Meet the Animals: Part Three

This is Fat Momma.

She does have a proper name--it is technically Isis. But we never call her that.

When we lived in Texas, we (and the rest of the neighborhood) fed outdoor cats. They kept down on the tarantulas, scorpions and snakes. I wish I could have adopted them all--instead, I just satisfied myself with feeding them.

As we got to know the regular cats, we named them. Mostly unofficial, undignified nicknames like Squinty, Ducky, and Bad Momma.

Then Fat Momma, so named because she was scrawny with a huge pregnant cat belly, had kittens in our carport. It was as if she chose us--so we had to adopt her.

We gave her kittens away to a neighbor and she stayed with us. When we lived in Texas, she was still pretty wild. She was an indoor/outdoor cat, sleeping outside and coming in mostly to eat. She did not trust our dogs. She liked being petted but hated to be on the ground when we were walking around--she acted as if she thought she'd get stepped on or kicked.

Moving was pretty hard on her. We had to stage our trek up to St. Louis in segments-- there was no way to get two dogs, two cats, two cars, and all our stuff there in one trip. Fat Momma lived with my mother-in-law for a month or so during the transition. She hid most of the time. Once we became convinced that she had gotten out and were frantically calling to her all around the neighborhood. It turns out that she just was hiding in the basement ceiling.

Fat Momma and my other cat, Anoosh, have slowly forged a truce. They were not fans of each other at first, mainly because Anoosh is unrecognizable to other cats as a cat. Now they'll share a chair and play kitty tag.

Fat Momma is a pretty relaxed cat now. She doesn't go outside anymore and she seems okay with that. She responds to a whistled tune--she always comes to investigate. She loves to sit on laps and get petted. We entice her to cuddle sometimes by petting the air and she'll hurry to us to get those missed pettings. She hates to travel and hides when she sees suitcases but is okay once we get to our destination. She likes toy mice but our dogs tend to steal them.

We call her Fat Mar-mar, Fat Meow-Meow (we've been attempting to move away from Momma because we don't want to confuse Mo-mo), Batman, Tuxedo Cat, Fat Panther, Volumptious (misspelled on purpose) , and even rarely Isis.