And so we meet

Good morning my dears.  Allow me to introduce myself.  I am the leader of the Merry little Band known as the McBride Pride.  As a Calico, it falls as a natural order of things that I should be Queen.  You may call me Highness or if I like you, Batgirl.  It takes a lot of work to keep the humans in line but they have learned over the past 9 years to toe the line.  Breakfast at 7, lunch at 12:30 and dinner at 8.  They have learned through trial and error not to try to fob off the cheap food imported from unknown countries.  The lesson was learned hard by the death of my sister, Lucile...she preferred the calling of Lucy.  We all loved Lucy.  So now we have our own place to let our kind and kin know what goes on in the world of Ca't.

My elder, Pyewackit the Siamese sleeps uneasily these days.  He is old and has the skinny hindquarters of the elderly.  The female human worries about him because he tends to nap in unorthodox places like the backs of sofas and chairs and has fallen from his perch several times a week.  Very unca't like.  He wears his age like a band aid and gets extra treats of tuna and bacon...the female human boils him chicken livers and chops them finely because he has lost several teeth over the years.  She worries. 

Sonny and Cher, the two Russian Blues are as different as peas from other pods.  To be honest, Sonny is a suck up.  He even helps the humans with mundane chores such as bed making.  I mean really!  How he can lower himself to such depths is beyond my kin.  Cher is quite sweet, if rather vacant.  I have heard the male human say when speaking of her that the lights are on but no body's home.  I finally sussed out the meaning of that.  Though I love the Mister, I take offence at my young charge being thus labeled.  She is, after all, Queen in Waiting.

Then there is Speck...he came to us through a divorce in the family.  Coming from a broken home has made him, as I've heard it said, needy.  He will wrap himself around the human being's necks and cry and purr and demand petting.  They give in to this for a bit, but soon his weight and heat make them shove him off with a pat and "go way now kitty".  And so he goes.

Our Hound was found in the well house whilst a tiny baby, eyes not yet open.  She had been abandoned by her mother and so the humans took her in and raised her as one of them.  Hound is quite seriously insane.  She has one foot in the human world and  three feet in the ca't world and is not quite sure exactly where she belongs.  She longs to be held in the arms of the female human and on the other hand she longs to slap her.  She frequently does both.  She also takes long runs down the hall to climb her human mother and sit upon the shoulder of she who saved her.  I have heard them say that when she was but a kitten, it was cute.  Now it is simply terrifying.

We came by Caroline through the kind act of the child human who lives in the dwelling across the acreage.  She came with her in her arms and asked the male human if she was ours and that they were afraid the pit bulls who lived with them would kill her.  The Mister took her into his arms and brought her inside.  And so she stayed.  She is marked like an ocelot and has wise eyes and tipped back ears. She is quite afraid of my wrath and walks around me ears lowered and cheek by jowl growling like an African Ca't.  But when she is outside she is quite the little bully and takes no trash off any of the yard ca'ts.  The yard ca'ts are not quite right either.  They sleep with a rooster named Dudley and allow him to eat with them. 

We came by JJ because Caroline had a flirtation with a tom who answered to the name of Jack.  My humans were so upset because her appointment for her trip to the land of Hartsville had only been days away.  Our Dr. Lawhon was happy to put off what they called the procedure...and so Caroline became a mother.  I was a mother twice before they managed to capture my person and take me to the land of Hartsville.  Pyewackit tried to warn me, but I figured what could a Tom know?  I hadn't noticed...he always sat like a warrior...who knew?  But JJ is quite the sweet little Tom and he was taken quickly to the land of Hartsville where he was altered.  He loves to sleep on the end of the human's bed and they allow it...I don't lower myself to sleep with the likes of humans...it gives them to much power over a ca't.

So this is my little pride.  I don't believe I have left anyone out, but they do slip in here, so I could be wrong. We shall be writing to you at least weekly and will keep you posted as to our whereabouts and doings.  We have quite a time here in the land of Jeff-er'son.