Local reporter known as the Crazy Chicken Lady adds cats to her resume

As a reporter for The Eagle, I probably should have been paying a little more attention to the animal shelter overcrowding problem. After all, people have been sounding the alarm for some time, and it’s getting worse, not better.

However, I was blissfully unaware until the situation hit home. Literally.

A stray cat who was roaming Riverside this spring seemed to be especially fond of our front porch. Perhaps that was due to the milk we gave her daily. And nightly.

As someone who is deathly allergic to cats, I have had no experience with them, so I had no clue if this was a male or female. Or that I wasn’t supposed to feed it milk.

There were other neighbors offering food, too, but — like every situation I’m in — cats (and dogs — another allergy for me) seem to gravitate to me. Like, “Oh, there’s someone who doesn’t want me. I should go see her.” There could be 10 people in a room going, “Here, kitty, kitty,” and that cat will prance right by them to try to snuggle with me.

The big clue for me that this cat was a girl is when she had babies and decided my window well would make a nice home for them.

I thought I’d solved the situation with the help of our neighborhood Cat Whisperer, who said he had a connection to get them spayed and neutered. He explained how he’d keep the babies safe in one room at his house, and the mama could still go in and out a little cat door to make her neighborhood rounds.

Fabulous, I said.

Within 36 hours, all but one was back. I could say more, but under advisement, I’ll just move on.

So I began endless rounds of calls, e-mail queries, Facebook requests and everything else I could think of to try to find a shelter or a new home for these little creatures, whom I suddenly cared about very, very deeply.

Friends who came for dinner were told they’d get a free kitty as a parting gift. The ploy did not work.

Shelter after shelter said there was no room at the inn. And those were the ones I could reach. Others were too busy to even come to the phone.

My husband, Joe, asked daily, weekly and monthly what was happening with the cat situation. As the cats destroyed our back porch (we’ll need all-new cushions and pillows next spring), the tension around the issue built. But my love for these babies grew.

So did my expenses. Cat food. Cat treats. Pate. Cat toys. Christmas-themed cat toys.

I got to know each of their personalities.

Whiskers, the mama, clearly had been someone’s pet. I don’t know how anyone could abandon such a lovable and friendly furry being.

Callie (short for calico before I learned she isn’t one) turns out is a Calvin. He’s friendly and fun and is so interested in me I have to pick him up when I go out to fill the food and water bowls so I don’t trip over him in the process.

No Name does not have a name because I don’t think he cared to have me involved to the extent of bestowing him with one. He’s a proud, defiant kitty. I’ve snuck in some cautious petting when he’s bent over eating, but as soon as he realizes it’s me, he darts away.

Then there’s my baby, Essie, named because one day she got a little scar on her forehead, and Joe started calling her Scarface. She’s much too sweet and snuggly for that name, so that morphed into SC and then Essie.

Essie is so amazingly charming and darling, I simply have to pick her up. Daily. It doesn’t help that I wash my hands and face and usually change my shirt immediately after. I start sneezing and clawing my eyes and using drops and cursing myself but loving her yet the same. Once, she fell asleep in my arms. I didn’t want to move. Ever.

Joe tried to explain cat math to me and the procreation process. He said we were going to have 24 cats before we knew it.

I knew it, too. I also knew that instead of being known only as the Crazy Chicken Lady (see exhibits A: http://bit.ly/3TqoK6V and B: https://bit.ly/4azjswf from previous Eagle stories), I could now add Crazy Cat Lady to my resume.

I’d like to offer some advice to anyone in a similar situation.

First, if you’re not allergic, keep the critters. Before I had animals (intentionally or not), I admit I didn’t fully realize how much joy they can add to your life.

I’m like the Grinch. Since having animals, my heart has grown three sizes. Maybe more.

If you really can’t keep them, get your name on a shelter list now. You may think you can come up with another option instead of waiting several months for a spot to come open, but trust me, five months can fly by in a flash, and you’re still trying to find someone to take the animals.

I resorted to saying something to everyone I knew (and even some people I didn’t) in person and on social media. You can’t imagine how many friends of friends of friends I’ve contacted in my search for help.

One day at physical therapy, I saw a former co-worker who suggested I contact a woman known to have cat connections. That woman hooked me up with a fellow Crazy Cat Lady (and I mean this in the best sense), who was able to help me jump a number of places (meaning months) in line to get the cats fixed.

A similar process has helped me find new homes for the cats. The sister and brother-in-law of a good friend of mine unexpectedly lost their cat at Thanksgiving. They came to meet Whiskers, who immediately went to them, snuggling with the wife and extending a paw to the husband so as not to leave him out. I truly could not be happier for them and Whiskers, who is now known as Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit (after the Beatrix Potter mother cat).

Then came my painful goodbye with Essie. I’m thrilled that a loving young lady in Douglass received her as an early Christmas present to replace a cat she lost. She’s renamed Essie Wanda, apparently because her sister told her to, and seemed to be able to calm a nervous Essie — I mean Wanda — as she prepared to take her. The girl and her friend were visiting with Wanda as her mother and I chatted, but I finally just had to kick them all out because I couldn’t take the prolonged goodbye.

Calvin already is spoken for but won’t be leaving until Christmas, and I’ve got a line on No Name. One adoption already has fallen through, so if this one doesn’t work out, you’ll likely hear about it because I’ll be back to telling everyone my plight.

In fact, maybe I should just start right now. If an aloof cat who prefers not to be touched and may or may not be silently judging you sounds like your kind of pet, please e-mail me at the address below.

I’ve also got plenty of opossums and raccoons if you’re interested, but that’s another story.

This story was originally published December 18, 2023 at 4:04 AM.