I’ve always been a cat person. My drawings as a child usually consisted of one of two things: a picture of a cat or the words “I love cats!” Let me note that I would at times substitute the word love for a heart – I need to be accurate here. Sometimes I would get a little bit crazy and draw a cat and have a word bubble coming out of the cat’s mouth saying , “I love cats” which I guess make all of these adored creatures a little narcissistic. Now, if I was to draw an image as a gift for someone else, say, my mom (flowers) or my dad (guns and cigarettes), I would take the time and cater the image to what I thought they liked.

On my third birthday, I received the best gift ever: a tiny, orange striped, white chested kitten that I named Tara, a name I found in my mom’s Baby Naming Book. She meowed and whined through my early stages of dressing her in doll clothes and walking her in my toy stroller, and eventually made it all the way to Chicago with me. She lived 21 years, making her my longest roommate. Since her passing, I have always felt a little empty. That’s why I always latch onto other people’s cats. (Deb knows what I am talking about.)

Skunky came into our temporary lives here our very first day of our sublet. She started begging at the back door earlier and earlier each day, spending more and more time with us. Soon she was kneading our laps, lovingly with her sharp claws and I think I have at times heard a faint purr. In contrast, her meowing is not faint. She meows at you whenever she sees you, as if just to say hi. She has this cute tongue that she sticks out when she meows, which happens to have part of it missing. She’s definitely an outdoor cat with a lot of fights under her belt. Even through she’s a frisky, half-tongued fighting cat, her coat is very soft.

She has an arch-nemesis, Nunie, that lives in the apartment to the left of ours. Although they have gotten into a lot of fights in the past, Skunky seems to have stopped picking catfights since we have been giving her food and attention. They still have daily stare-downs though.

As we near the end of our sublet, we are starting to get very sad. We are unable to have pets at our new place and there are also a lot of questions of who in the neighborhood Skunky may really belong to. So, last night, we discussed the whole thing with our neighbor-friends, and thankfully they will continue to take care of Skunky Meow Cat. We will be able to move this weekend knowing that she will be loved and cared for.