The cats have been all over my wife's bed this evening - they are looking for her and seem to be worried that she is not there. Trouble and Shiloh plow into the wife's blankets and love to snore with her at night.

Well, my young bride of 37 years is in Hong Kong until Friday night on a business trip. Mister Mittens seems to be OK with that. The Momcat is upstairs with me.

The two young ones are downstairs with 1/8 Pole. He rants about killing and skinning cats but you can often find him petting the cats, laying out toys for them, and setting them up with food.

There is not one cat in my home without the love and kindness that 1/8 Pole showed to Mister Mittens more than a year ago. Time and again he fed that cat and brought her into the house. He fed her cans of Bumblee tuna and hugged and loved her. She loved him despite being a feral street cat that had to hunt for food on a daily basis. She was less than a year old but had the smarts to survive last year's blizzards and stay alive.

Come early July and Mister Mittens was in a jam and all alone. Mom Nature told her that she was going to give birth. Mister Mittens came to my house and cried. She was looking for 1/8 Pole, the only human that ever loved her and showed her kindness. She was in labor and needed to be somewhere safe.

My bride took the cat in and laid her out on the loveseat in the living room. When birth was there my wife laid out a comforter next to the front stoop and Mister Mittens had 4 kittens there with no problem.

In the morning the four kittens were alive and well and nursing happily but you didn't have to be an old fart Marine to understand that the entire front lawn and street were open to the Momcat and that she was in a bad defensive position with her kittens.

I got them into the garage on a nice blanket and left the door open a bit so that Mister Mittens could go out to do her business with the ladies' room. I wanted her to be able to see any predator coming to her from just one direction. I go out a few hours later with food and water. The cats are gone.

I figure the Momcat has carried her kittens off one by one to a place she likes better than my garage but I'm not quite senile yet and go to the back end. There, scrunched up behind some nice boards is Mister Mittens. She was OK napping while her kittens nursed. You have maybe 6 inches of open space to get to her and her kittens if you are making an attack. Wow, talk about defense!

Long story short - next day the bride puts a cat bed out in the garage. It's 100 degrees out and has to be 115 in the garage. Next day it's over 100 again. The kittens are cooking.

Next day - five cats come into my house for some air conditioning. Two kittens get adopted. Two stay with their mother. We keep those three.

Me? I love them and lay out huge vet money for shots, worms and physicals and more cash for food.

What's coming back? Not a goddamn thing except gentle head butts at 4:30 in the morning for breakfast. Or maybe a cat walking up your body in bed before dawn and then breathing into your face from 2 inches away. The cat is gentle and quiet and has no claws or teeth out - it simply wants your old ass out of bed to make a good breakfast.