Meet Cindy, Ginger, Izzy and Gem. These sweet baby kitties appeared beside the trash can in our neighborhood one day, with no mommy cat to take care of them and no owner appearing to claim them. They were starving and dehydrated, and they were unable to eat or drink without help. What else could we do but adopt them?

Cindy

Cindy is a beautiful kitty who has a little black freckle above her mouth. I had nicknamed her “Little Freckle” but Mike thought that was a dumb name (and he was correct.) He wanted to give her a girlier name. So, we named her after Cindy Crawford, because the freckle kinda reminds us of Cindy’s famous mole. Of course, we think our little Cindy is gorgeous, and we’ve nicknamed her “Cindy the Supermodel.” Her other nicknames are “Cindylove” and “Cindylicious.”

Cindy is the largest kitty in our clan. When we first adopted her, we’d have never predicted that she’d be the biggest. She didn’t like bottle feeding, and since we had no other way to feed her, we were scared we’d lose her. After she learned to eat and drink on her own, she had a major growth spurt. What a relief!

Ginger

Ginger was named after the spice. We chose this name for her him because of her his spicy personality; even as a tiny kitten, she he was strong-willed.

Until we named her him, I had been affectionately calling her him “crazy girl.” In the beginning, I thought she he was nuts. She He was the first of the kittens to jump out of the cardboard box that was their shelter; after jumping out, Ginger looked around, got scared, and jumped right back into the box. Mike and I still laugh about that.

Update: We originally thought Ginger was a girl, but he turned out to be a boy. Oops!

When it was feeding time, Ginger would get so hysterical that it was a challenge to feed him. He’d freak out, thrashing around and climbing overtop of his bottle, rejecting it and then frantically trying to suck on our fingers, wrists, arms. We realized that we had to be proactive about feeding him before he got hungry, because once he was hungry it was like fighting with a crazy girl. Hence the nickname. We got in the habit of feeding him first.

Ginger has mellowed out a little now that he’s older, except that he’s still not mellow when he’s eating. He’s protective of his food; if one of his sisters gets too close to him while he’s eating, he’ll block the food with his paw. “Talk to the paw!” he says.

Ginger was the first of the four kitties to learn how to drink unassisted; he beat his sisters to this skill by at least a week.

Ginger’s pet nicknames are “Gingerlove” and “Gingerbunny.” Sometimes when he’s naughty we also refer to him as “The Masked Avenger.” (He has black markings covering both his eyes, which kind of gives him the appearance of wearing a mask.)

Izzy

When Izzy was a tiny kitten, she was the calmest and serenest of the four kitties. She didn’t mind being fed last, and as a reward, Mike would often hold her and pet her long after the others had been put back in the box.

The downside: she kept peeing on Mike. Once she did it five times in one 24 hour period. After that, we briefly nicknamed her “Whizzy,” although that nickname didn’t stick. It went by the wayside after she learned how to use the litter box.

Her other pet nickname is “Little Busy Izzy,” because she’s always up to something. Izzy is fascinated with cords, and can often be found playing with them and / or unplugging them. She also loves typing on my computer, and fixing my hair. She prefers the chewed look, but isn’t opposed to styling me with the clawed look on occasion.

Gem

Gem Sleeping. Don’t Let the Angelic Little Face Fool You. She’s NAUGHTY!

In the beginning, we thought Gem would be our “alpha kitty.” She was the toughest of the bunch, and she loved wrestling with her sisters (and picking fights with them.) Gem turned out to be the smallest kitty, but we’re not sure she realizes how tiny she is. She still picks fights as if she’s the biggest girl in the group.

Mike was the one who chose her name. He was looking for a tough-girl name, and so he named her after Jemma from American Gladiator. We decided to spell it “Gem,” because she is our little treasure.

Gem’s other nicknames: Gemolition. The Gem-Bot. Gembalaya. “The Masked Avenger,” because, like her brother Ginger, her markings also give her the appearance of wearing a mask.