Les Chats Schotch

Maribeth was adopted at 8 weeks of age from the San Francisco SPCA. From the beginning, she had an instinct for comforting the humans who loved her, and a way of wheedling secrets out of them. She was an only cat for more than three years, and was, in her youth, an accomplished huntress. She stalked the undeveloped hill opposite our place on Twin Peaks, and is the only cat I've ever known who could catch a hummingbird, so fast was she. I gently dissuaded her from this instinct, truth be told, and in time she grew to love being an indoor girl, sunning herself in the windows or on the patio and ruling the household with a loving paw. Maribeth was patient through several household moves--- those that were happy, and those that were not so happy. She comforted me through my divorce, and looked after my new husband-to-be a few years later when I sent her off to Canada in advance of my arrival. More than sixteen years after her adoption, and for five months in the winter and spring of 2000, her "Dad" and I, along with her chum Kate, gently saw to her comfort and happiness as she dealt with chronic kidney failure and a touch of arthritis. Our Beth quietly padded away from us on May 9th, 2000 and will be remembered and missed always.

In 1987, Katie (more properly, Coonmora's Katie Scarlet O'Hara) joined our household as a birthday present to me from my then-husband. Kate is a purebred Maine Coon, but was the smallest of her litter and is atypically tiny for a female Coon at just about nine pounds.

We'd fallen in love with the breed at a Seattle cat show (we'd moved there in 1986) and Michael surprised me by contacting one of the breeders and arranging for me to pick out the Coon kitten of my choice. "Pick out" wasn't how it worked, exactly--- except from Kate's perspective! I sat down on the couch in the breeder's living room, and this small ball of torbie fluff extracted itself from the large ball on the floor. She hopped up onto the couch (in two tries) marched over to me, climbed up the sleeve of my jacket and sat on my shoulder looking at me inquisitively. "Wanna cat, lady?" she seemed to say. I was a goner. Kate, true to her breed, was a talker with quite a wide range of chirps and trills in her vocabulary. She was almost never entirely quiet, and was certainly never shy about letting us know what her needs were, and that they were not being met to her satisfaction. Kate lost a brief but ferocious battle with cancer on October 21,2002. She was the dearest, bravest girl --- how lovely it would be if she could meet her old friend Maribeth at the Rainbow Bridge. We will miss her so much.

Maxx was rescued and brought to us by some kind folks who found him discarded in a box in a cul-de-sac, miles from us. We couldn't resist him, and quickly discovered that despite his fierce "feral Coon" look, Maxx is a shameless love junkie who wants nothing more than your constant strokes and adoration. At the slightest provocation, he will flip over onto his back, wave his big snowshoe paws in the air, and mrrrowwrrr "Tickle my tum, lady!" He has staked out a bit of bed dead center between us, and there he spends as much time as possible. He is also filling the considerable role of "best pal" to our Jack Russell Terrier, Reilly. Some mornings, Maxx's head is soaked from Reilly's "ear kisses" --- a ritual Maxx most always seems to bear with good grace. He gets his revenge, however. Reilly is constrained outdoors by an "invisible" fence bounded by a buried wire. Maxx has discovered its perimeter and loves to work Reilly into a lather with a chasing game--- and then run juuuuust across the wire, where Reilly cannot follow. Maxx then sits contentedly, just out of reach, and takes his time cleaning his handsome face. He is unquestionably the most loving and touchy-feely cat I have ever known--- odd, we think, give his rough start in life. But whatever his reasons, our day would not be complete without Maxx putting a paw on either side of our necks and giving us one of his "hugs."