Here, Kitty, Kitty

Rate My Kitten!
Okay, it's my Mom's, but I took the picture.

My Cat Hates You!
Hilariously funny feline fotos!

Cute Cats
Nauseatingly Nutty Nudgkins

More Cute Cats
Disgustingly Endearing Darlings

I've come out ... as a cat lover!

Yep, I've been a total cat fancier since I was a kid.

Our family's almost always had cats, and with the recent death of Aretha, aka Aretha Franklin Kitten, I simply had to blather it online.

Aretha was the sweetest kitty, and she lived to be 18 or 19, 20, depending on who you talk to.

She died after suffering from a loss of appetite, possibly pancreatic cancer or liver failure. Very common among older cats.

I was very lucky to have Aretha in my home for her last few months. After knowing her when she lived in New York and Los Angeles with family, she was always shy and a bit odd.

However, living with me, and having the place to herself, and me catering to her every need, she truly blossomed in her last months.

The folks at All Pets Hospital on South Van Ness in San Francisco were very caring and understanding. It was obvious to them when she got sick that it would probably be fatal. They gave me advise based on the X-Rays. It would have cost hundreds of dollars to operate, give her chemo, etc.

My bro & sis-in-law had been through that with another cat, the somewhat famous Ted (star of MTV and various Sesame Street segments), so we had to make the sad decision to ease her pain.

The night before Aretha was set to be put to sleep, I held her, squirted a bit of the pain medication given me at All Pets into her mouth, with a water chaser, pet her and sang to her until five in the morning. She didn't like it when I cried, so I didn't ... too much.

I made a tape of her purring. She was almost playful, in her limited capacity, that last night, the wind blew in a strange way, and when I woke up, I knew something had happened. She died, politely as ever, in the bathroom.

Did you know that a cat's ashes come in a little box about four by five inches? Very small.

She was a tiny little furry shy gal, but she made life sweet each day. Her scratchy little meow will be missed.

I'm thinking of getting another cat, even though our family has two back in Ohio.

There's just something about cats!