In which we get cats and I discover that Primo baby talks to them, which is a little creepy if you ask me

Spring 2009 We are in the house, done with the big traveling (we take a two-week trip to Spain and Morocco in the fall as our sort of honeymoon, then have to go to Sly and Doris' for Thanksgiving), settling in.

It's time for cats.

Primo promised me cats.

I have found a purebred cat rescue place run by crazy cat ladies that has Siamese cats. Siamese are my favorite. They look cool and they don't shed as much as other cats do. O'Malley, the Siamese we had when I was a kid, didn't even have a brush. He just didn't shed. Love that.

Crazy cat ladies are the same all over. When I tried to get cats when I lived in Miami - I wanted them because I had rats and my landlord's suggestion to get a snake was not that appealing to me - a crazy cat lady came to my house to inspect it before they would give me the cats.

"Vere vill ze kitties sleep?" she demanded. As if you can dictate where a cat sleeps.

"Vere vill ze kitties eat?" she asked.

She was appalled when I mentioned that one of the reasons I wanted the cats was because I had rats.

"You cannot haff ze cats if you haff ze rats!" she exclaimed.

Ha, I told her. Yes you can. I have to work for a living. Why shouldn't my cats?

The Fairview crazy cat ladies are not much better, although they don't require a home inspection. I do, however, have to complete a questionnaire asking me about my habits and my cat philosophy. Indoor vs outdoor is always one of the big questions and the answer is always a shocked, "I would NEVER let my cat outdoors," even if you have every intention of turning your cats into mighty rabbit hunters. I know this now because I have been turned down for cats when I answered well of course I am going to let them outside! Do you think I like litter boxes?

What is my vet philosophy? How much money am I willing to spend on a sick animal? I don't tell them the truth, which is that for most animal sicknesses, it's a blindfold and a cigarette. I can get a new cat for $150. Why would I spend thousands of dollars repairing the old one?

Primo disagrees with me on that one, by the way. Primo is way more sentimental than I will ever be. He should probably have a lawyer help him make some explicit directive on how much medical care he wants or I might pull the plug way earlier than he intended. Except I would pay a lot more to keep Primo alive than I would the cats. Even though he is worth some money dead. Just saying.

Anyhow. We pass the rigorous interrogation on their website and I start watching for a pair of Siamese cats. If you're going to get one cat, you might as well get two so they can play with each other. Cats are a lot more social than people think.

Two Siamese become available in a week that Primo is out of town. I email him the particulars, including the link to a video of the cats. They are so cute.

His somewhat panicked control freak micro-manager response:

The prospect of getting cats RIGHT NOW is causing me some stress, as I'd prefer not to be dealing with that in my short time at home between my trips this week and next week. I would also prefer to have some time to prepare the house in advance. (We may have to install at least one and maybe two cat doors, right? And we'll need to buy a cat box, litter, food, etc. I would like to have some degree of involvement in these things.)

Maybe we could arrange to get the cats a little later (for example, a week or two from now) instead of right away.

Oh good grief. We argue back and forth until I wear him down and he agrees that maybe I am capable of

1. Buying cat food
2. Buying a litter box
3. Buying kitty litter
4. Going to pick up the cats all by myself, especially because the crazy cat lady won't let us dibs them so if we want these cats, I have to get them now

I get the cats. They are so cute. Primo returns home and falls in love. Deep Love. We name them Lily and Sam. (Not really, but those are their blog names.) He picks Sam up and croons to her. Whispers in a tiny little voice. Baby talks.

I am a little grossed out.

"That's just weird," I tell him. "That's such an intimate tone. You're creepy."

He protests. "They're cute!" he says. "We're not going to have kids, so they're my babies."

Oh that's just weird. If I had known he was a cat baby-talker before I married him, I might not have said, "I do." The only good thing is that he has never called himself "Daddy" to the cats or referred to me as "Mommy." I just try not to listen the rest of the time.