their face as have a cat sit on their lap.

A cat would go from being an occasional sighting, which only mom would see about once a week or so. Then, she'd start leaving food out. Within a month or so, the cat would become a perminant resident and we'd make a bed in the hay bales or in the play oven dad made for us out of used panneling.

A cat could get an on-the-spot promotion if a house cat got run over, which happened rather frequently on a state highway, but baring that, it would have to wait till the first really cold winter night to be invited just into the celler. From there, it would be another three months or so that the celler would be the cat's base or operations (food, water, and attention from mom would happen there). Finally it would move up into the upstairs.

I had a cat named Caesar who liked to "nurse" any item of clothing you were wearing. We'd all walk around with wet spots. Plus, he'd meow without making a sound. The mouth would open, all the emotion was there....just no sound.

Chuck will have to tell the story about the time he "lost" my cat from New Year's Eve until about four or five days later. Jeff Lee had a part in that too, if I recall correctly.

I have two cats and dog. For some reason whenever I go to the bathroom all of them need to line up outside the door and wait for me. If the others are attending to different obsessions, Iris, my girl cat, will repeatedly, hurl her body against the door in an attempt to reach me. If she succeeds in opening the door she will often walk from the sink onto my back when I am in a somewhat... ah, "vulnerable" position. She finds this great fun and will often refuse to leave digging her claws into my shoulders for good measure.

When they have all gone to their rewards I'm going to give myself a luxurious pet free year. Privacy in the bathroom, space in the bed, no walking, no feeding, no more worrying if the house is going to burn down while I'm at work.

We had many, many cats while I was growing up. Patches is the first one I remember, she was a "bad" cat meaning she did not follow the rules set by my mom, Patches would bring my dad "dinner" every night when he got up to go to work (he worked the 3rd shift) if she brought a bird my dad would say "No, bad cat." If she brought a mouse he would say "Good kitty," and pet her.Chipmunks were confusing because they looked like mice but still received the "No bad kitty."

When I was in seventh grade I got Curi (as in curiosity), all of her littermates were in a laundry basket with a board over it in the vestibule of the church but somehow Curi had gotten out and was sitting in the middle of the floor when I walked in, she meowed at me and I was lost. She was so small she would sleep in my hand and a few times I rolled over in bed and my arm fell between the wall and the bed and she would be trapped and meow until I woke up but that did not stop her from sleeping there. She would also follow me into the bathroom every morning and "talk" to me while I did my hair she would of course be looking in the mirror at me. The only time she ever showed any aggression toward me was when I brought home a stray kitten, 'Tis, she scratched my hand and arm as if to say "How dare you!" After I moved out she adopted my dad but it was never quite the same.

Chuck, wouldn't that be "field" promotion?

Chaley, I don't remember any involvement in a lost cat on New Year's, but I tend to be quite liquored up most New Year's, so I can't really say for certain that I haven't simply forgotten about it.

My cat, Amelia, is with me in Boston right now. She had a very long ride in the car over the weekend, but she survived. There was a lot of meowing. Amelia is too cute for words, but I'm a little biased. Heather weaned her off of biting, but I like to let her cheat and let her bite me. I'll send Adrienne a picture and maybe she'll post it.

Amelia is totally cute, even when she hisses.

Chaley's nursing cat, Ceasar, was gross. I hated that he nursed on everything. EVERYTHING! TILL THE DAY HE DIED!

Chuck - Doug & I got Harley from a litter his brother's cat delivered. He came to Kendall with me when I moved home. His little paws didn't touch the ground for months - out of fear of the dog. He just climbed the backs of furntiture and counters (gross) or stayed upstairs.

The best cat story from the Scroger house is Rikki Tikki. Rikki was pure white - not a speck of any other color on him. He was just SO beautiful. But the cat was pure evil. Pure evil. He'd hide under furniture and as you were walking through the house, he'd appear out of no where and attack (ATTACK!!!) your legs, wrapping himself around in order to get every last claw and tooth sunk in your ankle. Or, he'd wait until you had stockings on and then take a running start from across the house and scale you like a scratching post - up one side and down the other. But in his old age, Rikki tormented the poor dog more than the rest of us. He had his final revenge on the dog when he - out of nowhere as he'd never gone their before- curled himself up in the dog house and died.

Amelia's so tiny! She is adorable. She tried to hate me, but deep down inside I like to think she misses me.

I hate to remind you - but Rikki Tikki Kitty loved me. He only got truly evil when I moved away to college. That's also when he chose to expire.

I remember that cat really mellowing for years before dying in the dog's house. I think he mellowed when Chaley moved out.

Are you kidding me? Do you not remember having to keep rolled up newspaper around the house to keep the cat off your leg?? He was EVIL I tell you!

C'mon...Benny isn't a special needs cat. He's just...misunderstood. :)

No really Benny is special. Very, very special, but also very cute.