My cat Pepper

OK the last post was just bitch bitch bitch.  This one should be happier, because I love my babies.

In 1998, my cat Mushie passed away due to kidney related complications.  She was 22- 1/2 years old.  Yeah, that isn't a typo.  I'd only had her for a few years, but she was my girl.  A few months later, I already missed having a cat, so I started looking online at various shelters and rescues, just trying to see who was out there and if anyone popped out at me.  Well sure enough... I found Pepper.

Pepper was about 2 years old at the time, living in a foster home in Falls Church.  She'd been rescued from the streets of Singapore the previous summer and brought to the US with 8 other cats.  The group that sponsored this included a woman in Singapore, KLM airlines and a few people here in the US.  Pepper was the last of the bunch to be adopted.  I emailed immediately.  The next day I recieve a call from the foster "mom" saying that my story about living in Indonesia and then having Mushie sold her on giving me the opportunity.  Pepper, I was told, was not an easy cat to deal with.  I thought, "ah whatever, I can do it".  She had a boy kitten buddy but at the time I could only take her.  They brought both over though, with the thought that Bamboo would make things easier.  Just for the afternoon. 

That night, Pepper still wouldn't have much to do with me, so I left her alone.  I could hear her charging up and down the hall... I swear it sounded like elephants.  Occasionally I'd sneak up and see what she was doing, and she'd stop, meow at me (which sounded more like a wounded goat than a cat) and then start her running up and down again.

As we got to know each other, I learned how sweet she could be one minute, and then how nasty the next.  Getting out of the shower was usually a challenge.  Pepper liked to attack feet.  Two towels became mandatory.  But on the flipside, at night, in bed, Pepper would curl up next to me under the covers and purr until she fell asleep. 

Eight months after we'd first met, we moved into an apartment (I'd been living with my boyfriend at the time).  I called the foster "mom" and asked if she still had Bamboo, which she did.  So she brought him over to the apartment one Saturday morning, and they remembered each other.  By that time though, Pepper had become my shadow so whenever I left the room, she followed me.  This made the foster "mom" happy to see and Bamboo's adoption to me a done deal.  I'll post on him sometime.

To this day, Pepper is my girl.  She is now about 13 years old and as healthy as she could be, thankfully.  Her fur has doubled in length, and her attitude has mellowed.  I still warn people, because she isn't perfect.  She is still my shadow and sleeps under the covers with me.