Speaking of cats.....

I am not a cat person per se.  But a cat owned me at one time.  And here she is, probably stalking a bird of some kind from the comfort of our back porch in New Hampshire. 

Spooky came to us when she was a kitten.  We didn't have a dog and my brothers decided they wanted a pet.  Someone had found this black kitten, called her Midnight, or some other generic name, and promptly passed her on to us.  My brothers and I decided that her name didn't fit her, so we called her Spooky.  However, as things go with kids, once we heard her mew in her plaintive high-pitched voice, we gave her a nickname---Moo Moo.  She didn't really sound like a calf but she certainly did not have a cat voice either.  And she loved milk.

One fall evening Moo Moo didn't come home.  We waited up for her until our bedtime.  My mom said that she would probably be waiting to be let in when we got up in the morning.  Sure enough, there she was.  But there was something horribly wrong with her.  She was stretched out on the porch step, crying loudly, because she couldn't move her back legs.  We scooped her up and took her to the vet.  He said that her pelvis had been broken, probably by a car that side-swiped her as she crossed the highway that ran in front of our house.  He said it would heal with time, but that she would probably never have kittens. 

And he had that wrong!

A few months later I went out on the back porch to feed Moo Moo. I was excited to see something moving around in her bed with her.  At first I thought they were baby mice.  On closer inspection I could see they were tiny little newborn kittens.  What a wonderful surprise that was.  As the kittens grew we canvased the neighborhood and found several friends and neighbors who wanted a kitten.  They were very pretty.  None of them were solid black like their mother.  Most of them were some variation of black and white.  And she was a mama cat to end all mama cats.  Before we called it quits on the kitten patrol she produced at least four or five litters of kittens.  The last ones were delivered in a closet at camp.  The head counselor appointed herself midwife and gave a running commentary on number, size and color, much to our delight.

Moo Moo traveled everywhere with us.  When we went east for the summer she would tuck herself under the driver's seat and stay there, in a state of suspended animation, for the duration of the trip.  She didn't come out until we arrived at our summer place, three days later.  Don't ask me why.  I guess she just decided she could go into hibernation and wait until she made it to a "civilized" place.

She was a good hunter.  Every morning during the summer she would present me with 8 to 10 chipmunk tails, all neatly lined up on the front stoop.  We finally tied a bell around her neck when we moved to Kenosha because one of the my mom's fellow teachers loved birds and kept a feeder in the backyard of the faculty residence.  It took just one pile of feathers and a contented looking cat, licking her chops, to convince us that she really needed to be curtailed in her hunting during the school year.

Moo Moo lived a long and full life.  When I left home for college she became my mom's constant companion.  Coming home for vacation or a visit was always a treat because Moo Moo never forgot me.

She finally passed away when she was close to nineteen years old...a remarkable age for a cat who was trundled around all over the country and had so many adventures.

Mom buried her under the lilac bush at her friend Donnie's house in our hometown.  It was her favorite place to rest in the heat of the summer day.

I can see her twitching her tail and thinking about going after that fat robin who was sitting innocently too close to her, there in the dappled sunshine.

I am a one cat person.  And that cat was Moo Moo.