I’ve had a lot of relationships with our feline friends over the years. I think they are some of the most fascinating creatures on our planet. On my first visit to a zoo (Brookfield Zoo) I marveled at the way that the big cats, lions, tigers, panthers, etc., acted so much like their domesticated cousins.
Petronius (Pete) was my first. He was a Tabby, and kind of followed me home from school one day. We were living on South Osborn at the time. I was about 14. I named him after a fictional feline in Robert Heinlein’s novel, The Door Into Summer. He was an indoor/outdoor cat and usually spent his nights outside and days inside. He would appear at my bedroom window every morning, and I would let him in, talk to him, feed him and he would usually fall asleep on my bed before I left for school. He didn’t have a litter box – never needed one as he took care of his needs outdoors.
One morning he didn’t appear at my window. It was one of those very cold, very blustery February days in Illinois. It had snowed over night and the fresh stuff had accumulated on out car. I went out before school and shoveled the walks off. My dad asked me if I’d like a ride to school and I said “of course.” The car didn’t start and when my dad popped the hood to take a look, there was Pete. He was gone. It looked like he had quite a fight with some other being, and he had bled out from his wounds.
Princess was our second. I was married to Lynne and we were living on South Chicago Avenue. She came to us in the winter, an adult Tabby who appeared on our back porch. The twins were, I think, eight years old. They were the ones who named her. We set her up in the basement with a litter box. Princess was a very loving cat and spent a lot of her time on my chest when I was home. About six weeks after our first encounter she gave birth to seven kittens (apparently, she was pregnant when she adopted us).
Lynne hated Princess. Lynne had grown up on a farm and the only felines she knew were the barn cats, that, well, lived in the barn and kept the rodents at bay. “Cats do not live in houses with people,” was her belief, and she wanted nothing to do with Princess. As it turned out, Lynne was allergic to fleas, so that didn’t help our case. And like all cats, Princess had her share of them. When Spring came we took Princess and her kittens to Lynne’s parents farm, and left them there (in spite of my protests).
Sydney belonged to Qadisha, and I met him when I landed in Santa Cruz in May of 1992. We actually hit it off right away, and his favorite spot in the house became my lap. He was also a Tabby, but more dominant grey than Princess or Pete. He was indoor/outdoor, so no litter box.
We had this little potted evergreen tree. A sibling Scotch Pine. It mainly lived outside, but at Yule time we brought it in and decorated it. Sydney had decided he would kill it, and he made a noble try, peeing in it whenever it was indoors. In the summer of 1997 Sydney was found dead in the pot the pine grew in. Sydney was quite elderly at the time, so were no sure if he just died of old age or if he ate something that didn’t agree with him. We had him cremated and buried his ashes in the pot with the Scotch Pine, and so he finally got his wish: the Scotch Pine died because the ashes were toxically too acidic for it.
Aleister. One day Qadisha and I were riding around Santa Cruz doing errands. Out of the blue she said, “You know, if we were ever to acquire a black male kitten, we should name him Aleister, after Aleister Crowley.” I laughed and said, “Well, I’ve always admired black cats. But wouldn’t naming one after Crowley be a bit of a heavy burden on a kitten?”
The next day (yes, the very next day) three kids came to our door with a little black long haired kitten. We sent them away. THREE TIMES! Finally when they came back they told us that their mom was going to kill the kitten if they didn’t find a home for him.
Aleister became my cat. He lived with Qadisha while we were in Santa Cruz, but as soon as we moved to Ashland (OR) he became my responsibility.
Ceridwen moved into my townhouse with me in May 1998. She brought Hunter, her
cat of about twenty years, with her. He was an amiable cat, but pretty much kept to himself. He and Aleister got along very well, and they never fought. Hunter passed away not too long after Ceridwen moved in with me. We found a tiny cave up above Lithia Park in Ashland, and covered it with a big rock. That became Hunter’s tomb.
We moved to Grants Pass in September 1998. We lived on 20 acres, surrounded by about 700 acres of BLM land about 800 feet above Grants Pass (about a 10 min. drive to town). Our driveway was about 3/4 mile long. Aleister had free run of the entire 20 acres, and no doubt ventured further than that. He used to bring us all sorts of “presents:” birds, lizards, small rodents, etc. We think perhaps one of these, a blue bellied lizard perhaps, may have been what ultimately led to his death. He was buried in the little garden we had bellow our cabin.
One day I came home from work and met Gwidion and Buddha. They were two 
brothers from the same litter that Ceridwen had found at a local animal shelter. Gwiddon (“Gwiddy”) was a black American Short Hair, and his brother Buddha (originally named Kundun, which was the childhood name of the 14th Dalai LLama) was a black Mane Coon. Like Aleister, they had free run of the twenty acres and, like Aleister, they brought home “presents” (of course they did. It was “wild kingdom” up there). They would exit and enter the house through a window in the bathroom, which opened onto our back deck, which led to a board that served as a ramp down to the ground (the back deck was 10 feet off the ground). Our Grants Pass home was great place to be a cat. The house was an eight sided cabin, with a central pole, and eight suspension poles that radiated from it. The cats would run along those poles, and hang out on the roof of the bathroom, or in our sleeping loft.
There was an incident one day. Ceridwen doesn’t sleep well, and one day she was up quite late, after sunrise, and had opened the bathroom window to let the cats out. Every night, about 100 yards down the hill from our house, a group of Coyotes would gather. On this particular day, Ceridwen, after opening the window to let the cats out, was sitting at her computer when she noticed out or the corner of one eye something black streak up one of the two ponderosa pines that were growing near our house. She got up and went to the kitchen window, only to see Gwidion about 100 feet up one tree, and Buddha up the other. On the ground, was a really big Coyote, wandering about between the two trees, waiting for his “breakfast” to come down. Ceridwen went into a maternal rage (basically channeling the Hindu Goddess, Kali) and ran unarmed out of the house, chasing the Coyote away from our clearing.
It took Ceridwen about an hour, and a couple cans of tuna, to coax the boys down from the trees. When he finally came down, Buddha was limping. He had somehow gotten hurt in all the chaos. He spent about the next three weeks up in out sleeping loft. We brought a litter box and his food up to him.
The Coyotes who nightly gathered in the clearing south of our cabin disappeared after this, never to be seen again.
In April of 2004 we moved to Eureka CA, to the King Salmon area. The cats became strictly indoor at that point, since there were too many other cats in the neighborhood. In 2009 we moved to the Myrtletown area of Eureka, where we still are today. Gwydion passed away from an inflamed pancreas that year. Buddha died from old age about 2011. Both of them are buried in our back yard, where their remains feed out fence of Jasmine.
Taliesin is out present house cat. He was rescued from a crazy cat guy’s property 
up off Highway 36 (near Bridgeville) where he had about 60 feral felines competing for resources and just running wild. He would feed then a little kibble now and again but otherwise they were on their own. We have a friend who occasionally drives up there and rescues two or three kittens at a time. She then takes them to the spay/neuter center and then rehomes them. Taliesin (“Tally”) was maybe a month old when he was delivered to us, and quite feral. He spent about the first two months under our bed, and his litter box and dining area was also in our bedroom. That was about four years ago. He bonded with Ceridwen right away (at the time she didn’t have a bad back (like mine) and was able to interact close to the floor with him). It’s only been very recently that he has decided he likes me too.
In addition to Tally, Ceridwen and I are friends with and cat sitters for some ot the neighbors felines, and when neighbors go out of town we are called upon to feed and play with them. Luna, Russel (“Wussel”) and Shmokey, belong to our close
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friends Michael and Annie who live across the street from us in the back half of a duplex. Sky and Pepper belong to Serena, who lives in the front unit across the street and lastly Luna(2) belongs to Kathy, who lives in the unit behind us.
A new cat has appeared recently. Black and white, very friendly (and wants to come in the house). We don’t know his/her name or which neighbor she/he belongs to (probably one of the tenants from the duplex next to ours). Eventually we will find out.
Waiting is.
Remember that I mentioned that my first wife, Lynne, hates cats? I am happy and proud to report that all three of my sons have indoor/outdoor felines. We all just had to escape from her influence in order to participate in the wonderful, marvelous, experience of being owned by cats.
