A litter of greys

One litter of kittens (and there were many throughout our childhoods) particularly stood out in my mind, mostly because so many of them lived for so long and didn't run away, plus another batch of awesome kittens was born almost the exact time. The cats were Sock (short for Soccadillo, a Power Ranger enemy, but later we rewrote history to say it was because when his feat were wet it looked like her had on socks, he was Adam's), Fat Boy (this was my cat, his name was Eleanor, which was Chanda's idea, until Andy spotted he was a male and gave him his new name), Annabelle (Brian's cat) and Ghost (Tracy's). Sock was, like all of Adam's cat's, extremely playful and friendly, and aggressive at both. Playing with him usually left scars happily worn. When he grew up he got big and stocky, a beast of a cat, and he became the alpha male for quite some time. He was a beautiful solid dark grey. Unfortunately, the stress of his new position made him a much less friendly cat late in life. His only real rival (Fat Boy was too lazy) was Soot, a massive black beast of a cat that was feral but still stuck around quite a bit. Sock's better nutrition and Soot's injured hind leg (Craig hit him with a rock to try to scare him away as feral cats can be dangerous to the one's we have) gave him a slight advantage, but the battles for supremacy were epic indeed. Fat Boy was Sock's counter in many things, where Sock was aggressive he was laid back. He was also smaller, despite his name (though he did have kind of a gut). He was a lot more cuddly and more likely to be laying around the porch. Despite how much work they proved, none of our cats was a better crawdad fighter (Sock usually tried to run away with one of the little beasties latched onto his face). He was a soft light grey, completely solid. Annabelle was the nicest cat ever. Period. She was constantly purring and she always looked like she was smiling with her gorgeous blue eyes. She was tricolored with light grey, peach, and white. She always did that thing where she kneaded you with her claws to show affection. She was one of the three cats that we took with us to New Jersey where she died of a horrible ear cancer. The last of the cats was Ghost, the smallest of the bunch and the most shy. When you did manage to get her into your lap, she loved to cuddle. She was solid grey, a shade between Fat Boy's and Sock's, except for her face which was a much lighter grey and splotchy. In the twilight she was nigh invisible, and she had creepy yellow eyes. She loved to stalk birds and mice, probably the best hunter of the group, and I once saw her hop into the air and pick a dragonfly right out of the sky. We had lots of cats that I remember very well, but four awesome cats from the same litter is a lot to expect, and I'm so glad we found them early.*

*Whenever you saw a mamma cat get suddenly smaller overnight, we all made it a priority to find the kittens as fast as possible by searching the usual places (the blackberries, the umbrella grass, under the house in the insulation, etc.) or by giving the mother food and stalking her back to her kittens. They were usually wary of followers and very protective, but tame mothers would often just stare at you proudly and contentedly as she was nursing her litter when we found her. I remember being under the house in the mud laying down, entranced by the sight of the little family.