Ok, it's #Caturday story time on how hubby and I became cat parents. (A thread)

I grew up with dogs. I was a dog person. I liked cats, but was allergic to them.

Here's a pic of my puppers Scruffy, who moved in with my parents when I moved from Louisiana to Texas. 1/

When I moved to Texas, my best friend had cats, and my allergies abated after about 6 months. I met my husband, and we moved in together. We had no pets of our own, but the neighbor's cat Lilly was basically a timeshare: our house during the day, hers at night. 2/

We were in the midst of working on the house, changing the soffit and facia, and we heard noises in the attic over the kitchen. We found that we had a cat. We thought that we'd TNR, until we found that she was pregnant and would need a longer recovery from surgery. 3/

Hubby and I discussed it, and decided we'd keep this feral sweetie, and named her Anna Katranova, or Annie for short. So we brought her in, and began acclimating her to being inside. She seemed docile enough and after 2 days, she needed her litter box cleaned. 4/

I spoke softly to her, and quietly opened her cage. She decided at that point that she didn't like the cage anymore, and plotted that moment to escape. I found her in the corner of the dining room, behind boxes, and she made motions of wanting to be picked up. Big mistake. 5/

We finally retrapped her in a trap, and moved her to a bedroom where she could acclimate without being in a cage. We gave her plenty of toys, food, water, and love, but she preferred the safety of her carrier. 6/

After a couple of months of my husband's 88yo mother seeing pics of Annie, she decided she might like to have a cat, provided said cat visited her while we were with her, and the cat lived with us the rest of the time. So we went to the shelter, and found a 14 week old kitten. 7/

Meet Jinx. To this day, we get this look when the food bowl is empty. Jinx fit right in with Annie, and became the kitten Annie didn't know she needed. Ruth loved her dearly, and made yarn balls for her to play with. She was a peculiar cat, and liked Broccoli. 8/

Fast forward 6 months, Jinx has settled in, Annie is becoming less feral and skittish, leading to the first time I got to pet Annie without getting clawed. We are summoned to the neighbor's house, as she has a cat that showed up needing vet care. 9/

We get the new cat taken to the emergency vet, and two days later, we find out why the old tom, Bent (and crooked) wandered in: he had a tuxedo kitten in tow: Angus. Now, we already had Annie and Jinx, and let me tell you: /10

Jinx was NONE too thrilled about having another kitten around. She was shocked, then pissed at us, and let us know in NO uncertain terms: she even started flipping us off with her tail. This lasted all of a week, and then after a walk, we found them like this: /11

They fell into a routine, Annie was (and still is) too skittish to get into a carrier, but we'd take Jinx and Gus to grandma's so she could enjoy them daily. They became goofballs, each with their own personalities: Annie mothered the two children, /12

Jinx became the stereotypical middle child: sneaky, conniving, and all around shit-stirrer, and Gus... well, Gus is our special little boy. He's not the brightest, or the most coordinated, but he's a sweet cat who has the nickname Brunswick, due to his size. /13

And so ends this thread on our goofballs, Anna Katranova, Jinx, and Angus. /END