trash you up: time spent with a cat is never wasted

work is making me insane. i am sure that i will snap soon. because it is making me want to die, there is only one solution: post all the pictures of adorable kittens that i can find.

i have three of the most adorable cats ever. my brother once claimed he didn't like cats because "they have no personality." i think he changed his mind about that one once i was forced to move back home with my family for a year and he got to be roommates with lemmy and megadeth. cats absolutely have unique personalities of their own and it is for this reason that i fear one day becoming a crazy cat lady: there are just so many wonderful cats waiting to make friends with you!!! seriously, josh had better stay around because the minute he leaves i am getting 500 more cats just to fill the void.

lemmy is five years old. he was a pity present. when i first moved out on my own, it was with my cousins beth and amy (who are sisters). amy works at a vet office and one day she came home with a sick little gray kitten that no one wanted. the three of us had all grown up with cats and desperately wanted one of our own, so we showered him with love and affection and he soon grew into a healthy, strong cat. we named him rebel after james dean. when amy moved out, she took rebel with her. beth and i protested, because he was all of ours and we all helped take care of him. amy reasoned that because she brought him home, she was taking him when she left. beth and i were heartbroken.

one day around christmas i came home to see beth and amy waiting for me on the couch.

"look under the tree!" amy exclaimed, barely able to contain herself. i walked over to the christmas tree and opened a box, and out stepped the cutest, fluffiest little black & white kitten. just for me and beth!

we named him lemmy, after the singer of motorhead. the name fit him pretty well, as he was always getting into stuff and acting like a badass. the older he got, the more he turned into a MEAN badass! it's a pretty fitting rock'n'roll name for a cat with such a 'tude.

lemmy can be a very affectionate cat, although the loving must be done on his own terms. if he doesn't want you to love him when he isn't in the mood, he will CERTAINLY let you know! he screams pretty loud when he is mad and he has been known to sneak up behind people and bite them for no reason. once in a while, he will get in these very romantic moods where you can just see the stars in his eyes. he insists on creeping up as close to you as he possibly can, and if you push him away he will slowly inch forward again like you won't notice that he is coming in for round two. then he will sit on your lap and wrap his paws around your neck like he is hugging you. if you are a girl, he likes to snuggle his nose in your hair. i guess this is something he never grew out of when he was a kitten, because he used to like sleeping on top of mine and beth's heads.

lemmy's favorite toy to play with is bottle caps from beer bottles. he has also been known to lick the rims of beer bottles left unattended, which, again, is probably due to his appropriate name. lemmy loves to stick his paw in people's water glass when they aren't looking, and he screams and cries until you go in the bathroom and turn on the sink faucet for him so he can play and drink from the tap. he thinks he is always the boss, which is funny because he isn't.

megadeth is four. she was another present from amy, but this time she came home with her because she was sick and if someone didn't take her in she was going to be put to sleep. she was left on the doorstep of a lady's house by some neighborhood children, and it was obvious that something was wrong with her. she was so small and sad and mangy-looking!

amy confirmed that she had an upper respiratory infection, a condition that is common in stray kittens and easy to cure with medication. the only bad news is that animal shelters are not going to spend the money to help sick kittens if no one is going to adopt them anyway, so if no one takes them they usually end up being put to sleep. beth and i discussed our options, and although we weren't sure we could afford another cat, we knew we couldn't let her die! so we took her in (and amy took her sister, who had the same thing), and we got her all the medicine and vet trips she needed. we tossed around a lot of names (i wanted to name her foot foot, after the cat in the movie "gummo") and finally decided on megadeth...not because either of us had any fondness for the band, but just because we thought it would be funny. as she grew up it would become apparent just how funny it was because she would grow up to be the exact opposite of what her name brings to mind.

megadeth is very shy and super sweet. she looks like lemmy because she is also black & white, but she is not as fluffy and she is much smaller than he is. she is never mean, except when the other cats are picking on her (which they do, all the time). either because of her sickness early on or perhaps just because she was the runt of her litter, megadeth is very small and cute. i like to refer to her as "dainty." she has a very lady-like quality to her. even when she is trying to stand up for herself to the other two cats, her hiss is so pathetic is comes out sounding like a loud whisper. whenever people come over to the house (or even when she hears the doorbell ring), megadeth will immediately run and hide. if things are quiet or it is a voice she recognizes, she might slink out later but she is still on guard. you can never approach her and expect her to be receptive; instead, if she is out you always have to put your hand out and let her walk up to you. i am the only person she has always been completely comfortable around, and because of this i feel like i have a special bond with megadeth. i understand her like no one else does and she trusts me more than anybody. still, megadeth does NOT like to be held and if i pick her up she will only let me hold her for a few seconds at the most. the only people she won't run from immediately is josh or my mom, because my mom used to come in my bedroom and feed her cat treats all the time when i lived at home for that year.

megadeth's favorite toy is those little feather mice, especially if they make noise when she shakes them. at night she likes to sleep laying next to me, with her body touching me, and if i put my hand down by her paws she will put one on top of my hands like she is holding it. you know megadeth likes you if she comes up you and rubs her nose on your face.

cute megadeth, the sick little kitten who almost didn't make it, even won an award! if you go to the hilarious and adorable website cats in boxes and look under the "awards" tab, you will see that megadeth won cat of the year in 2007 for her enjoyment of boxes and records!!!

pogo happened by accident. i had been thinking for a while that i wanted a new kitten because i desperately wanted a fluffy gray one with stripes. since i had just moved out on my own last year with no roommates, i knew it would be a bad idea to try to get a third cat while paying rent and all the bills alone. last summer i met josh, and he practically moved in the day we met. not technically, but he was over every day and most nights. i mentioned my dream kitten to him -- probably several times. josh told me, "go ahead and get it. i'll help you pay for whatever you need." that was one of the earliest signs that he was my perfect boy, haha. with the decision made, i started putting the word out to some of my friends that i was in search of my perfect kitten (having found the perfect boy). i made sure to tell amy to keep an eye out at the vet office, since she had brought me two wonderful cats in the past.

one day in july, my friend angie told me she found a litter of kittens in her grandma's backyard. they thought they were born around the 4th of july. she was going to keep an eye out and hope that my dream kitten was waiting in her grandma's yard. not long after i got an excited text from her: "i think i found your perfect kitten! he has a little gray on him! i'll bring him over as soon as i can catch him! i'm also gonna bring my favorite." when she came over with a box, i knew i was going to keep one before i even said yes. she showed me my gray kitten, who was actually brown striped. turns out angie was just HOPING it was gray. she brought the other one because he was her favorite, the most playful and lively of the bunch.

"look at him! he's a halloween cat!" angie told me over and over. she was not my dream kitten, but i could not deny that she was SO ADORABLE. i got her the next day.

josh and i had a hard time naming the new kitten. at first we called her pegleg because she walked funny. eventually we settled on pogo after observing her behavior over the next couple of days and realizing that she was FEARLESS! she would walk over to the other cats that were much larger than her (lemmy especially) and just slap them! we decided she was punk as fuck and didn't give a crap about anything, so she needed a punk name and we named her after the dance. she was bad right away and now, almost a year later, she is badder than ever. when she still had claws she used to climb up the screes of the windows. now she gets into everything else in sight. she is seriously like a cartoon where you see a cat bouncing off the walls...she will come running from one end of the house and proceed to jump off everything in one leap: the couch, the chair, the lamp, your head, the other cats, the wall. finally she will land, but it will be so that she can chase poor megadeth or jump on lemmy's back. she is STILL fearless. she is the only cat out of the three of them that is not scared of the vaccuum and tries to eat a bee rather than back away like the others. we always joke that she is so bad because we rescued her off the mean streets of cleveland and she knows all about livin the hard knock life. heh.

pogo is already bigger than megadeth after barely a year. i wonder how big she will end up. her favorite toy is those little plastic balls with the holes in them and the bell inside. she picks them up by the holes and carries them around the house in her teeth, usually so that she can take them into the bathtub and play. she LOVES playing in the bathtub and i always find toys, caps, and pieces of plastic or paper in there because pogo took them to play with. she is the friendliest of the cats and is always getting herself into some mess. she loves hiding, whether it is in a shopping bag or my purse, or under a rug or blanket. her favorite game is to run on top of the pinball machine when someone is playing and try to get the ball through the glass. she never gets discouraged.