• Hana-chan

  Hana-chan came to live with us in March 2005. We had first seen her when her mother (see pictures below), a stray in the neighborhood, brought her and three other kittens to hand out in front of our house during a snowstorm. Her father had already been sleeping in front of our house.At that time, I was worried that the cats would never leave, and that the kittens would grow up just to have more kittens in front of our house, so I talked to my neighbor about it. She organized a group to catch and spay the adult cats and to tame the kittens. There wasn't another home for Hana-chan, so she came to live with us.

• Mama-chan and Hisser, Hana-chan's Parents

  Hisser is the unusually-colored grey cat on the right. The people in the neighborhood call him "Grey", but I name him "Hisser" when he first came to our house. He was afraid of people, so he would hiss at me when he wanted food. Now he's friendly and affectionate, and almost everyone in the neighborhood loves him. We're not certain that's he's Hana-chan's father, but it seems likely. Mama-chan is on the left. She's not especially beautiful, but she's very cuddley (at least with me and Masashi--she doesn't let many other people touch her.)

• Trixie and Dixie

  Two sisters that also live with my mother. The started out the same size, but now Dixie is quite a bit fatter than Trixie. They are both rather shy, and when I visit, they usually just peek at me for a few days before finally coming out to play or be petted.

• Mike (that's "Meekay")

  Mike means "three colors of fur", that is "calico", in Japanese, an appropriate name for a Japanese calico cat. Mike has a very short tail, a genetic mutation that's very common in Japan. The tail bones are fused together into kind of a lump.

  Mike lives with Masashi, Tiger, and I, and she's a very affectionate cat, and visitors to our home often fall in love with her. She's shy around crowds, though, so people who come to parties at our house never see her at all.

• Tiger, a.k.a. Tora-chan

  Many people, including my sister-in-law Sally, find Tiger rather scary, That's because he is sometimes scared of strangers, and often jealous when visitors get more attention than he does, so he threatens to attack.

  With Masashi and I, though, Tiger is a gentle, cuddly creature, and he and Mike are very good friends. Because of his coloring, though, it's hard to get a good picture of him.

• Harry

  Elissa's newest cat, rescued as a small kitten from a tree outside her house. When he was smaller, he looked a lot like Hermy (above), but now that he's grown up, he doesn't look as much like him because Harry's hair is not so long. But he has long hair on the undersides of his feet, so he SLIDES on the wooden floors in Elissa's house.

• Hunter and Gizmo

  Hunter and Gizmo live with my brother Mickey and his son Brandon.

• Link to Alex's web page.

  This Alex is not my niece, but rather a big, beautiful cat who lives with my friend Mutsumi Imai. She has some very cute photos of him here.

Gone but not forgotten...

• Hermy, the world's cutest cat!

  Hermy lived in North Lake with my mother. His full name is Herman. In terms of personality, he was just an ordinary cat, rather shy around strangers, and not especially friendly to anyone, I think. However, he had the knack of posing is positions that made him look incredibly cute. But I was never fooled! He was a ruthless killer when it comes to mice and birds. I once saw him jump from the ground straight up about four feet to pluck a bird out of the air as it was on its way to the bird feeder. He died in September 2006.

• Taylor

  Taylor lived in Chicago for several years with Elissa Jones. After rescued him from a life on the streets, he was affectionately grateful . When I spend the night at Elissa's house, Taylor usually slept with me for at least a few minutes He had two striking features: the one off-center white mark on his otherwise symmetrical face, and a really, really long skinny tail. You can't see either one well in this photo, though. He died in January 2006.

• Mugsy

  Mugsy had a fairly short, but I think mainly, happy life in Wisconsin, along with Hermy and Puddy (a very old cat). Mugsy is not very cute--in fact, from some angles, he is downright homely--but he was much friendlier than Hermy. My parents got him just a few months before my father died, and my dad named him "Mugs" because he said he had a face only a mother could love! I really enjoyed playing with him when I was in North Lake.

• Puddy

  Puddy lived to be more than 19 years old! She was a stray cat, less than a year old, living outside near a farmhouse that two friends of mine were renting. They felt sorry for her, but didn't want to be responsible for taking care of her, so they asked my to take her home to my parents.

  That was in 1982, and she made it to 2002. Click to see a picture of her from 2001.

• Ann

  Ann was Puddy's kitten and she also lived to be 19 years old. She spent her whole life with Elissa (who also has Taylor and Harry above). She died just before Christmas in 2003. Here's a picture of her from a few years before that.

• Portia

  A calico cat with a Shakespearian name, Portia lived in Colorado with my brother's family. She was very shy, but demanded attention when she became desparate for some petting. Whenever I visited, I'd wait for her quick visits when she'd run up to be petted and then just as quickly leave.

E-mail to me: vicky@muehleisen.us