I was cleaning up my sidebar recently, when I realized that I'm still on the Knity Kitty blogring.  And ... how long has it seriously been since my two girls have made it onto the blog?  I feel like I haven't been "blogging" much lately, just "cataloguing" my FO's.  So, in an effort to be a better blogger, I feel I must at last re-introduce my two girls.

I have to tell you that I've been a cat lover my whole life ... so it of course worked out perfectly when I learned how to knit, as don't we all know that knitters love cats?  (Or rather, that cats love knitters [and their yarn]?)  When, at the end of my college years, my boyfriend (whom I was actually living with at the time) informed me that I "just wasn't the one for him" (loser!), I took heart because he was allergic to cats... and this meant that I could finally buy a cat of my own one day without having to make the choice between a significant other and owning a cat.

So, when I then went to graduate school and lived in my first apartment (alone, that is!), I went on the search for the perfect cat.  But, it had to be the perfect cat.  And, for some reason, I've had a minor obsession with both dalmatians and calico cats for years and years.*  (As an aside, I think it's the same reason I love Noro ... I just love random spots, blotches of color, and just absolute spontaneity in patterns.)  Well, the Dalmatian was not going to fit into a one-bdrm apartment, so off I went on a hunt for the perfect calico cat.  I went to shelters in Fort Collins (where I lived) ... shelters in Boulder (where the Big Sweetie lived -- yes, he was part of the picture then) ... and even to random shelters in Denver ...

... until one day I stumbled into a small little animal shelter in Denver, and who did I see peeking out of a cage at the end of the row but an adorable tiny calico kitten!  I knew at that moment that this is the one!  When I walked up, however ... guess what?  There wasn't one adorable calico kitten, but two in the cage!  Two little sister kittens, who had been found together with no others.  So, the first one that I saw was the most precious and beautiful little kitten with a half-orange face.  The second was a scrawny, terrified little kitten with a weird orange stripe down her nose that made her eyes look crossed.  The first, I just knew, would be perfect ... she was such a sweetie.  The second, I just knew, would be a complete loser and have serious issues to deal with.  But I couldn't leave her behind, could I??

I of course came home with both of them. 

The "girls" and I ca. 1996.  (Holy cow ... they'll be ten years old this summer!)

And guess what I just joined?  Yep, the Calico Cats webring.

*And, as another aside, did you know that calico cats are almost always females?  I don't know why, but the subversive feminist in me loves that only girl kitties get to be calicos.   But who ever knew that calicos were the official Maryland state cat?