My JellyBean

We have 3 cats, though a visitor to the house might not know it. We love them, we so love them. But they are now in "isolation", because they were destroying the house. They had marked so many times near the back wall of the living room that we had to rip the carpet out, replace the padding, and have the carpet sanitized on both sides....and you KNOW that they would have marked all over again. It's what cats do, especially when irresponsible cat owners let their pets saunter up to OUR back window to torment our indoor kitties. So Larry is in the bedroom, Mac is in the basement, and Bean travels between the two rooms. It's working...they are well fed, they don't mark, and they seem okay.

We acquired these kittens in very different ways...here is the story of Bean.

My last year of field work, I was living in a cabin in the Pigeon River Country State Forest. The nearest town was Vanderbilt, and we often went to Darcy's Bar to unwind after checking traps on the weekends. One night when we walked in, there was a skinny white cat behind the bar. She was sniffing around looking for food, and the bartender said they were calling her "Darcy". I called her over and she jumped into my lap, and fell asleep...purring. Over the course of the night, I endured jokes from one persistent biker dude, who thought it was funny to refer to my "p*ssy." It didn't matter, I was totally in love with that cat. They said she was the bar cat, and that they were keeping her. I left my phone number just in case, and wouldn't you know, they called. "Guess what? The owner said it was a health violation to keep a cat in a bar."

A few days later I was the proud owner of an imaciated one-year old cat that I promptly renamed Emma, until one of my roommates pointed out should be called "Emmet." Huh? Oops. So his new name was JellyBean, or Bean for short. The first night he spent in the cabin, he stood on the window sill and yowled. The next night he invaded the garbage can. It was a rocky start, but once I moved him to my apartment downstate, it was all good. I had him checked out at the vet, convinced him that he wouldn't go hungry, and let him sleep under the covers with me. It's hard for me to believe that that was over ten years ago...seems like yesterday. He's always a kitten to me. :)