So, the other day I had to venture in to Petco. This time for a beefier replacement for Princess Leia before the monkeys returned home. Cause of the demise of Ms. Leia? Uncertain. But, if you ask me those damn little snails staged a coup and are in cohorts with the dark side. And to think I was going to put on some Barry White for them while they were getting it on. Ungrateful bastards.

As I strolled through the automatic doors, I stood, paused in front of the giant white board on the easel boasting of the “Pumpkin Spice” treatments in the puppy spa. Pamper your pooch with a Pumpkin Spice shampoo and Pumpkin Spice conditioner treatments and they’ll throw in a splash of Pumpkin Spice puppy perfume or cologne for free. I still haven’t figured out what’s worse- the fact that someone would pay $40 to do that to their dog or the fact that the poor dog has to walk around wreaking of a food they can’t eat. You wanna smell pumpkin, go buy a fucking candle.

Sighing, I shake my head and continue through the second set of automatic doors and on with “Operation Help Me Obi Wan.” What’s the first thing that smacks me in the face? A ginormous Christmas display chocked full of holiday goodies for all the creatures in your life. Never mind the fact that it is merely November the 1st. Children all over are still in borderline diabetic comas from the hordes of Halloween candy obtained less than 24 hours ago. Makes me wonder when the puppy spa is going Egg Nog with their special.

I venture onward through the store, avoiding the urge to glance at anything that is not directly involved with my task at hand. Mission accomplished easy enough and before I know it, I’m on the way to the register with our new Leia (this one looks like she may be able to throw down a bit if need be). This time I allow myself to look around.

It started with a giant tank with two painted turtles in it. They were laying side by side, their short little necks intertwined with each other, blissfully slumbering with I swear little turtle smiles. In a tank next to them were a pile of lizards all cozied up together. Birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats all snuggled together in pairs or groups looking so peaceful. So content. At the end of my journey was the ferret home. A pile of four laid wrapped up all wonky-like with their lil ferret smiles. All breathing in unison. I watched two sitting together eating for a while. They stopped for a bit and one randomly smacked the other one. For all I know he told her to slow down she was starting to get a little chunky in the thighs. Then two seconds later their arms were on each others shoulders and they were making out. Ok, so they could have been trying to lick food off of each others faces, but it was so damned cute.

Eventually the new princess and I made our way to the car. I sat there for a while thinking. Behind that crappy wall of pumpkin scented, Santa covered commercialistic bullshit lay a lesson. Inside the many bars of metal and glass full of balls of fur, scales, shells, feathers, you name it, was a whole lot of love. You can insert your argument regarding some theory that it is based solely on the fact that they are out of their natural environments, trapped in cages and merely trying to survive under the unnatural glow of florescent here. You know what though? They are doing it together. There was no renegade gerbil threatening to go all prison warfare on another one over space and food. As for that ferret, well you tell a girl she should stop eating cuz she’s plumpin up and you’ve kind of got it coming and she totally loved him up right after. There were no games, no manipulations. No fur pulling over the rabbit version of Flavor Flave. No uttering I love you then disappearing. No turf wars. No giggling at the odd critter out because oh my gosh, she’s not pure bred.

You may not know this about me but while I am a pretty openly caring, person and freely give of myself, I keep my heart guarded tightly. Like Fort Knox on crack tightly. I have a large capacity for love with a thick wall around my heart. Once someone sneaks in there, they have the ability to do a lot of damage. I’m a tough girl, but once a chunk of my heart goes, I tend to not ever really get it back. The deeper I let them in, the bigger the chunk they can take with them when they leave. Again, don’t get me wrong, I am all about the love, but I try very hard to keep personal collateral damage to a minimum. I’ve never had to worry about that with my cats. Seriously, animals are way fucking cool like that. They see the good, the bad and the ugly and not only still love you, but many would lay down their own lives for you. Zen maybe not so much, he’s old, fat and spoiled. But he always knows when I’m hurting and he always knows how to make it hurt just a little less. He always has time for me. He may love up another human, I still know I’m his favorite. He can wander the house all day but religiously at night he’s there by my head while I sleep. I always know he loves the hell out of me. It’s one thing I’m never given cause to question. It’s a constant I can always count on.

Sitting there in my car, I made an important, life-altering decision. I’m going to be the first ever crazy cat AND ferret lady. Yup. A girl’s gotta have goals. Proud of my new realization, I start my car only to hear Beck’s “Loser.” I couldn’t help but laugh with a tear or two in my eye. At least Princess Leia II is still alive and kicking. For now. Damn Dark Side Snails.

Can’t be a Crazy Cat Lady In Training without cats. You’ll have the crazy part down alright, but a Crazy Cat Lady that thinks she has cats, but doesn’t will just get ya locked up. I never thought of myself as a cat person really. I had fish and frogs growing up. This girl’s always been an animal lover in general, but slimy and aquatic seemed to be my niche.

Until the day my first cat chose me.

Summer of 1994 I was a sophomore in college, out of the dorms and in a new place. Two of my peeps, a brother and sister transplanted to Milwaukee from PA, asked me if I’d take them to the Humane Society to get a dog. Of course! So, we arrive on a Saturday mornin’ and while they are scoping out the dogs, I get to wandering. Now, the Humane Society is just a bad place for me to be because I want to scoop them ALL up and take them home. Period. Young, old, short, fat, scrawny, smelly, twitchy….I want to save them. Hmmm… maybe I was destined into CCLdom afterall. I’m in the cat area and for some reason I spot this cottonball with eyes. I stick my finger in the cage and pet it and as soon as it grabs my finger and starts gnawing on it, I’m hooked. I look up and see a piece of paper taped over the sign on the cage that pretty much says “Go home sad, this one’s taken… we think.” It had a 24 hour hold for potential adopters. Can’t be too sad that it’s at least going to a home. My friends find the most spastic dog of the bunch and are thrilled. The Humane Society needs to hunt down their landlord and make sure it’s okie dokie for them to take her home. Bottom line- we need to come back tomorrow.

That night I had a dream. A black and white dream, which are the oddly fortelling ones for me. My colored ones are just weird. Anywho, in the dream the kitty was mine and I named her Cozmo. With a z and all. This was before Seinfeld revieled Kramer’s first name, before Cosmopolitans were all the drinking rage and I damn sure never read the magazine, so the name was a really weird choice. But, it was a dream.

On the way to the Humane Society the next day, I told B&C about the dream. I then declared if the furball was still there, it was coming home with me. We get there and they tear off to get their four legged mass of insanity and I go to check on the cottonball. It’s still there. It’s been 24 hours. I flag down a worker and tell them I’d like to adopt it. (All the its are because I didn’t know it was a she at that time. I pet her and played with her, but I respected her privacy.) So, B&C, their dog Sabina the spastic wonder, the Humane Society employee and I are all crammed in the cat room while my new ball of joy is sprung from kitty jail. I just get her in my arms when the Humane Society employee (who was forced to hear of my dream while waiting for the formalities to be completed) pulls the paper off the sign saying “won’t need this any more.” We all stare at the sign that had been cloaked in complete silence. It read “This cage is dedicated to the memory of Cozmo.”

So I named her Bob. Not really. Just seeing if you are still there. Don’t worry, this next part is shorter.

A year later and Cozmo and I are in our first studio alone. I can hear her meowing for me every night I come home all the way down the hall. So, for her first birthday, she was getting her own cat. Off to the Humane Wellfare Society I went. No prophetic dream this time. Instead, what I found was the ugliest kitten in the joint. He was the runt of what seemed like a litter of 8 or 9. His head was WAY too big for his body so he looked like one of those bobble headed cats old ladies put on the dash of their Buick Regal tanks. To top it all off- he was bow-legged. As soon as the lady there told me all of his brothers and sisters were getting sprung the next day and he’d be left all alone, I knew he was mine. Screw you pretty kitties, the freak is going home first!

And now he’s huge.

The two of them were the perfect balance. So much so that when they curled up together (after Zen grew in to his head) they looked like yin and yang. They went across country to California and back with me. The went to hell and back with me as well. Each time they’d take turns clutching my face in their paws and licking the tears away. I watched them lick bruises, broken bones and stitches determined to make them go away. No matter what I went through, they never left my side.

One of the only regrets I have in my life is allowing the ex to make me take them to my parent’s house to stay when I was pregnant with my oldest. Two months after she was born, Cozmo died.

Zen is still very much Zen. And, now he has a partner in crime. Yet another cat that isn’t really mine. Ok, PIC isn’t entirely accurate. I’m all about the honesty- the two fatboys are straight up brokeback kitty. My little two kitty spinster starter kit also likes to lay in geometric shapes. So, on to his lover……

Last year right around this time, I get a call from my C. She’s pretty much my adopted sister. She has a big fat cat that she rescued from a dumpster 2 years ago. Her roommate’s dogs have been terrorizing him and he’s been peeing on the stairs. She’s got to get rid of him. Yup, into our dyfunctional family he came. It took roughly 45 minutes for the two to get along. Zen (who is declawed in the front vs his man who has all 4 sets) beat his ass down once and that’s all she wrote. He is completely whacked so he fits right in. His name? He goes by MANY. Kitty is what the girls call him. He is also known as Fatty, Fatty McFat, Large and In Charge, Fatboy #2, Blairwitch Cat (he sits and stares in bizarre corners looking like the last scene in BW) and Bird Killer (see next blog post).

They are whacked, they are not really like cats and we love the hell our of their fat, furry feline asses. 🙂 And how lucky are we that they chose us?

I’m a “rather be alone for the right reasons than with someone for the wrong ones” kind of gal. That and the ex was/is an ASSHOLE of epic proportions. EPIC. So, not one single tiny atom of regret for putting the kibosh on the marriage. I did so knowing I may spend the rest of my life alone and I damn sure was going to be the sole parent in charge of the monkeys. For years, I’ve told everyone I am a crazy cat lady in training. I’ve got the two kitty spinster starter kit going now and I would be fab at it. In fact, my newest therapy in life is knitting, so they would be the most fashionably dressed 933 cats in the tricounty area. I’ve recently added my font whorishness to the mix and am planning on monogramming those bad boys each in a different font. And you doubted I’d be fab at it?

Well, a couple of months ago some of my posse, my peeps, my home skillets decided it was creepin’ them out and I “needed” to start dating. I don’t take well to being told what to do, even outta love. I can be quite the stubborn biotch. But, it did get me thinkin’… cats aren’t as fun to cuddle with and friends look at you weird when you try to make out with them. Ok, most of them. So, I succumbed. Got me a profile on a free dating site and oh the fresh hell that awaited me. I’ll be blogging them freak by freak in the future.

The one thing I still won’t cave on though is my profile. The horde of cupids on crack that I call my nearest and dearest insist it is too “weird.” My response continues to be- “If they can’t hang with my profile, they’re not going to be able to hang with me. Period. It’s ME. ” I lay it all on the line upfront. I know I have the trifecta kiss of dating death- 1.Single Mom 2. I’m a curvy girl. 3. I’m quirky as hell. But, it’s how I roll. Somewhere there is a man who is brave enough to ride the crazy coaster, complete with two extra cars. Who knows, he may be closer than I think. But if not… this girl has a backup plan……

MyProfile (that is such an utter abomination) that’s on the dating site:

I used to beat up the kids that picked on the “special students” during recess. Now I work with those with chronic mental illness.

I speak quite a few languages, enjoy coed naked underwater basket weaving, have an addiction to Sushi and humor is my defense mechanism.

Arrogant people make my right eye twitch.

Other than that, I’m just me.

Honestly though, I’m kind of a quirky girl. I’m ambidextrously brained, I will knit for tattoos, I am the friend that everyone comes to for advice and bail money. I pride myself on keeping my eyes, ears, heart and mind open. Making me laugh goes a long way with me, I think the brain is the sexiest organ and I’m the kinda gal you can take anywhere and I”ll have a good time. Now I just need a good partner in crime 😉

If you’re still reading this… woo hoo! Another thing that’s important to know about me- I’m a really honest person. What you see is what you get with me- I don’t play games. I honestly just don’t think I’m even wired to be able to. So, I’ll rip off the rest of the band aid for ya now..

1. I am a single mom. I know that’s a frightening thing for some guys and I understand why it would be. But, it’s what I am. I’m good at it too and my lil monkeys rock. They are way cool, tons of fun and sooo loving. So, yeah, a serious relationship with me eventually means a package deal. It’s a good package though 🙂

2. I’m a curvy girl. My hourglass comes with a ghetto booty at the moment. But, I work out frequently, eat healthy and am really active. While I am a bit of a work in progress so to speak, I’m also comfortable, confident and take pride in who I am.

If you’ve stuck it out this far, are thinkin’ “hmmm…I think I can hang with this..” and aren’t into the whole game thing… say hi. 🙂

Oh and not being psycho would be a HUGE plus 🙂