That poor cat, her name was Calpurnia, and she was always on the thin edge of going berserk. When I finally got her to the vet, I tried to warn them that she could be dangerous but they didn't take me seriously. So as I walking out the door I stopped and turned back to the reception room, held up my bandaged thumb, and said in a sepulchral voice, "Be afraid. Be very afraid". The room cracked up and the staff got the message and preemptively tranquilized her.

The key to getting along with cats is patience and self-control. Cats test people in a uniquely feline way: They scratch or bite, and then watch to see your reaction. If you don't get upset or try to retaliate, or flinch, you pass--that's how they know you "get" cats, and understand their ways.

I don't have any cats at all now, living in an apartment in the city. When I lived in the mountains I started with the one cat I'd had for years, and found the previous owners had abandoned three cats, one pregnant. You know how that goes--I had a cat population explosion. Cat populations seem to develop a momentum, because pretty soon strays started wandering in to stay. Cats have a gift for locating suckers...er, I mean cat lovers. The population peaked at around a dozen cats, probably a total of two dozen over nine years. When I left the mountains I found homes for most of the cats, and ended up with the one cat I started with. Jules was his name. I raised him from a kitten, and in 2002 he died at the age of 18-1/2. That was an unusually long run for a cat, but it was hard to be philosophical about it. He outlasted four girlfriends and a marriage.

My cats tended to have unusual names, no banal cliches like "Whiskers". My philosophy is to not even try to think up a name for a cat. I just wait, and eventually I'll find myself addressing the cat with a name that seemingly came from nowhere. Jules, Calpurnia (a Calico), Tony and Tina (identical grandma and grandson; when they snuggled it resembled a transporter malfunction), Tommy the tomcat, Silly (aka "Sillhouette", totally black), Harold, all got their names that way.

It's not so much that I don't like dogs as that I'm allergic to them. It's not a fur thing because cats don't bother me. Seems to be either oily dog fur or their saliva (or saliva on fur) that raises welts on my skin. When I get a better place for a pet, it'll be another cat.