When we came back, the cat (who we named Cindy) had had kittens in the closet!! I think there were 5. I don't remember them all, but I think we named one Sugar Ray, and there was another who was white who we think was deaf.. Anyway, I was only allowed to keep one, and I picked a black and white long furred one and named her Rosie. We had Rosie for many years. She was an indoor/outdoor cat, and came and went as she pleased. We lived in a few apartments and then moved to a nice farm house in the country. She spent a lot of time in the woods and was good at catching birds (bleckth!). Sometimes she'd stay away for days at a time, which was frustrating because we always worried that she'd been hit by a car or hurt by another animal.

Once we moved from the house back to an apartment, and she ran away and went back to the house. We moved to Maryland when I was 7, and it was decided that Rosie should stay with the house (other friends and relatives were still living there), since we thought she'd try to run away and go back to that house. I was sad to see her go, but it was nice that she was still there when I came back to visit. Many years later when I was in high school, the house was sold. A friend of my aunt's bought it, and she told us that taking Rosie was right in the contract. Last I heard (when I was in college), she was still roaming the countryside around there, though she had become more feral in her old age. I'd like to think of her as my immortal kitty, still occasionally seen roaming the woods in western Massachusetts.

I remained cat-less (sadly!) for many years, do to the evil influence of my then step-father. When we moved away from him (yay!), we got two kitties, which my dad and I found on the side of the road. I describe the event in more detail on Hilary's page.