C is for Cats

I'm participating in the A-Z April Challenge. That means for every day in April, (except Sundays -- officially, but I may post anyway) I will be posting on a theme, moving through the alphabet as I go. I'm going with a vague, pantser theme of My Favorite Things.

C is for Cats. I adore cats. I collect cat figurines, clothing, pictures, doo-dads. Anything with cats. And yet, for the first time in my life (except for a few years in my early 20's when I first moved out on my own), I find myself cat-less. I'd heard rumors of other people without cats, but I really never thought it would happen to me. I had grand plans on being the old, eccentric Cat-Lady of the neighborhood, with 20 or so cats running around the house (but cleaner and less smelly than most crazy cat-ladies are). But when my beloved Crooked Cat finally lost his stubborn attitude to keep going, I decided to go it alone for a while. My husband is semi-retired and we have a little mobile home we rent at the coast, so we're gone a lot. Although cats are pretty self-sufficient, Amos was a nut for fresh water, so I had to have someone over to re-fill his water dish ever couple of days. And I was tired of the litter-tracking all over the house, and watching to make sure the grandkids didn't get into the litter box, or the food dish, or the water, or that Amos didn't scratch them (he was cranky in his old age). It's really not so bad, being without a cat. I get my snuggles from the grandkids, instead. I don't imagine I'll be cat-less for the rest of my days, though, so I haven't given up on the eccentric Cat-Lady dream.