What a couple of clowns! These two partners in crime belong to me (as much as cats can belong to anyone, I suppose). Both were strays who somehow connected with me and ended up as part of our extended feline family. They bonded right from the beginning, and are never far away from each other.

For years I've been feeding a small colony of stray cats near one of our rental houses, and one night Alien (also known as Big Mamou) appeared on the fringes, quietly observing the activity. She looked healthy and well-fed, so I assumed she belonged to someone in the neighborhood and was just passing through. She was friendly and approached me for a head rub. The next evening, she was back again, and she returned every night thereafter for several months. I secretly suspected that she belonged to our tenants, even though they continually denied ownership. After they moved, Alien was still there, so I took her home. Why the name "Alien"? Many reasons, including the long, antenna-like hairs at the tips of her ears. She also appears to be triple-jointed and boneless. One of her favorite forms of amusement is opening the kitchen cabinet doors and swinging back and forth on them while hanging onto the top edge with her front feet. In the process of learning this trick, Alien discovered that the kitchen garbage was kept behind one of these doors...that door now has a child-proof lock. This cat has an obsession with food. She's worse than my dog. Whenever anyone in our household opens the pantry cupboard or the refrigerator, she's right there begging, sitting up like a dog, and she will eat anything. Tofu, potato chips, spicy salami, oranges...the list is endless. She sits at our feet during dinner with an unbroken focused stare. "Hey, you gonna eat that? You gonna finish that? You gonna leave something for me? Huh? Don't pay any attention to that dog! I was here first!" No matter how much we feed her, it's never enough. I swear she even gets a vicarious thrill watching us put away the groceries. Miraculously, she is NOT overweight.

As long as Alien has been with us, she has suffered from severe allergies and rashes. Her worst outbreak areas have been on her chin, around her eyes, and on the pads of her feet. Recently, she developed a herpes-like ulcer on her cornea which was treated successfully with Idoxiuridine drops. For many years, we tried several treatments for these rashes, including tea tree oil, porcelain feeding bowls, Pyoben shampoo, injections of depomedrol (one injection every 3 months or so), over-the-counter cortisone creams, and Bactoderm ointment. Other than temporary periods of relief between outbreaks, nothing provided the long term cure we were hoping for. About four months ago, my vet suggested adding Lysine gel to her diet. In accordance with Alien's weight, her recommended dosage was 500 mg (1/2 tsp.) twice daily. I mix it with her food and she seems to love the taste, which is a real plus. But the best news is that she has not had even a minor rash of any kind since she's been taking Lysine. During this time frame, Alien normally would have been at the vet for treatment at least twice. While I remain cautiously optimistic, I am thrilled with her progress, and she seems to feel so much better. The product is called Viralys Lysine Gel, and it's made specifically for cats. A 5 oz. tube costs about $11. If you are having similar problems with your cat, I strongly recommend that you ask your veterinarian about this product. For us, it's been a Godsend.

Cosmo (Little Toots) was a young feral who started hanging around our back yard during the winter. Naturally we felt sorry for him out in the cold like that and started feeding him, and he gradually began to trust us and let us approach him, although he remained very skittish. At the time, Jim and I thought he was a female because he was so small, and we knew we'd have to get him fixed soon. We decided to nab him while he was eating and bring him indoors. What a mistake! Totally terrified, with eyes big as saucers, he began howling at the top of his lungs, flung himself maniacally around the family room and literally climbed the walls. While I was unhooking his claws from the top of the curtains, I couldn't help noticing that Cosmo was definitely NOT a little girl. "Open the door and let HIM out before he destroys the entire house!" I yelled to Jim, and Cosmo was off like a flash.

Well, what to do next? We still needed to get him fixed! As frightened as he was, Cosmo never once tried to bite or scratch us, but we were afraid he'd never let us near him again after that ordeal. Surprisingly, the next morning he let me pet him while he was eating, and I somehow managed to corral him into a cat carrier which I then taped shut to contain him. Later that day he was sent home from the vet's with instructions to remain indoors overnight so he could recover quietly after his surgery. We decided to put him in the upstairs bathroom with a soft blanket, a litter box and some food and water and just leave him alone with hopes that he would settle down and fall asleep. Little did we know we were dealing with the world's most determined cat. About an hour later I saw some movement out on the deck, turned on the light, and there was Cosmo, proudly strutting his stuff in front of the door and talking up a storm. I couldn't believe it! How did he get outside??? I ran upstairs to check the bathroom and realized that this nutty cat had somehow managed to scale a five-foot ceramic tile wall, squeeze himself onto a two-inch window ledge, slide the window open, gnaw the tabs off the screen, leap out onto the overhang and then jump to the deck below. After all the trouble this goofy little Houdini went through to execute his great escape, you'd think he'd immediately take off for parts unknown, but noooo.....he was so proud of himself that he just HAD to show us what he'd accomplished. After proving to us that walls could not contain him if he set his mind otherwise, Cosmo finally decided that we were OK, and with those terms on the table, he then moved indoors.

Cosmo has since put his fear of humans behind him and is now our sweet little clown. He has an unusual talent for unearthing long-lost (and not very important) objects and has proudly presented us with countless paper clips, pens, rubber bands and large dust balls. He likes to pull things out of bowls, and usually makes a mess of my collection of wood and glass eggs. He's a big talker, animating our conversations with his many different sounds, and he always has the last word. He loves classical music on CD, but when I practice my violin, he screetches relentlessly until I open the door, and then he flies out like the devil is chasing him.