Hello! This is Patches! She is the first pet Joe and I got together. We decided to go check the various SPCA locations around Los Angeles. We kept "testing" kittens by putting them near my face, and seeing if I had a bad reaction. And I didn’t! I found out a few months later that cats’ dander changes after they are a year old. So kittens under a year old might not bother people with allergies, and when their dander changes, people can become more allergic to them. Luckily, my allergies still aren’t very severe, and Patches snuggles with me all the time.

Patches was the first kitten we saw on our SPCA jaunt around the city. She jumped to the roof of her cat cage, clung to it, and meowed this strange croaky meow. She sounded like a frog! Joe said, "That’s our cat!" We asked to hold her, and she promptly started licking Joe’s beard. I laughed and said I wonder if she’d always do that. Then, as we were holding her, she started sucking on her tail. We asked why she did that, and the SPCA people said they weren’t sure and that she’d grow out of it.

We saw a few other cats, but Patches had stolen our hearts. We called the first location that had Patches, and they said they were closing, but they’d keep her there for us and we could pick her up the very next day. So, on August 8, 1999 we brought our little girl home with us! Isn’t she adorable?


These first 4 pictures were taken the same day we got her. She is 13 weeks old here.

On the way home, she croaked some more, and we laughed about having a kitty with such a strange voice. When we got her home, we happened to have the faucet running, and she darted over. We let her drink from the faucet and a little while later, we discovered she had a really high pitched normal meow. She was just dehydrated! Then we discovered why – she has no clue in the world how to drink from a bowl or a water bottle. So the faucet was her water drinking station of choice for a long time.

The first few nights, we were actually pretty scared of her! She was really wild, and had razor sharp claws and was most excited when we went to sleep. We had this giant walk-in closet that we let her sleep in at night. She was SO tiny when we first got her -- such a little baby!


You can see the little black dot on her chin here. It looks like a goatee!

After a few months, she was still giving kisses, and still sucking her tail. She’d also lick stuff like the table and the remote control, which made us feel slightly less special! And that bitter apple spray they sell at pet stores? That didn’t deter her one bit from sucking her tail!

Patches is a very silly cat, too. One day, when I used to have my aquarium set up, I was calling my pet fish, Claire, and looking inside the tank. As Claire swam towards me, suddenly Patches was on my shoulders! She just jumped onto me! Maybe she was jealous of the aquarium. Or maybe she thinks she is a fish! I'm not sure. She is so funny, though!

Around Thanksgiving vacation, Patches got scary-wild. She was like this attack cat. But only to me! She would jump on me, and bite me in the head! She needed someone her own size to play with. So, for about a month, it was pretty much all I could think about or talk about. I guess I got a little obsessive! And finally, Joe said it was okay with him if I got another cat. He said, "Okay, okay, you can get another cat. But please, PLEASE, just stop talking about it!" Joe is sweet. I am crazy. We’re great together!

Patches and Homer together in the first few days! There was some unpleasantness initially:

Of course, now they love each other very much!

Today, Patches is a lot bigger, and sometimes smells funny. She still licks us all the time. Sometimes she seems to be part dog! She's too funny. I love her SO much! She has stopped sucking her tail and her preferred method of getting water is to shove her paws in her water bowl and lick them (update 2004: she's back to drinking from the faucet! She and Homer both drink from the sink, actually - crazy cats!). She’s very messy. She also seems to have the psychic ability to tell whenever I sit down on my bed or the couch, because she emerges from nowhere to sit on my lap and lick my hands. She loves sitting between Joe and me while we eat dinner. She really likes snuggling, and whenever either of us picks her up, she "hugs" us by pulling her chin down on our shoulders in between her paws as tight as possible. It's truly adorable. Patches is a very loved cat! We adore her, and look forward to laughing at her crazy antics for years to come!


This is a recent picture of Patches. Look how cute!

d.o.b. -- est: May 13, 1999
breed: Domestic Short Hair
favorite toy: the red rings from the water gallon jugs and/or q-tips
other: loves to eat! Also, she knows her name and comes when called! I am telling you, she's part dog.





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