Our kitty compound outside Orlando Florida houses all strays who wander up to our old Victorian house, under renovation. Our hobby is feeding feral strays, catching them and affording them shots and such. And we take all throwaways. Muffy came to us from an acquaintance who had used her as a show cat, she is a lilac point Himalayan, but she got too old for this and former owners were not interested in keeping her. She even won a beauty contest at Walt Disney World, dressed in sunglasses and who knows what else, by her former owners. They were dog people, you see, and since our baby is not doglike, and was horrified I am sure at being exploited by the ultimate mouse, her former owners discarded her.

We added her to our menagerie of nine cats and changed her name to Malice, more befitting her personality since she is quite shy and hides a lot in secret places, a clear absence of Malice.

Of course, she is very sweet looking, just not SWEET. On her recent trip to the vet, the new assistant asked why we gave such a severe name to such a pretty cat. Malice looked at him, batting her big blue eyes, and swishing her regal tail, just before she bit him severely. He only said 'Oh, I see' while stemming the blood flow. Malice has grown to love us, or maybe it is that she has mellowed in old age, now 15. No matter, we love her plenty, even if she is guilty of getting away with murder, in the first degree of course, with Malice aforethought in everything she does!

Copyright © Lacy Loar
August 30, 2002