What, No Cats?

I  had a cat when Husband and I got married. In fact, I warned him when we started courting that I came with cats. He'd never been around a house cat, so he was a little leery. But he loved me enough to agree. (In fact, he has his own cat now that worships him, or maybe it's the other way 'round.)

After we married, and decided to move in together (imagine that, we married first and then moved in together), we moved to Ellijay, because Husband wanted to raise our child-of-the-future as far away from city as he could. 

My cat had never lived anywhere but where I was living then, at the end of a dirt road that nobody traveled on but me. He was used to staying out while I was at work (he had a safe place to hide if something got after him) and then staying in while I was at home in the evenings and at night. Where Husband and I were  moving, right in town, to a rental house, I knew the cat would never be happy. Husband's parents took Bunker in. He loved it there, and they all loved him dearly right into a ripe old age.

Husband knew how I loved my cats, so he found some for me while we lived in town. But as time went by, and we worked and then went to the building site of soon-to-be-home, we weren't there for them much. We gave the Manx, Smokey, to my Mother and he loved it there. We sold the Persian, Mugsy, to some folks that were home most the time and who fell in love with him at first sight.

Back when our house was in the middle of nowhere, (it's in the middle of somewhere now) and Husband was working emergency services during the night, it was clear I needed a guard dog. We found a dear Boxer that I still miss, but she hated  cats. If she went out in the morning and found cat paw prints on the porch, she went berserk. 

So I was cat-less for a dozen years or so.

The day after Sam, our Boxer, died, I got a phone call while at work. "I know you can't have a cat because of your dog, but do you know of anyone who might want a cat? This lady is dying from cancer and has tried to find a home for her, but nothing is working out."

I knew what this cat looked like before she could finish a sentence. I knew she'd be white and long-haired. 

I knew she was mine.

Of course, I called Husband, and of course, he said yes. So the cat was brought to me the next afternoon at the end of the workday. 

She was either half Maine Coon, half Angora, or full blooded Angora, which is in the Maine Coon ancestry. She weighed about ten pounds. She lived fourteen years, but kidney issues finally got her.

She was the beginning of the cat reign at the Hill House. But she was not the end. 

In photos they look alike. But Eli is twice her size, and a full blooded Maine Coon. However; the resemblance is obvious.

Cats.

Wish I had room for more.

But don't get any ideas.