Exhibit A

I have enjoyed reading the comic strip by Bizarro for some time, and ever since I became a Cat Lady, I have noticed that Bizarro makes frequent references to the feline world. I don’t know if Bizarro is a man or a woman, but I am certain that the comic-strip artist has the heart of a cat lady.

Bizarro’s witty and wise one-liners speak volumes. If my cats could read (other than my mind), they would grab the newspaper out of my hands each morning and turn to the page featuring Bizarro’s always entertaining comics.

Take a look at a recent comic by Bizarro, which I am calling Exhibit A. I’ll let you be the judge of whether another soul mate is in our midst.

Query of the Day: What are your favorite comic strips featuring felines?

Mommy Dearest

I recently completed a book project on John Singer Sargent and his Houston connection. Unknown to many people, Houston has the third-largest concentration (after New York and Boston) of privately held masterpieces by the artist. In his essay for the book, Richard Ormond, a great-nephew of Sargent, paints an intimate portrait of the artist who was “always on the move.” Yet Sargent was introverted in his personal life, and, according to Ormond, his “reserve and shyness went back to boyhood, perhaps the consequence of a possessive and overdominant mother.” This statement prompted me to look at myself more closely and to ask: Am I guilty of overreaching with our ten cats?

Lucius, Lydia, Lillie, Leo, T.J., Perkins, Miss Tommie, Linus, L.B., and Alvar all consider me to be their mother, at least the human replacement for their own birth mothers. I am possessive of them to a fault, but I won’t beat myself up over having deep maternal feelings for felines. I suppose you could say I am bossy when it comes to telling the cats when I will, or will not, feed them outside of their normal schedules. I often go toe to toe, or paw to paw, with Lucius to determine which one of us will win the strategic game of domination and mental supremacy.

Only Leo would qualify for wearing the mantle of being reserved and shy. The other nine cats are sociable and outgoing, and L.B. wins the prize for being extroverted. So I believe I have good reason to think positive thoughts that my personality is not like that of Sargent’s mother, and that I am not scarring our cats for their next round of nine lives.

And then there is Lydia (pictured above), the only female in our household, and as such the only one who relates to me on a mother-daughter level. She likes the smell of L’Occitane’s verbena soap and Jo Malone’s gardenia perfume, and she loves to observe me getting ready for my “other job” each morning. One of the simple pleasures of my life is watching Lydia sitting in her sphinx pose, at my feet, and gazing at me. Is it too much to hope that she thinks of me as her mommy dearest, in the truest sense of these two words?

Query of the Day: What is your parental style?

Open Door Policy

I could have sworn that I closed the door to the laundry room last night, but when I returned to begin a new load of wash, I found some unexpected little helpers. Alvar (left) and L.B. (inside the dryer) like the smell of Downey fabric softener, and they enjoy even more the feel of warm blankets fresh from tumbling in the dryer.

Of all our ten cats, Alvar and L.B. are the most intrepid explorers. They both like to open doors and cabinets at all hours of the day: Alvar gravitates to those in the bathrooms, and L.B. likes especially the cabinets in the kitchen because he knows he can find bags of kibbles and packets of treats lining the shelves. By the way, L.B. seems to have put himself on a weight-loss program and is experiencing moderate success. At his last weigh-in, he tipped the scale at 20 lbs.

I am so glad that the door to our home was open (figuratively speaking) when my husband and I first saw Alvar and L.B more than six years ago. There was still room for another two cats, as we had not yet achieved our current full-house status.

Unlike in my office environment, which has an open door policy, we do not have an official policy in place in our personal living space. Suffice it to say that our hearts remain open to helping cats, and that the door will never shut tight on them.

Query of the Day: Are your cats “Cat Lady’s Helpers”?

It’s in the DNA

I read an inspiring newspaper article in the Houston Chronicle about a woman who believes she was born with “the animal rescue gene,” as she puts it. When she was a child, she always brought home every stray or wounded animal. I cannot claim doing the same ever since I was a kid. But a recent round of spring cleaning at home unearthed a small box containing some Kodachrome slides of me at a tender age, enjoying the company of cats. These originally color-saturated images have led me to reconsider whether the Cat Lady gene is indeed part of my DNA.

My mother had labeled one envelope “Prissy the cat.” I would be telling a lie to say that I vividly remember Prissy, the Siamese cat who lived next door to us in New Orleans. The slides portray me as a two-year-old child sporting the then “it” style of Shirley Temple curls. Apparently I liked Prissy very much and looked forward to seeing her walk across the neighbor’s lawn to the front steps of our house. But I was confused one day when Prissy brought a bird to me as “a present.” My mother reports that I became mad at Prissy for killing the bird, although I came around to forgiving the cat.

Finding the unexpected treasure trove of images has prompted me to think further of our—the Cat Ladies’—shared cause. Were we predestined to rescue and care for cats? Maybe Prissy already knew, way back when, of what was in the cards for this once curly-haired girl.

Query of the Day: Were you born to be a Cat Lady?

Let’s Meow for Madonna

I have grown old with Madonna. We don’t know each other, although I like to think we have a slightly personal connection. My late aunt was a recording executive, and one of her first test projects in the studio was to audition a very young and inexperienced Madonna—in other words, she met the “not yet Madonna.” I have watched Madonna’s many transformations through the years, and I am wondering if the Material Girl has become a Cat Lady.

While flipping through the pages of the April issue of Vogue, I stopped in my tracks. There is Madonna, voluptuous cleavage and all, wearing a Dolce & Gabanna black bustier. And there is a black-and-white cat who appears to be more than a standard-issue prop for Madonna. True, the coloring of the cat coordinates perfectly with Madonna’s garb, her sunglasses, and her diamond-encrusted cross suspended from a necklace. But Madonna’s caress of the cat reveals a certain softer, maybe even more vulnerable, side to the performing artist than meets the eye.

I would be interested to know whether a stylist selected the cat, or whether the cat belongs to the photographer of the advertisement, or whether Madonna herself pleaded for this particular kitty to help her make a fashion statement. Could Madonna have reached a point in her life where she prefers the companionship of felines?

Madonna is nobody’s fool, and perhaps one day she’ll make a recording with this refrain: Cats Rule…and Sell!

Query of the Day: What are your favorite advertisements featuring cats?

Mission Accomplished, Part Deux!

I am delighted to write with the news that Saint has found a wonderful home. I was beginning to have my doubts about whether I could find someone to adopt her. I was searching high and low for about a month, dispatching “kitty flyers” via e-mail and imposing on friends to post announcements about her on their firms’ Intranet sites. The idea of advertising a cat adoption right beside promotions for used-car sales was slightly foreign to me. But the online matchmaking system worked.

In fact, four people stepped forward electronically within two days to express interest in adopting Saint. I vaguely knew two of Saint’s potential parents, and I did not know the other two people. One woman also hailed from New Orleans and was attracted to Saint’s name, chosen to salute the Super Bowl champs. Ultimately I chose Saint’s new Cat Lady based on her oft-repeated desire to give an abandoned cat a safe home. This Cat Lady was eloquent in her e-mail messages, and her lilting voice truly sounds like that of an angel.

I had promised myself to be stoic when the time came for me to say goodbye to Saint. I had already experienced a bit of withdrawal after relocating her from our backyard to Dr. O.’s clinic. I missed the markers of her existence on the back deck of our house: the food and water bowls, the catnip toys, and the heating pad for when the nights were unusually chilly, at least for Houston. At the clinic, I told Saint that I knew she was ready for the next stage of her life, and that I had been privileged to take care of her briefly. In case you’re wondering whether the staff of Dr. O.’s clinic thinks I’m nutty for talking this way to a cat, I can assure you that they know me all too well. My not saying farewell would have been out of the question.

I had asked my husband if he, too, wanted to meet me at Dr. O.’s so that we both could bid Saint a very fond and sweet adieu. He said something that has stayed with me: “That's OK. We’ll always see Saint in our memories.” This has proven to be true, although I have imagined the Friday evening when Saint went “marchin’ in” to her forever home. Mission accomplished!

Query of the Day: How many people do you typically contact before you are able to find a home for an abandoned cat?

Octomom Gets into the Act

Attention all Cat Ladies. We can welcome an honorary new member to the club: Nadya Suleman, aka the Octomom. Well, not exactly.

Ms. Suleman is being paid $5,000 by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to place a sign in the front yard of her house that advertises the perils of animal procreation (and procreation, and procreation): “Don’t Let Your Dog or Cat Become an Octomom. Always Spay or Neuter.” In addition to the handsome payment, which is intended to help save her house from foreclosure, the Octomom is receiving a month’s supply of veggie burgers and hot dogs.

I sometimes jokingly refer to myself as the Decamom because of caring for ten cats. But the resemblance to Ms. Suleman stops at the numbers game and does not allow for financial incentives. I can’t imagine profiting from doing the right and responsible thing when it comes to our pets.

Even if I win an award one day for “Cat Lady of the Month” (a variation on “Yard of the Month”), you won’t see a sign stuck in the middle of my front yard. I like to do my work quietly, behind the scenes, far from the madding crowd that follows the Octomom.

Query of the Day: Would you grab the glory to promote spay and neutering?