My furfamily, Pepper

Pepper, turns out I stole her. She may have been the first kitty I stole, but she won't be the last. She was a neighbor’s kitty.

A teeny weeny all gray kitty with a wee white bib . She was on my patio in POURING rain looking desperate and alone an quite wet. I took her in. No one seemed to have lost a kitty, so I kept her, had her spayed, got her shots… months later my upstairs neighbor came to me and said “you stole my cat” – HUH? “You can keep her”… Good, I did.

Pepper was such a lover, when she'd stay indoors she was quite the snuggler. She loved the girls, Ian and me with as much vigor as she loved the outdoors.

Pepper was silly, she was not one to be indoors. I tried. She’d bust out screens to get outside, so I gave up and let her. There was a boat sales place across the street from us when we lived in the apartments. She must have moused over there or something. She’d go in the boats and sleep, but when I clicked the sliding door lock, she’d come a ‘runnin’ home.

One night, she didn’t. I couldn’t find her. I called, I clicked, no Pepper.

(So named for being all gray, like I said, I wasn't original in my ability to give names)

Then late that night I hear my bedroom screen, scared me, someone was trying to break in, it was Pepper.
How she knew that was my window in the row of identical looking windows, I don’t know. But that then became a habit, she’d busted out the corner of that screen so I locked my window open Pepper wide and she’d come and go through that hole in the screen.

She was a lover and a runner. When we moved to the house, we tried again to make her a house kitty. Wasn’t going to happen. She was quite the escape artist. Heartbreakingly, she was running across the street one night and didn’t make it. We didn’t live on a busy street, but she was all gray and someone hit her. My poor love was cut short at a very young age. I was devastated, as were we all. My neighbor came to tell me she was in the road.

She holds a very special place in our hearts, always will.