Schulenberg’s Page today sets aside the sketchbook memoir for a look at the felines in his life. Bob has always had a cat as long as I’ve known him, but now he has more than one, or two, or three … and they’re the light of his life. — DPC
I guess it’s trite to say but I think I’m owned by my cats! And without quotation marks!
I never felt like I was actually living here until one day when a beautiful grey cat came visiting to my patio. He rolled around on his back while keeping an eye on me. I had to go back inside and he went somewhere. The next day he was back and giving the same look-how-cute-I-am performance. After playing with him for a while , I invited him in. He happily obliged. And he never left.
I named him Puck because he was Puckish!
About a week or so later I had a visit from another beautiful grey cat who I assumed was Puck’s brother looking for him. Actually I thought at first it might’ve been his mother and I named “her” Hermia.
My brother, who was a Shakespeare scholar, had started a family tradition of giving pets Shakespearean names; and I have continued it. In a short time I realized that Hermia was not anyone’s mother, but could probably be Puck’s brother after all! He also stayed and had grown accustomed to the Herm- sound so I re-named him Hermie!
We were a happy threesome until several years later a little white calico female started visiting for meals.
She was quite trim but with her appetite was filling out.
She kept visiting, kept eating and kept filling out. She had a home somewhere because she sometimes wore a little fabric collar, but she evidently preferred the buffet here. It suddenly became obvious that she was, in fact, pregnant. On one dark and stormy spring night she gave birth in a covered part of my patio to two tiny calico kittens. There was no way they were going to stay outside so that’s how I suddenly got five (5!) cats.
In the vid above, they’re lying on a silk blend bouclé fabric that looks like bubble wrap! Penny thought it was bubble wrap!
They’re all grown up now and are beautifully sweet and wonderful!
This is little Portia, who is always smiling.
And her glamorous, more serious sister, Ophelia.
What they have in common with each other is they couldn’t be more affectionate and loving!
But their mama, named Libberchess (to Elizabeth what Lilibet is to Elizabeth), is the most affectionate!
All of my cats have been affectionate and loving but Libberchess shows it more dramatically than any of them have. Like some people she’s not particularly fond of cats (especially Hermie and even her daughters who appear to be resigned to it), but she lives to lie on my lap or be as close to me as she can be.
What a generous thank you/payback for some meals and shelter! It’s a marvelous compliment!
P.S.: It appears that The Boys are pure bred Russian Blues, one of the more expensive breeds to buy! How lucky am I?!
