Memory, all alone in the moonlight.

Hi all. Leslie's husband here with you for just five more posts (this one and the posts for next week).

Firstly, thank you for all the kind and fun comments. Leslie has been reading them and she's grateful to everyone offering their condolences. She's also been telling me to read them and we're both glad you guys seem to be having fun with this temporary change in programming. It's been reassuring to her that you guys have been sticking around while she takes a short break.

We've admittedly been busy today as we prep to head back home for the funeral. Leslie is currently writing the eulogy that she'll be giving and we spent the day doing errands, such as dropping off our latest addition to our family at Leslie's friend's place.

Snoopy, our newest member is only 6 months old.

We're still trying to figure out what Snoopy's personality is going to be given how young he is, but so far, he's super affectionate. He literally pets our faces very gently and when we sleep, he likes to hold one of our hands. I typically sleep on my left side with my right arm across my body, holding my left shoulder and my left hand under the pillow. He will dig under the pillow until I bring my hand out and once I lay my hand in front of him, he puts he two paws on top of it and settles down. It's super cute. It's super weird too, but it's super cute. He also has the silent meow, the kind where you can see him meowing, but you can barely hear it. Snoopy is second softest of our kitties.

Now if you're wondering why I don't hold Leslie while we sleep, it's simple. Her body is a nuclear reactor and she produces so much heat that I'll start sweating. If there was a way to capture her body heat and use it to heat the house in the winter, that would be such a win. I feel like her body heat is an untapped natural resource.

Since I started with our youngest kitty, I'll go in order of youngest to oldest and as such, next up is Neko.

Neko and her usual wide eyed look.

Neko and I share the same birthday. She was at one of our local Petco for months, as all her siblings got adopted. After all her siblings were adopted, new cats would be brought to the Petco and those other cats would get adopted before her. I believe she was at the Petco for close to 7 months. After sending pics of Neko to Leslie every time I made a shopping run, Leslie decided we had to adopt her. She's the second most food motivated of the bunch and always looks shocked. She's not keen on new people, unless said new people have food or treats, then she's all "hi, how you doin'?" Neko is also the most skittish, but when she decides she wants to cuddle with you, you can't help but feel special.

Next up, the man, the myth, the legend, and a total daddy's boy, Flash.

Flash in my listening room. I get shit for calling it that, but it's better than 'man cave'.

Flash is my boy. His nickname is baby and a lot of people make fun of orange cats for being dumb, but he's actually the smartest out of every cat we've had. Doorknobs? He's figured what they do and he tries to turn them. If we had accessibility doorknobs (the ones that are more like levers than knobs), he'd easily open doors regularly. Light switches? Yep, he knows what they do. I had to get a magnetic cover to stop him from turning on and off the light in Leslie's room.

How fast of a learner is he? He jumped on my kitchen counter once and got in trouble and never did it again. Plus, when Flash does get in trouble, this mofo knows how to turn on the charm. A little head tilt here, a little rubbing his face on your cheek there and then plopping down onto your lap and rolling over and he knows you're butter that he's just softening up. He's also very trusting of people, isn't shy, and he loves being the center of attention. I also call him my black eyed kitty because he does have the most unique eyes of all of them. Because he's such a ham, we have the most photos of him. Here's him purposely putting is face right in front of one of our webcams.

Seriously, no joke, this fucker is smart.

Next up is the big boy himself, Ash and he's not terribly bright, but he's a gentle giant and he's the softest. How soft? Watch this short clip from a few years ago when we took them to our vet and she pets him for the first time, you hear her stop mid sentence, change her tone and say "Oh, he's so soft". While he's not bright, he's extremely friendly and he's also the most food motivated. He eats anything and everything and for some reason, he loves plastic bags, so we can't leave any around the house. One of the things that Leslie loves about Ash is what she calls his "hooded" eyes. He always looks relaxed and possibly high.

Ash isn't bright, but he's kind and really, really, really soft.

If anything, the thing about Ash that disappoints Leslie is that he prefers me. The others will wax and wane on who is their favorite for the moment, but he sees me as the companion and the one to cuddle with while Leslie exists to feed them. I told her it's because I have conversations with them, while Leslie isn't a fan of talking in general. But he is a good boy.

That brings us to the eldest of this group and the absolute princess, Simi. Ash and Simi are two character names from a book series Leslie reads and when we adopted them together, I let her name them.

Cuddles now dammit

Simi would be the happiest if she was the only kitty. She has no interest in the others and her main motivation in life is to cuddle with us. She's the most timid around strangers, but once she knows you, she'll make it her life's mission to smother you. She's also the least food motivated and has to eat separate from everyone else because it's easy for Ash, Neko, and Flash to bully her and take her food. It's not even bullying, it's just them showing up near her food bowl and she walks away with this "I don't need this shit" attitude. Simi begs--absolutely begs--to be allowed into our bedroom whenever Leslie is in there to get away from everyone else and just cuddle. And even though she eats the least amount of food, she's also a heavy girl. I mean, look at this picture of her cuddling with Leslie.

Simi lacks an understanding of personal space.

I'm so sorry that this is long, I was just trying to give each kitty his or her due. So why do we have all our cats? Because of two special cats previous to them. Before Leslie and I started dating, I had a super chill cat named Nero. He lived until he was 22 and passed away in 2020. Before his passing, we also adopted our first kitten together, Sherlock. Unfortunately, our time with him was cut short due to him having a disease called FIP. We lost him when he was about 7 months old. The pain and loss of Sherlock really cemented in us a desire to open our home and hearts to other kittens. Each of our five cats are the last of their litters.

As I held Sherlock while he crossed over the rainbow bridge, I whispered in his ear that every Christmas, I would continue to hang up his stocking. When Nero passed, I made the same promise to him, and even if we don't decorate our home for Christmas, I still make sure that at minimum, I keep that promise.

A promise is a promise.

Again, thank you for putting up with my temporary guest appearance and I especially thank you for making it through this long post. If you didn't know, Leslie's degree is actually in photography and it's one of her passions. If you're interested in following the adventures of our little feline pride, Leslie created and updates an Instagram account dedicated to them called Fang of Four.