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INTRODUCTION
Among other things, I'm an artist, independent curator, website designer and especially a life-long lover of cats - both wild and domestic.
Like most domestic cats I prefer living a solitary life but occasionally crave some human attention and affection. . .
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I've lived most of my life with cats. I don't remember ever paying for any of them; they were either gifts of the breeder or adults that needed a home. Many had been abused or abandoned by their former guardians. As a child of parental abduction and a survivor, maybe I identified with these cats... All my feline friends were "fixed" - meaning if they were females they were spayed and if they were males they were neutered *.
* Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be happier if I'd been neutered.
"All cats (except the lion and some feral domestic cat colonies) are solitary animals that hunt and fend for themselves. They only come into contact with members of the opposite sex during mating periods... Cats are also very territorial and mark out the perimeter of their "homeland" with their urine. In urban areas our domesticated cats still exhibit these behavioural traits, creating serious problems for male tom cats who inevitably fight with each other as they cross each others territories in search of on-heat females. Neutering can help to reduce the nuisance caused by calling and fighting cats, as well as reducing the number of unwanted litters." ~ provet petfacts
Are Cats Really Unsociable?
THE MESSYBEAST
and
Cat Resource Archive
Dinner by Sarah Hartwell
The Humane Society of the United States
Over 200,000 children are parentally abducted in USA a year!
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Here are a few cats I have known:
I have no memory of a pet before my abduction (at age 3 1/2) from my home on Long Island, NY.
The first pet I remember, at the age of 6 on Cape Cod, was a very large black male cat I named "Blackie." Not afraid of dogs, he was once seen 'riding' on the back of a ferocious "Boxer."
That annoying dog never came near our house or neighborhood again after suffering such a painful and humiliating experience. A few years later, when we were forced to abandon our family homestead (founded in the 1680s) for a new and smaller house in a mid-Cape housing development, Blackie kept returning to our original homestead. . .
While attending Swain School of Design, an art school in New Bedford, I had a number of strays; including a feral cat which nearly destroyed my apartment - I had it removed to a farm in South Darmouth where it lived in the woods of Little River Farm.
While attending Boston University's School of Fine Arts during the 1960s, I had a number of feline pets. The one I remember most is "Mykonos," who lived with me on Hemingway Street. It was not the best of times for either of us.
While a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati I had two male Siamese kittens that were a gift from the landlady. They were named "Grunts" and "Little" and were from the last litter of their 18+ year old mother - whose vet had been the famous doctor, animal rights advocate, and Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Albert Schweitzer.
"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace."
Grunts had little coordination and once jumped - for no apparent reason - out of my three-story apartment window , landing - unhurt but shocked and bloated with adrenaline - on the cement walk below. Highly intelligent and lots of fun, these Siamese from Mt. Adams, Cincinnati, Ohio were part of my life for many years.
During the 1970's, while teaching at a private girl's school in Wellesley, there were a number of pets, including another Siamese (from a breeder on Wellesely College campus) whose resting place is on the north side of Frenwood apartment, "Molly" the Irish setter (who spent many summers with me on White Point, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada - but was sadly stolen during her daily run along Fuller Brook in Wellesley), many African swimming frogs and beta fish, a few gerbels, a minor bird (who gave cat-calls early each morning to Miss Post - an English teacher who walked past the apartment), and even a Checkered Giant Rabbit with a black stripe on it's back (pic).
In the 1980s I moved into Artists West Association in Walthan and accepted responsibility for a huge male Maine Coon cat who had been abused by his former owners. It took him over a year to learn to trust me; but after that, he was one of the most friendly of all my feline friends. We lived together for many years in my Moody Street art studio and most likely helped each other to heal from traumatic periods in our lives. The drawing below is a self portrait of Me and with my Maine Coon Cat.
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Calico cats are not a breed; they are a very specific color characteristic. They are tri-colored with colors in distinct patches, not mixed as in a tortoiseshell.
mountain lion roar
