Growing up, we always had cats. It seems that one of us were always finding and bringing home strays. Our cats were indoor/outdoor cats. But a strange thing happened: our cats would often disappear after just a few years with us. We never knew what happened to them. Were they hit by a car? Were they injured in a fight? We never found out.

Eventually, my parents put their feet down and declared "no more cats!". Until my father's secretary was moving and couldn't find a home for her 2-year-old Siamese cat.

So Charlie came to live with us. He was a wonderful cat: intelligent, loving, talky in that way that only Siamese are. He, too, was an indoor/outdoor cat. He used up almost all his nine lives getting into fights that always seemed to lead to abscesses. He also battled kidney problems, almost succumbing many times, until finally his kidneys failed and my parents had to make the difficult decision for him. He was somewhere around 12 years old. I didn't know cats could live that long.

I never planned to have indoor cats. When I moved into my first apartment in a new city, which had a no-pet policy, I was terribly lonely. One day I opened my door and found a small grey kitten waiting for me. I played with her, but didn't take her in. I called my parents. I called my boyfriend. They all said "no!". And that is how Puss came to live with me.

Since I wasn't supposed to have pets at all, Puss never got to go out. A month before leaving this apartment to get married, a Momma cat and kittens showed up in my building. My husband-to-be wasn't sure he wanted one cat; he certainly didn't want two! "NO!" resounded once again. So I just fed and played with the kittens.

But no one was taking any of these adorable kittens. I couldn't stand it, so finally I took in the bravest kitten, figuring she could hold her own against 1-year-old Puss. I was right about that: Cleo went on to become alphacat.

We got married and lived in a condo. The condo's rules about pets were a gray area, so we decided once again that the cats would remain indoors. And so they did, through our move into an apartment in Texas, and then a house. From the day I took them in, Puss and Cleo never went outdoors again — although Puss did make a break for it once or twice when we lived in Vermont. Cleo, on the other hand, would walk up to a door and just sit down. She loved to watch the world go by outside, but from the protection of a house.

Cleo lived to sixteen. Puss is seventeen, and though she has some health problems, I'm hoping she'll live at least another year, maybe more if we're lucky. I never knew cats could live that long! I think the major factor in their long lives was the fact that they never went outdoors.

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