Crazy Cat Lady.

I hope to never actually become the crazy cat lady (though it is a distinct possibility), but tonight, I'm here to tell you that I was once the crazy cat girl.

I have always, for as long as I can remember, loved cats. LOVED. But my mom is allergic, and I never could convince her to take allergy meds for me, so I was never able to have a real one. (Except that one time when Tiger lived on our porch in Texas [and sometimes snuck into mom's sewing room] for six months because when we got home one night he was curled up in our driveway and mom said "D don't run over the cat!" and then we couldn't not feed him and give him milk and love him and play with him, until mom got too overwhelmed and miserable and we gave him to our neighbors Roy and Lorraine instead, who always had red hots that I could eat whenever we went over to their house.)

Anyway.

I loved cats. And you know, when you have a friend or family member who loves a certain thing, or collects a certain thing, you buy that thing for them, right? So people bought me cats. Figurines and statuettes and stuffed animals and posters and shirts, oh my. I bought myself posters from book sales at school, and books and calendars and anything else cat-related that struck my fancy.

In fourth grade, my teacher had a cat-a-day calendar. Whoever said the pledge of allegiance that day got to have the cat picture. Almost everybody gave me their pictures. And I kept them all. In a little box. Next to my books of pictures of cats, next to my ceramic cat with kittens, next to my cat music box that played "My Favorite Things," next to the cat candle holder, next to the hollow cat curled up in a basket that I put potpourri in.

My room was covered in posters of cats hanging tough and having sweet dreams or just playing around with a ball of yarn.

Like I said, crazy cat girl.

I have since gotten rid of most of these things. Not all. But most. I still have a few posters folded up somewhere, and some of the more meaningful figurines. I have one stuffed animal in particular, Whiskers, who I will never, ever get rid of. And seriously, somewhere I may or may not still have that little box full of calendar pages.

But now, ladies and gentlemen, now I have a cat. My very own cat, with fur and claws and angry ears and the cutest little nose. She's so soft, and so purriful, and so cuddly, and she's amazing. For a short while, I had two lovely little cats all my own, but let's not go there right now. The point is, I have a cat, and I love her so much it's ridiculous and makes me think that my heart may actually explode when/if I ever have actual babies of my own and she is my pride and my joy and I miss her every day that I'm away (which is most of them, seeing as how I'm often at hotels, and seeing as how even when I'm not at hotels, she lives with my sister, and I do not).

She was totally worth the years of being the crazy cat girl.









Yep, totally worth the wait.