10 on the 10th - The Cat Days of Summer

On the 10th of each month, Marsha In the Middle asks ten questions for us to answer in as much or little detail as we wish. It's been quite awhile since I joined in but here I am. You've heard of the dog days of summer, but Marsha has asked us to consider the cat days of summer by discussing our favorite ten cats.

My favorite cats are the ones that are or have been my own pets. 

1. Merida - she is our resident cat and is as sweet, gentle, and quiet a roommate as you can imagine. She likes who she likes but that's pretty much just us. haha. She's pretty timid most of the time so the moment someone comes in the house she disappears into one of her safe spaces and it's almost impossible to coax her out to meet anyone new or even to accept some loving attention from our granddaughter. Merida and her littermate Aurora were named for the Disney princesses, and Merida's name is ironic, because she really isn't Brave at all. The very first thing she did as a kitten when we brought them home was bolt and hide, and it took about 18 hours for us to find her. 

2. Aurora - Aurora is our daughter's cat, but we brought her and Merida home at the same time and assumed they were sisters. Turns out they are probably half sisters. Aurora is bigger and has a very different personality. She is very affectionate and laid back, and hardly ever runs away to hide. On the contrary she just stays put and tolerates whatever life brings her way. After we moved and chose to take Merida with us, Aurora became even more attached to our daughter and eventually moved with her, and settled in with the couple of resident cats already in that house. She is named for the princess known as Sleeping Beauty, probably for obvious reasons! 

3 - 5. Pepper, Blue, and Monkey - my previous pet cats. Well, Pepper was technically our daughter's but he was very well-loved by the whole family. He was a mischievous and energetic black cat and it seems like we all had different nicknames for him, including Karl and Nibbler. Pepper liked to play hide-and-seek and to 'box' with my husband. He died much too young, unfortunately. Monkey was the first cat my husband and I got after we got married, and he was a bit of a troublemaker, hence his name. He had a bad habit of getting up on counters and sampling sweets he found up there. He lived a long time; I think he was around 13 when he passed. His buddy for most of those years was Blue. Blue was a very young kitten when I got him and had barely finished nursing. He had been abandoned by his yard cat momma at the construction company where I worked at the time, so I had one of the guys take up a board from the fence so I could rescue him and take him home. He was another very affectionate, playful, and mischievous cat and lived a long time. He must have been around 13 as well when he passed. 

6.  General McTiger - I have to include this cat who belonged to my husband before he went to college. Despite my mother-in-law complaining that she didn't want to look after the cat, she was really very attached to him and even spent the money to have pins put in his broken leg after he was hit by a car! General had a distinctive raspy, low-pitched voice, and thought he was in charge of the whole household and we were all supposed to dance to his croaking tune. He even learned how to get attention when he was feeling ignored - he would stick out his formerly injured leg and act like it was paining him. But he didn't always remember which leg had been broken! He was a character.

7. Snickers - this was my best friend's cat and I have never encountered a more gregarious and outgoing cat. He begged for attention and schmoozed for pets and cuddles the way a dog would. He died in a house fire a few years ago. RIP Snickers.

I didn't get to ten, unfortunately. I thought about rounding out my list with a couple of my favorite fictional or cartoon cats, but that would have required me to rank them somehow. I'll just mention some that I especially like in no particular order. I loved the feline characters in The Aristocats - regal Duchess, charming Thomas O'Malley, and the precocious kittens. I felt bad for Sylvester that he never got the better of Tweety (I thought Tweety was super annoying). Oliver in Oliver + Company was adorable. Who remembers Morris who was the face and voice of 9 Lives cat food advertising? He cracked me up. And I know her creator insists she's not actually a cat, but isn't Hello Kitty the cutest? My daughter is a grown woman and loves all things Hello Kitty so I can't help but think of the character as part of my list of favorites. Let me leave you with the iconic ballad "Memory" from the musical Cats.

    

Are you a cat person or a dog person when it comes to pets? Leave a comment and let me know!

This post will be linked at Marsha In the Middle for the July Edition of 10 on the 10th.

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