Cass and Dinah

And finally....Cass and Dinah are my two cats. Cass is a short haired cat. I think he's a mix between a Russian Blue and a Siamese. He's about 11, and VERY talkative. Cass was a gift from my good friend Erica. When I first moved to Toronto, she came to visit. I had always wanted a cat of my own, so we went to the pound. We met Cass and he was perfect. She had to stand guard over him so another family didn't adopt him while I went to get the correct ID. It's a good thing, too, as he almsot got adopted by a family that wanted to name him "Smokey", relegating him to a life of boring suburban existence.

Dinah, on the other hand, is a CHUBBY orange tabby. She's a princess, a very clumsy princess, built a little like the Buddha. She enjoys rolling around and having her tummy rubbed. Unfortunately, she will often roll onto her back on something high, like a counter, and wriggle around while her tummy is being rubbed. Sometimes, she will wriggle right off the side. Of course, after she drops off the edge of whatever she was on, she'll get back to her feet, look at you with disdain (as if to say "of course, I MEANT to do that") and toddle off to find some food.

Food is the main source of Cass and Dinah's excitement, these days (well, other than staying away fromt he Dog). Dinah has a three alarm system for food. Alarm stage 1: there is less than an inch deep of food in their dish (a good 6" x 6" square), where it might be possible that they could run out of food in about 5 days. This requires a lot of meowing and twining around of feet. Alarm stage 2: there is less than 1cm deep of food in their dish, where it might be possible that they could run out of food in about 3 days. This requires more meowing and ensuring she's in your shadow constantly. Alarm stage 3: you can see a little bit of the bottom of the dish.This is pretty serious and requires her chasing us down the hallway every time we go towards the back of the house, where her dish is. In fact, you can tell how close Dinah is to total starvation by how fast and heavily she chases you down the hallway. There have been a few close calls, but I would not say that Dinah and Cass have ever gone hungry. Of course, if you listen to Dinah, there is always that possibility tomorrow.