NOW: Gigi

No one knows I have a perfect memory. I remember the day I was born. I remember the day I met my mom and dad. I remember the day I met Bird. And I remember the whole week we didn't have any food.

I also remember the 2 most important days that completely changed my life. But I'll get to those stories soon.


Left to right: Gigi at 9 years. Nip at 15 months.

For now, here is a picture of me. Next to me, sleeping like a long, furry, fluffy pillow is Nip, my adopted kitten. Of course, he's huge now,  but when he came to live with me he was barely bigger than a paperback book.

He will tell you his side story soon, as this will be a collaborative narrative between myself and the two males in my house, Nip and Tuck.

But we all agreed that, since this is my idea, I would start with my part of the story first, and give you an idea of what our family is like.

And, just so we're clear, yes it is MY house. The other two, well, they dwell here because I like warm bodies to snuggle against.

I guess the best place to start is with introductions: My name is Gigi. I'm a 9 year old Torbie with some Siamese in me. "Torbie" means that my fur color is part tortoise shell and part tabbie. As of my last doctor's visit, I weighed a little over 8 pounds, so I'm very slender and sleek. But that's huge for me, because my first doctor's visit when I came home 16 months ago I weighed in at 3 1/2 pounds. Imagine, a normal, adult cat weighing less than 4 pounds!

I have a little bit of a funny walk because I spent the first 8 years of my life living in one cage or another. Of course, I didn't know they were "cages" or even what that word meant at the time. It was really just all I knew. So my hind legs and back paws turned out because I spent so much of my life just laying down.  But it doesn't slow me down at all. I can bounce and run and jump like a cougar.

Nip at 8 weeks

As of now, I have no upper teeth at all, which I know gives me a bit of a funny looking smile because me bottom fangs poke into my lips, but I love my fangs, and hope I can stay healthy enough to keep them. Anyway, I don't think it bothers my person. In fact, she always tells me I have a cute and beautiful face which makes me purr and blink with happiness.

My eyes are big and very bright green, which my person also says is beautiful and "intelligent." I'm not sure what she means by that, because how are "eyes" intelligent? When she says that, I stare at her very hard and try to get into her mind to figure out exactly what she means. I'm sure I'll figure it out, one day.

I have petite paws and a very long tail with a little hook at the end. My person mentioned that she read the "fish hook" tail was a Siamese trait, along with my deep and throaty meow.

About my meow, it's very different from Nip and Tuck's. Very gravelly and throaty. Most times, when I meow, I use what my person says is my "indoor" voice. I don't know about that. I just whisper. But other times, when I need something and she just - isn't - GETTING it, I raise my voice. If I'm louder, maybe she understands better? In any case, she usually gets it, and if she doesn't, she gives me a cookie instead. That's cool. Cookies are better than anything else I might want anyway, so I usually eat the cookies and go find something else to do.

When Nip came to live with me he was only about 2 lbs. Now he weighs about 11 lbs. I grew him up well, didn't I?

He's a sweet little bugger. When he moved in, he was so small and he needed a mom to teach him how to clean himself and how to snuggle, II needed a kitten to dote on, so it worked out pretty good for both of us.

Tuck was about 6 months, old enough so I didn't have to teach him anything. But he was warm and didn't mind if I snuggled close (or even used him as a bed) so that worked out pretty good, too.


Tuck at 6 months

Nip and Tuck came the same day, which worked out very well, too,  since I really didn't want to entertain them. All I really wanted was to cuddle and clean the kitten. But he was pretty rambunctious when he was awake. So I volun-told Tuck to be his sparring partner. He didn't mind though, he liked to play rough and tumble around in play-fights.

We three, plus my person, live in a "house" that has stairs. I love the stairs. I didn't understand them at first, but I watched my person go up and down them one day, and all of a sudden it clicked, and soon I was running up and down them, just for the fun of it.

Outside, there's a huge lawn with green grass and clover, which is wonderful to eat and these 2 HUGE puddles of water, which my person calls a "pool" and "hot tub." They look like gigantic drinking bowls to me, but sometimes my person gets in one and swims around. When she does that, I'm not sure what to think. Why would any intelligent creature get in water of their own free will?

But, she seems to enjoy it; always has a big smile on her face and talks to me, like I might join her or something. I usually just snort at her and trot off. But it does worry me, especially when she goes under the water and I can't even see her head, so I usually sit under a bush and just watch. She needs supervision, just like the kitten.

That first day I came to the house, my person  played with me and talked to me quite a bit. She used a very soft voice that was full of affection. She didn't touch me at first, which I was grateful for since it was all so very new and made me a bit nervous.

All the newness and interesting things to look at and smell gave me quite an appetite that first night. I hadn't eaten so much in one meal in a very long time, my tummy was very big. My person even offered me a cookie before she went to bed, which she called, a "freeze dried chicken." Not sure was that was, but it smelled soooo good, I couldn't refuse it. I tried, because I was already so full, but I had to eat it.

I slept that night the best I had since I was a kitten, sleeping curled up in the warmth of my mother's embrace, surrounded by my brother and sisters.

My person