cats that are mine, and not

At one point earlier this year I was asked by someone who didn't really know me how many cats I had. I said "Two. One gray and fluffy, one orange and crazy". When I related this to 'Col she said "Um. When are you going to mention the other two cats?" and you know, I was kind of surprised. Surprised that I'd really have to mention them.

gray cats, one and two, mine and not

Somewhere in my brain the cats remained divided into 'my cats' and 'the cats I just live with' even though we'd been living in this house for more than a year at that point. It is odd how that works because the example up above is not the first time that had happened - I might have live in a house with four cats but -I- only had two cats. Apparently I am not so good with the math.

And weirdly, this notion of two cats has remained stuck in my brain even though the Bird is gone. My language choices still speak of multiple cats - which makes sense if you think about the fact I live with three. But I've realized that while sometimes I speak of 'the cats' and I'm talking about Max & the Roo there is still quite a lot of times when I'm speaking with someone who doesn't really know me and when I say 'the cats' I mean Max and Bird.

Yeah. Like that's not slightly crazy.

And sometimes, just to make matters slightly more complicated, I am talking about Max and his hypothetical kitten who we will get when we move to keep Snacky company.

the snacky max, with chair

My life, apparently, is fill of cats that don't exist.