short time after Lotus died, we rescued two cats from a rescue shelter. They are somehow related to each other, and have apparently been together their whole lives, but we know nothing of their history. They are part flame-point Siamese, so their ears, tails, and legs are orange and stripey. We named the smaller one (the one in front) Adeen, which is an Irish name that means "little flame" (at least, according to the internet, and if you can't believe the internet, who can you believe?). The bigger, fatter one we named Bainne, which is Scots-Gaelic for "milk." These are two of the oddest cats we've ever known, which is saying a lot, because we've known a lot of odd cats.

n May of 2005, we added a third cat to our Manhattan apartment. Morgan's sister was moving, and needed to find homes for cats, so we brought home Khadija, a beautiful long-haired black cat. She is named after Mohammed's wife, who was the first convert to Islam. We haven't had her long enough to have a lot of pictures or stories about her, but I'm sure that we will fill up this page soon.

Adeen

• tring! Someone has to play with string with Adeen every night, or she gets quite cantankerous. She doesn't like to play with string by herself, someone has to play with her. And it's no fun if you just dangle it in front of her: you have to zoom the string around the room really fast so she has to run lots to chase it.

• ticky! Adeen can hear the sound of sticky things being peeled a mile away. As soon as she hears something that sounds sticky, she comes running in the room and will climb all over you to get to the sticky thing. If you give her something sticky, she has lots of fun getting it stuck to her face and then peeling it off. We felt cruel the first few times we let her get stuck to sticky things, but she just comes back and begs for more.

• urt's Beeswax. Every night, when Morgan gets into bed, she puts Burt's Beeswax lip balm on her lips. Every night, as soon as Morgan is settled under the covers, Adeen comes in and licks off all of her lip balm. Morgan has gotten into the habit of smearing extra lip balm all over her chin. Yes, a very well-trained human.
• ail-chasing. Adeen has lots of fun chasing her own tail. There are a few places that are especially good for tail-chasing: the bathtub, on top of Morgan's printer, and inside plastic bags.
• yooming! Adeen loves chasing Bainne all over the house. Sometimes she chases MoJo too.

Bainne

• awhide. A cat chewing rawhide? The first several weeks we had Bainne, we had lots of trouble because she kept chewing on things. She ruined a really expensive computer cable, and has left teethmarks in the rungs of all our chairs. So we bought her some rawhide sticks to chew on. We leave them sticking out from under chair cushions so they stick out ar cat-face level, and she will sit and chew and chew and chew and chew.
• ontainers: Bainne really likes sleeping in things. We found a box that is exactly the right size for her, and she sleeps in it all the time. She also chews on the edges. Paper bags are lots of fun to sleep in too. Her paper bag had a hole in it one day, so she crawled in and stuck her head out.
• maginary friends. Bainne has lots of imaginary friends. She meows at them. They run on the ceiling. Bainne wishes she could run on the ceiling. They hide under her scratchy matt. Bainne tries to hide under her scratchy matt, but just ends up pushing it across the floor instead. They chase her in circles. She runs in circles meowing at them. Did we mention she's an odd cat?
• aser pointer. She loves chasing the laser pointer. She can hear when it's on, and she comes running into the room. We have to be careful where it points when we turn it off though, because she'll hang around that spot looking for it for hours.
• ashing things. Bainne's way of showing affection is to wash you. She washes Adeen all the time, which usually turns into a contest about who gets to wash who, which usually turns into a wrestling match, which usually turns into running around the house at top speed. Every time you pet Bainne, she has to wash you to show her appreciation. She will grab your hand and hold you still until she's satisfied that you're clean.

Khadija

• hadows. Khadija knows that as a black cat, she can hide in the shadows. Every once in a while, you'll see two green slits of eyes appear in a dark place.
• inkly mice. We have lots of little mice toys around the house that have bells on them--those are Khadija's favorite. She likes making them make lots of little tinkly noises.
• aps. Khadija likes sleeping in laps. If you put her in your lap, don't count on being able to get up for a few hours.