Our kitties

Yesterday I complained about my cat, and some people didn't like that very much.  I guess I need to clarify by saying that this blog is more of a melodrama.  Do I really dislike my cat? Absolutely not.  Did I say I couldn't stand my cat during a moment of weakness when he was caterwauling and I could only think of four things for my post? Absolutely yes. So to rectify the misunderstanding I'm going to talk about our cats.

I will go ahead and admit this:  I am a dog person.  I got my first dog when I was four.  I named her Logger and Bricker (yes that was her full name) because I was going to teach her to carry logs and bricks so that I could build a play house.  Her name was shortened to Bricker and she was an amazing pet and friend for me growing up. About four years later we got a rescue dog and named her Punkin. She was a German shepherd, lab, bordercollie, chow mix and was rescued in what I could only process as being a puppy mill. Punkin was the smartest dog I have ever met.  You look into her eyes and you could tell she was processing her surroundings, thinking about what she could do to get into trouble.  And that was her middle name, Trouble.  She got into everything but she did it so creatively that we could only stay mad at her for so long.
Bricker passed away 11 years after we got her, and I was heart broken. It was also that time I gave up my life long dream of becoming a vet.  Punkin was heart broken as well.  So after a while I got another Golden Retriever and named her Chloe.  She was gorgeous! She was also not very intelligent but her sweet nature made up for that.  Chloe and Punkin were mostly looked after my brother when I went away for college but I did miss them when I was away.  One day I got a call that Chloe was sick and at the vet.  I found out that after several days of testing that she had inoperable cancer. My brother and I gave the order to put her to sleep.  She was only 6 years old.  Two days later Punkin died of congestive heart failure.  She was 14.  This was one of the saddest times of my life.  I didn't realize how hard my dad was taking it that "his girls" were gone. So my mom convinced my dad that he needed a new pet.  So we started looking and found a litter of puppies that recently were born to a stray mother dog that a family decided to adopt.  We were going to get just one but in the end we left with two.  Two sisters by the name Juno and Tilly.  We got them on D-day so Juno was naturally after Juno beach and Tilly was named after Tilly sur Seulles, a famous battle site.

That is my pet history.  All dogs, all lovable, all wonderful creatures.  I know I didn't go into too much detail but this is because I would never get around to talking about our kitties.  I could regale you with stories that each of them were apart of so you could see why even if they are gone, and even if it has been all these years, I am still in love.  I love dogs, so you can imagine my expression when Nate said that he wanted to get a cat.  And now we don't have one cat; we have two.  The first cat we have is a my serenading grey tabby named Torque.  He is aptly named because even though he's not very fast, once he gets power behind him he takes you along for the ride.  His big too, a whopping 19 pounds on a very large kitty frame.  Yeah he does need to lose a couple of pounds and I've been trying for the last few years to get it off of him.  A couple of years I wrote a Haiku about him:

My cat keeps me warm
His pudge blocks away all cold
Fat does have its use



Though Torque has his immense size, he's kinda a scaredy cat. He is extremely cautions if he doesn't know what's going on, hates new surroundings and change, and usually follows us around from room to room.  Of course he puts up this tough guy front but its funny when he gets huffy and leaves the room only to come back ten minutes later.  Torque has many different nicknames (all lavished with affection I can assure you): Torkey, Pudgy buddy, Porkey Torkey, Torker, and Pear Kitty. Usually these names are all ignored by him but then again he doesn't really respond to Torque that much either. 





Tony is a beautiful orange tabby with light stripes and a long, brush bottle tail. He's more delicate than Torque and likes to be handled very carefully and only when he wants to be held. Though Torque is very vocal, I've never really heard Tony meow before.  He's extremely quiet. We picked him up as a stray outside of Nate's apartment complex before a big freeze hit. Tony is more of the adventurer/independent kitty.  He has no qualms with exploring new places and he seems like he can be at home anywhere.  He loves sleeping in the sunshine and his sleeping places reflect where the sun goes during the day.  Though Torque is more grumpy and moody, Tony is not as social as his brother.  Torque is always by you and sleeps with us at the foot of the bed every night.  As of right now, I haven't seen Tony since yesterday.  He comes to us when he wants attention  and of course we're happy to give it to him. Tony is also a master strategist when play fighting Torque. The acrobatics that guy can do is amazing.  And though Torque outweighs Tony by almost 6 pounds, I put my money on Tony any day of the week.   Tony's nicknames are Tony Bones, Little Cutes, and Big Sweetie.




I just wanted to give you a brief introduction to our two little furballs.  I have a separate post in the works about their antics that is sure to please.  I was going to put it on this one but to be honest, it would be a bit long and today my writing seems a bit off.  Probably would be because I'm tired today. Yeah, I'm looking over to my sleeping Torque and I will have to admit I'm jealous.