Happy Birthday!

Not only is it the birthday of one my friends (Happy Birthday, Lee!), it is also the birthday of my cat, Mary. She turned five years old today. We got her 4 1/2 years ago, when she was only 6 months. How we got her was pure accident, and not planned.

Corinne and I have always been supporters of the Houston SPCA. We had to give up a stray cat that wandered into our attic when we were living in the very same house that we are living in now. Back then, we had Lacy, my ex's cat. Lacy did not get along with any cat, and that was her home, so when Tori wandered into our lives, Lacy did not take too kindly to her staying in our home. Eventually, we had to give her up. My ex told us to take Tori to the SPCA, so we did. Eventually, Tori was adopted out to another family.

Ever since then, Corinne and I would visit the SPCA to look at cats. My ex had Lacy, but we never had a cat of our own, so when my ex and I divorced, Corinne and I longed for a cat. I finally agreed to actually start looking for a cat for us. That meant that I had to be "certified". I had to sit in an orientation session and go through a background check before I was allowed to adopt cats. That very day, I sat through an orientation and was cleared to adopt. I was told I had up to six months to look and decide if I wanted to adopt a cat. I told Corinne, "OK. We're going to go and look. Just look." We looked at the cats and saw one that we liked. OK. Maybe we're going to check out the cat. We asked if we could see the cat. They put us in a room to "get to know the cat". Unfortunately, this cat was also being looked at by another family. We loved the cat, but the other family wanted this cat as well, and they had first dibs on this cat. So, disappointed, they asked us if we wanted to see another cat. We went back out to look at other cats, and saw another one that might interest us, and asked to see that one. But our heart was on that other cat. The second cat was not what we wanted, and this cat was more aggressive. So, we told them that we were done looking at that cat. Sensing that we were looking for something, the attendant said, "we just got another cat. She just had surgery (spayed) and we haven't even assigned her a cage yet. Would you like to see her?" Reluctantly, we agreed. The attendant brought out a beautiful Calico cat. "Mary" was sleepy from the surgery, but she curled up in our arms, and had such a sweet disposition. We immediately agreed that this was our cat. We took her home, and 4 1/2 years later, we have not regretted our decision.

Last year, Corinne wanted to buy Mary a birthday present: fish. That's when we bought Goldie and the other three fish that didn't make it. That also started our year of buying fish. Well, I'm happy to report that Goldie is still swimming around in our tank. He is our oldest fish. We still have Stripers, who we bought not too long after Goldie. At Christmas time, we bought Benjie and Jr and Dottie (who died and was replaced by Spottie). We tried to buy another algae eater, Rod, but when we moved to this house, Rod didn't survive the move. So, Mary's fish tank currently has five fish. Oh, by the way: Happy Birthday, Goldie. He is now 1 years old.