A friend mentioned that her renter's cat had had kittens so I went over to look. I fell in love with a solid black male but my husband fell for Kuhio . She was the smallest and most shy of the litter. So home she came for 17 wonderful years.

Halo was adopted 1 month after Kuhio was accidently put to sleep by Animal Control. My husband said he couldn't stand coming home to an empty house, so he went to the same shelter that put Kuhio to sleep and found Halo sleeping "tits up". She was only 9 months old and it was obvious that she had just given birth. No one knows what happened to her kittens.

We had felt bad over the years that Kuhio was an "only" child so we thought that Halo needed a sister. We visited a no-kill shelter looking for a lap kitty (since Halo is not very snuggly) who was about Halo's age There were 140 cats to look at. A very persistent tortie followed us from room to room and was always in our face. We couldn't shake her! When we went upstairs, she ran up the banister. When we came downstairs, she jumped up on my shoulder and would not leave. I laughed and told Bob that we had evidently been chosen. Bob went out to the car to get the cat carrier while I handled paperwork. When he brought it inside and opened the door, Cammie walked right into it and sat down and looked at us as if to say "What are you waiting for?" Turns out that Cammie is a "woman of mystery". She evidently "lied" about her age because our vet says she's at least 13. She and Halo have never gotten along. Maybe because of the age difference or maybe because of Cammie's "tortitude".

A year after Cammie conned her way into the house, I was volunteering at the no-kill shelter. A little, scraggely kitty (Pepper) kept coming up to me. She was so adorable that I just had to pick her up and she purred like a freight train each time I did. I wanted to get her, but knew that Bob wouldn't go for it. So, I asked him to accompany over to the shelter to drop off a couple of bags of food. Pepper made her usual appearance and I pretended like she was a nuisance and asked Bob to pick her up and keep her out of my way. Well, she curled up in his arms, turned on the motor and fell asleep. Bob relunctantly put her down when we left. The next week, Bob volunteered to come with me to deliver the food . Pepper did her thing again but this time I started a conversation up with one of volunteers who told us that Pepper has an awful heart murmur that could not be fixed. Several families had backed out of adopting her because she was going to be a frail sickly invalid kitty. When we left, Bob was very quiet. A few days later, I had to leave for a business trip. When I returned, Pepper, was queen of the castle. She had Bob, Halo and Cammie waiting on her hand and foot. We are all her adoring slaves!