Most of you who have been reading Ruth Ann's column over the years probably already know that Ruth Ann is a cat lady. Don't roll your eyes, but, well, I'm just as bad.

I'm a sucker for all animals, but I have a soft spot for cats. I have two adult cats. My male cat is a pretty special cat. He's a Pixie Bob which means he is half bob cat. Kimberly found him as a newborn eight years ago as she was walking down to the pond at my parent's house in Massachusetts. She heard a baby cry and looked over into the woods and saw a mother cat and knew the cry didn't come from a big cat. After the mother cat took off, she went to look in the direction where the cry came from and my parent's dog Mack actually found the babies. There were four of them -- all tiger striped.

It was getting toward nightfall and we knew the mother cat would be back and likely move them. We checked on them before it got dark and found that the mother cat had moved three out of the four. It was getting cold out and since we didn't know whether she was coming back for the last baby, we went ahead and took it up to the house. I guess you could make a case that we kidnapped him. I wrapped a heating pad in a blanket and put the little guy under a stuffed black teddy bear which served as his surrogate mother and hand fed him with an eye dropper for about the next six weeks. And by gosh, he lived. He's been my buddy ever since and is a well traveled cat. Pixie Bobs play fetch, love the water and ride well in a car and also make chirping noises like a raccoon. He's a bit temperamental though, which a veterinarian once told me is very characteristic of animals who have been bottle fed.

My other cat I found as a stray in Utah. She was hanging around the newspaper office. The guys in the office were feeding her Oreo cookies because that's all they had and she always looked so hungry. I showed her to Kimberly and she said "let's take her home." And we did. Little did we know at the time that she was pregnant. We both kind of looked at each other one night when her belly moved and almost at the same time asked 'Is that cat pregnant?"

She had three of the cutest little kittens. We loved watching those kittens grow up. It was funny to watch them climb up on the bed. That was quite an accomplishment. After that they slept close to us every night. I've been bad though and never did get her fixed and she had two more litters over the years. She's my little lap cat. Every time I sit down, she has to sit on me and is just a sweet little animal.

I must have a thing for stray cats. I'm like the Pied Piper. I've been outed as an easy mark. I think they know that I am a sucker and pass it on. Since I have been here I have given away two cats, ten kittens and I still feed five strays on the porch. This week we gave away a tortoise shell mother cat who was hanging around the house. We took her inside when we figured out she was pregnant just so she wouldn't have her babies under the house. And on Halloween I gave away her six kittens.

It sure was hard to say goodbye to them. We watched the mother give birth to them and got plenty of enjoyment out of watching them grow up. Kittens are so curious. They would run all over the place and crash in to things and roll around and chew on each other. They too learned how to climb up on the bed and once again we had six little bed hogs sleeping with us. It's funny how each one of them has their own little personality. We had one we called "Andy" because he was an orphan my brother-in-law found who the mother cat adopted. He is absolutely adorable and seemed to be the first one to do everything first. He was the first to climb out of the basket, the first one to eat solid food, the first one to use the little box and the first one to climb up on the bed. And then there was "Cry Baby" because he would whine every time you picked him up and "wild man" who ran around like a nut.

We gave them to Northeast Arkansans for Animals in Jonesboro where we know they will be spayed and neutered and given all of their shots then adopted out to good homes. It was rough having six little ones plus the two adult cats under one roof. But the house sure seems empty now without them. I keep telling Kimberly 'No more cats!" as I turn around and feed the ones on the porch who wait for me like clockwork.