Charlie Crookedpaw is our Siamese rescue. My sister found him thrown to the curb, and nursed him back to health. He was either born with his hockey stick paw or injured as a kitten, but the vets said the only option was to amputate, and he gets along just fine with it, so we decided not to have him mauled. He hops faster than a jackrabbit, and swings that paw like a golf club. He likes to lick beer labels and push my laptop closed while I am trying to write.

This is Louie. We adopted him from PAWS Animal Shelter, a no-kill shelter in New Jersey. He is a rambunctious bundle of energy, more like a dog than a cat. He launches himself like a bowling ball at anything we have on the coffee table, but he’s also very sweet and affectionate, and mews in abject shame whenever he is scolded. We’ve decided that he is not really a cat, but a dingus.

CatLoaf (Shadow) was adopted from one of Firecracker’s friends who could no longer keep him. He would rest his upper body on my arm as I typed, climb on the back of the couch and dig into my hair, lay on his back directly behind us in the kitchen, and sit on our feet. He was a lovable nuisance who sang in the bathroom on occasion and woke us by sitting by our heads and purring incredibly loudly. (Rest in peace, little buddy).