Orange and Black

Since everyone else shared their experiences with candy, I thought I'd switch it up a little bit and write about my own personal little Halloween duo. I mentioned my three neurotic cats back in my introductory post. Well, two of them are fitting for this week’s topic – a ten-year-old long-haired orange tabby and a five year-old-short-haired solid black cat. (And as for the third, a fat gray tabby, thank goodness he can’t read, because he already has some serious jealousy issues!). As all people and animals tend to do in our house – these two have garnered many nicknames over the years, and collectively, my husband calls the two of them, orange and black, “Halloween.”

We adopted “Mr. Orange*” (*note real their names have been concealed to protect them from any embarrassment!) from the Humane Society literally an hour before they planned to euthanize him. He thinks he’s in charge of the house. And he will seriously set you straight if you get in his way. When we adopted him, he’d obviously just barely escaped a terrible fight – he was limping and cut and missing clumps of hair. The woman at the Humane Society suggested it may have been with a coyote, which seemed hard to believe given that a cat doesn’t usually walk away from one of these fights, but this cat is as scrappy as they come. He thinks he’s part dog (He waits for my husband at the door every day when he comes home from work.) and part human (He persistently tries to jump on the kitchen table and drink water from our water glasses – no ceramic cat bowls for him, thank you very much!). He covets attention –getting so excited at the vet that it’s always a struggle to get him back in the carrier to come home. He was neutered a little too late in life, so he – and I’m paraphrasing the vet here – still exhibits the mating behavior, even though he doesn’t exactly have the means to carry it out. In other words, he likes to steal my kids’ stuffed animals, drag them into a corner, and have his way with them. And yet he is perhaps the sweetest animal I’ve ever met. He spends the better part of the evening curled up on my husband’s lap, purring

“Mr. Black” was the runt of a litter found abandoned at a gas station. We adopted him from a no-kill shelter – the only one of his brothers and sisters not already adopted. Apparently, it is harder to adopt out black cats. He is kind and needy, and a stereotypical fraidy cat. He takes one look at one of my children and runs and hides – not that I can blame him, when the younger one still seems to think tail-pulling should be an Olympic sport. He completely favors me – any time I sit down, anywhere in the house, he pops into the room and on to my lap with in a matter of seconds. He is also an avid stuffed-animal stealer, though, in his case, I suspect he was taken from his mother too early. He likes to drag stuffed animals into the hallway, kneed them with his paws, and suck on them, as if he were trying to nurse.

But here’s the beauty of my orange and black cats – they absolutely love each other. From the moment we brought Mr. Black into the house five years ago, Mr. Orange took him under his wing, and Mr. Black latched right on to that. The two of them spend most of the day sleeping and curled up together, grooming one another, or playing. Which is kind of amazing, considering that tough, tough Mr. Orange spends the rest of the day trying to bully our sweet fat gray tabby.

So there you have it, our Halloween kitties. And as for the humans in our household—well, we’re sort of being feline traitors this year on Halloween. At my son’s request, we’re all dressing up as Scooby Doo and the gang – Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy, and me, Velma. But I’m guessing our own little Halloween duo will never be any the wiser. I’m sure they’ll be safely tucked under the bed as soon as the first trick-or-treater rings the doorbell.