Diary of a Mad Cat Woman

Let’s make this clear from the start: I am a cat lady. No, I do not wear sweaters held closed with pins, mumble to myself, or neglect daily hygiene. I am passionate about cats, and as president of Metrowest Animal Awareness Society, I am in good company, both feline and human.

Our rescue serves the homeless cats of Marlborough and Hudson. We have a wonderful group of families, couples and singles who foster rescued feline from our towns in their homes. Many of these same folks also will answer calls, and go out and rescue cats from dangerous situations — a family of kittens born in a drainpipe, as a storm begins; kittens dumped by the side of a highway; cats abandoned by their owners, left locked in an apartment for days. And, we do this on our own time, without earning a dime.  

In this blog, I’ll write about individual felines, and humans, and how our families cope with the loves and losses we experience. But in this first post, I write about myself (mostly so you will know that cats are not my only raison d’etre).

I am like many other women in our community — middle aged, professional, married with young adult children. My ‘day job’ is as a pediatric nurse practitioner — and I have the best job! I get to play with other people’s babies, joke with school aged kids, commiserate with teens, all while solving health problems, and teaching young people how to care for themselves.

My own kids are seniors at Hudson High this year (yes, plural — they are triplets), so my years have been filled with musicals, concerts, science fairs and soccer. So, when I am not at my day job, I’m hanging out with them, chatting with other parents, and enjoying being a parent with my husband, Mark.

Mark is a co-owner of New England Breeze Solar, a wonderful small business installing solar energy systems in homes and small businesses. He’s been my partner in crime since we met in college, navigating the ever challenging waters of marriage, home ownership, parenting — and cat rescue.

Cat rescue is the fine sand that fits between the stones of my life. Our family has fostered over a thousand cats through the years. My daughter Marcelle has crawled under a porch to capture wild kittens, and bottle fed orphans after school. My son Russ has donned gloves to tote traps with burly male strays into my van for spay and neuter clinics. Curt, my other son, has spent hours with a feral kitten wrapped up in a blanket, cuddling them in to tameness. And, Mark has joined me in the middle of the night, checking traps, or releasing the errant skunk we capture.

This blog will be about life as a cat woman, and the life of our rescue. You can see who we are at www.metrowestaware.org.

(And, since you are dying to know — we only have 4 cats…)