I know, I know. It’s been years since I reported on the goings on of my domestic feline situation and you’re desperate for the latest.
Well, the first bit of news is the worst: Last December, my cat companion of 16 years, Ursa, passed on to the other side. Ursa was with me through such a big chunk of life that half of 2026 has just been about adjusting to life without her. Through multiple moves across country, dozens of roommates, and numerous boyfriends – who she watched come and go with characteristic disdain – Ursa was my home. She was sassy, opinionated, extremely affectionate, chatty, despised most other cats, and was the Queen of my Heart.
Luckily, for the last two years prior to her death, we got to live just the two of us. If you’ve followed this series at all you know that back in 2023 Ursa had to stomach a major offense to her lifestyle when not only a boyfriend but also his CAT stayed with me for a while.
The simplest way to put it was she hated her life for that period. Not to mention that summer when we ended up taking in a stray pregnant female who had a little of TEN kittens who overtook the apartment and our lives in total for several months. Then two of them came on board as permanent residents. Ursa was not a fan, and she made it known by summarily peeing on the bed multiple times. This special performance art installation included an incident where she made the loudest statement of disapproval she could muster – peeing on the bed while I was innocently sleeping in it.
However, I don’t blame her. To be honest, I hated that period of time too. It was too many humans – and way too many fucking cats – in one small space. Ultimately, after much irritated accommodation on the part of Ursa, the kittens and the mom all got adopted out to lovely homes, and the boyfriend and his cat moved out and he took the two extra cats with him.
Ursa and I got to spend the last few years of her life just the two of us. We took our morning courtyard strolls everyday (see video above), and whenever I came home when I pulled up and parked my car she would start meowing at me from the front door long before I had gotten to the front porch. She greeted me every time I came in the door, following me around like a dog, stating her opinions about everything.
After sixteen years of a relatively healthy life with only a few emergencies that she powered through like a champ, her decline happened extremely fast, abruptly being unable to walk one morning at the end of one of our courtyard strolls. This was both disorienting and a blessing. At first I thought it was going to look like steroids would help her manage the pain that had accelerated so quickly. But the steroids were a false hope. She was ready to be put down less than two weeks later. If I hadn’t had an appointment on the books, I could tell from how she was looking at me from her recovery basket lined with pee pads – a miserable station for a diva who was used to living the good life up until then – that she was ready to go.
Suffice it to say 2026 hasn’t been awesome thus far without her. The apartment felt eerily silent for months. Neighbors commented how empty the courtyard felt without her traipsing around, scratching trees, chirping hello to them from the other side of their screen doors (she felt all porches in the courtyard were her turf of course), and picking fights with other cats (again, she felt the entire courtyard was her turf).
And life goes on. I’ve lost pets before but it never gets any easier. After this one I have felt more seriously that I won’t adopt another cat again. It’s basically a guarantee you’ll have your heart blasted open at some point because their lifespans are so much shorter than ours.
NONETHELESS, the cats know where to find me. During the aforementioned Year of a Thousand Kittens, two short haired black male cats started coming around. Initially they were both given the same name (Sneakers) because we thought they were the same cat showing up frequently. Then when they came by at the same time, I realized there were two. Still, because they palled around together so much I felt it worked fine for them to continue sharing a name. They were TNR’d (see previous post for cat lady terminology) and their sisters were part of the indoor crew who ended up getting adopted out.
Ursa was, unusually, quite tolerant of the Sneakers Brothers. She definitely didn’t want them coming inside, but when she crossed paths with them outside she would usually just sort of nod and maybe give a bit of a snarl. Okay well honestly a few times she swatted at them and told them to fuck off, understandably. But mostly she coexisted alongside them in peace, the delineation between The Patio Cats and The Housecat being pretty clear to her.
After she died, though I am not eager to or ready to replace her, nonetheless these two patio bruisers have become the focus of all my Cat Lady energy. They come around for breakfast and dinner, and sometimes lounge on the patio all day. We have a nice routine where I get my cat fix but don’t have to be responsible for their whereabouts, and they get reliably food without having to answer to anyone about how they spend their days. It’s a nice open system kind of relationship.
UNTIL, one of them, the skinnier one who is already more feral, disappeared. Normally, they’ll take a day or two “off” from meals, here and there – off on a walkabout of some kind, I always figure. But this was much longer than the average walkabout, and after two weeks, I presumed him dead. NextDoor is constantly reminding us that there are savage coyotes throughout Los Angeles, and though the Sneakers Bros. are young and athletic, you never know what kind of bullshit they might get involved in when they’re out in the wild. I consoled myself with still being able to give tummy rubs to the remaining brother, and noticed how easily he adapted to his brother being gone. They’re kind of assholes, really.
Then one day I had an early call time and was back home heading out on a run at a time of day I don’t usually head out. I heard a mangled, strained “Mreeeow? Mrrr eee owrrr!”
It was coming from under my next-door neighbor’s crawl space. I stepped forward and peeked through the grate just in time to see a black paw dart back from the light. I put food and water on the inside of the cill and went on my run, and saw it had been eaten. Maybe it was the missing brother.
I kept putting food and water out and it was eaten quickly, and then the next day I saw him standing on the cill: It was SNEAKERS! Emaciated and starved, but still alive! He had been under there for two weeks, and seemed to be rapidly becoming a Weird Basement Cat.
He was too scared to come out and I fed him on the cill for a few days, and he started getting quite comfortable in his weird underworld prison. His brother came by during one feeding session and watched him like, “Dud, what the fuck are you doing down there?”
Finally, I had to trick him to come out with the dish set far enough away that I could shut the latch while he was eating. He ran off, terrified, and I thought, “Oh fuck, now he’s going to get hit by a car or run away and I’ll never see him again.”
Within twenty minutes he was sunbathing and licking his toes on the rooftop of a neighbor’s garage. So he’s totally fucking fine.
After that ordeal, I decided it was time to give these fucking cats proper names. We had really been through it together, and now the skinnier one seemed to trust me more than he had before.
To account for his harrowing underworld journey, I christened him Styx, while his brother became Orpheus – to keep it in the Greek tragedy family and because he’s the singer of the two, and a lover, and I’m a huge Nick Cave fan.
Next, OF COURSE, Orpheus went missing for over a week. These fucking cats. As per usual I fretted and agonized each time I saw a harrowing post about a missing cat or coyote attack on local cats on NextDoor, tried to let go and just focus on building my relationship with Styx, and reasoned that this was better anyway because it helped me cut down on cat food to only feed one of them.
Then one morning his little face popped up over the top of the fence and he came running into the back porch, chirping and throwing himself down for belly rubs (on a noticeably slimmer belly, after eight days foraging on his own). So now we’re back in business.
Patio Cats don’t provide the same function as HouseCats. They’re free to come and go when they want, and they don’t allow for snuggling or picking up and holding (though they like being petted and having belly rubs). They don’t anchor the home in the same way. However, they are attuned to when I come and go, they do maintain a fairly regular rhythm, and they’re the right amount of cat for someone who has to have cats around but is still recuperating from the broken heart of losing a companion of sixteen years. But in all of the above types of cats, I do seem to have called in black cats specifically. They’re supposed to be good for protection. They’re also really good at biting the heads and tails off lizards.