Critical Mass

In case this becomes a crazy cat lady blog, I suppose I should
introduce the cats. I'll spare you the history, for now,
but suffice it to say this is my second set of cats
since college. I'll get into history at some other point.

First, Little Ricky, named because I already had the fabulous
and recently-widowed 13-year-old Lucille Ball o' Fur.
No, she wasn't orange. Anyway, Little Ricky
was born in 2001, right around Christmas. Such a little cutie:

Add a loads of cat food, wait a year or two, and you get Big Richard
(Same cat, same remote, for scale):

So Lucy dies of old age, and that can mean only one thing:

KITTEN TIME.

I track down a little silver tabby, and I name her Katie.

I start thinking that Katie's awfully small for 10 weeks
so I count back and realize I've got a 6-week-old kitten on my hands.
(It seems the daft-cow of a hippie that neglected to spay her
3 female cats was really high or bad at math or both.)

Spay and neuter, people, really.

But since she was covered in fleas when I got her,
I figured she'd be better off staying put with me.

I mean... LOOK at her, she was the size
of a friggin' BEANIE BABY, people!

She got used to her new home,
she tried different ways to find comfort.
I swear Ricky would have started lactating
if he could, sweet boy that he is.
He totally tolerated her suckling on him,
or was too mystified by it to do anything.

Maybe he liked it? I don't want to know:

(Hard to be sure what a cat is thinking,
but "WTF?!?"probably isn't far from the truth.)

Anyway, they settled in. Clearly:

Katie has turned into a trash-talking killing machine,
bringing home birds of all shapes and sizes.
Sadly, she can catch hummingbirds.
Happily, she's really good at bringing them home alive
and I am really good at getting them away from her.

And she also enjoys helping me make the bed:

Ricky hasn't changed a whisker.
Dinner is the single most important
event of his day.

Even as a little guy, he used to wait
for the chicken to come out of the oven: