Black is beautiful

Our son Kirin decided that he wanted a dog. My wife Carol, his other mother, decided that he needed two white gerbils and a black cat. Galileo, aka, Gally was found at a shelter in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Gally was 2 when he came to the Austin house. H was/is very scared with loud noises and plastic bags. His eyes are green with his solid black coat he looks just like my spiritual animal, the black panther. Unfortunately he only comes to me when I have food.

The gerbils, Timmy and Jimmy were already 3. Gerbils were only supposed to live to be 2+1/2. We were worried about the cat and the gerbils, but Carol had a plan. She bought a large dog crate and put the two level gerbil house inside, and covered the sides and top with card board.

Gally would sit in front of the gerbil crate for hours as the gerbils ate their sunflower seeds and ran on the wheel.

This was only my second time having and being around a cat. The first time was over thirty years ago when I was living in an apartment building, a couple of blocks from the 7 th District MPDC station where I was a young police officer.

After being there for a few months mice started to run across me in the living room. A friend loaned me a gray short haired cat. The cat was there for one reason. To catch and hopefully remove the mice.

Two nights later I was watching tv when I saw the cat running after something. When the cat came in front of me, she dropped a mouse at my feet. Thinking the mouse was dead I got up to get it, but the cat touched the mouse and it moved and started running. The cat sorta smiled and went after the mouse.

I‘d seen enough, got up turned off the tv, closed the door and went to bed. The next morning when I got up and opened the door there was a half eaten mouse waiting for me. It was a gift.

After two more of these ”gifts”, I got out of the lease and thanked my friend for her well trained cat.

Our son Kirin got a call from one of his friends one day who said she had found a small baby kitten, but that they could not afford to keep it. The next day we went and got the kitten and took it to the shelter in case he belonged to someone else.

So I called every week for three weeks until the kitten was old enough to be adopted. And then Kirin had to convince his other mother that we needed another cat. Carol said no, but when they called me to come get the kitten, I could not help it.

Wow another black cat. This one had a little white on his belly. Not sure how Gally was going to respond, Kirin kept the baby, who fit in one of Kirin’s hands, in his room until he could walk down the stairs. Gally was amazing, cleaning the baby and teaching him how to go to the bathroom.

Kirin wanted to name him Lucifer, I objected, and the friend that found him decided on Licorice.

So as he has grown his face and head is still small, but his body is long and his tail is long but since he is about a year and a half he is still only 10 pounds compared to Gally being 22 pounds. He also has whit whiskers that makes him look like an old man.

He has developed this very loud meow when he wants attention. Gally says “hello” or “carol” when he wants snacks. But lil Licorice just gives that great loud and long meow.

I was not sure about cats but they are a joy to our home. Carol feeds them tuna fish every morning at about 6 am. Then our other son Duncan feeds them dinner between 3/4pm. And yes he also fereds them tuna fish. Yes And unlike Gally. Licorice sleeps with me, his granny.