Some people are cat people and some people are cat-people people.

When I was four, I asked for my dog to die so that I could get a kitten for Christmas. To be fair, he was the only thing my parents said was between me and getting a kitten and calling it Toe-Toes. So naturally, I asked Santa to assassinate my much beloved best friend.

Needless to say, I ended up getting a stuffed animal cat and my brother got gerbils named Teeny and Tommy. You see, my parents, my dad in particular, wanted our household to be feline free forever. They knew what they were doing. They secured their tyrannical bent against the fluff ball I dreamed of waking up to by giving me a bird for my seventh birthday. I called this bird Fester and my life changed.

Fester and I lived side by side for about 18 years. He knew my voice, I knew his, he liked everything yellow and black and I liked gossiping with him about that scandalous Cheerios box next door. All told, Fester died of old age after a long run of being an integral part of our family.

It was about the time that he died that all of a sudden I'm back in town from college and broken hearts and eventually I meet my first cat man. He's not obsessed or anything, but does have two cats and loves them for all that they are. They are named Kenny Corndog and Kittenhead the Killer. Corndog is a grey male tabby with the temperament to prove it. Colossal in size, his purring was less a pleasurable stirring and more of a motor boat whirring. He wouldn't catch the slowest of cockroaches or play with featheriest of toys, but boy was he a lover. He'd stake out a lap and with a most regal resistance not budge his 25 pounds of purrrrrrr.

Kittenhead - Kittenhead was different. Yup, she was tiny, like almost young adult kitten tiny. Sleek and serious she didn't care about anything but killing. Her targets were most always birdies. Specifically, the birds who dared come to my cat man's old, Mexican neighbor's bird feeder. I'm surprised that lady didn't shoot Kittenhead for all the chaos she caused to an otherwise very peaceful backyard. We would find, sometimes multiple times a day, her offerings to her cat man. Sadly, as time moved on, so did Kittenhead and me. We think she was taken in by new neighbors after my cat man moved and I was about to live with my first cat roommate.

My first cat roommate had a cat originally named "Le petit chapeau" (the little hat) which her neighbors in college tricked her in to adopting one night by getting her very drunk. Despite their trickery, she stood by her promise and named the little hat Whitby, a name that I thought to be "Opie" for a very long time over phone conversations had about her new four legged furr ball. My friend moves down to Austin and so does Opie. There's not much to say about my two years living with Whitby other than he loved sleeping in my bed in the afternoons and I'd love finding him there, in the light through white window shades, balled on a neatly made bed. My cat roommate and her little hat moved on and into a boyfriend's place where apparently he is much loved by both.

As the years go on, my acquaintances with cat people grow in number. They have me spend time with their kitties when they are away and I set about figuring out their favorite types of toys. Actually, my cat mentor and his wife, among my acquaintance, just happen to have five cats - Trudy, Cindy, Onslo, Daisy, and Cookie. These are the cats I introduced to my Buddy the Bird.

I should mention at this point that I am my father's daughter and among all this cat sitting and cute faces and swishy tails and the naps (!), I get a bird and name him Buddy. And Buddy goes everywhere with me. Even to the house of my cat mentor.

The thing about introducing a cat to a bird is that there has never been a second where the cat doesn't know exactly what it wants to do to the pretty blue bird in the little cage. The bird, however, lacks or let's say ignores that instinct of knowing its enemy, of feeling danger licking its chops. Tweety bird and his smug mug come to mind. Watching Cindy, who is the princess of a cat pictured with my Buddy above, I came to appreciate the blissful ignorance of being a bird brain. Taking in this full scene, I'm settled in the fact that I'm a cat person, person and find solace in my little bird brain's ignorance of his human's treachery.

At the end of the day, thank you cat people for being cat people - I love you, although I do not walk among you. The sky will always have my eye.