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"I'm an artist and a writer because of the cats," she says. "I would never have found the time to write or do art."
Her journey from a garden-variety cat owner began after family illness brought her back to Charlotte and she decided to pursue the bachelor's degree she'd abandoned decades before.
On the way to a class at UNC-Charlotte, she noticed a starving cat in a gutter near a Bojangles restaurant. She had three pets then, and she didn't need any more. When trying to feed and trap the kitty, she noticed a colony of more than 60 sick, starving feral cats on a nearby hill. That's when she trapped her first feral. "You can imagine my weakest point is my compassion, so I named that cat Achilles. And I learned everything and more from that one cat."
Paying for their vet care -- spaying, neutering, basic shots and, if they were too sick, euthanasia -- did not help her bank account. "I didn't like being put in that position, but if you've ever seen a cat die of FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus), it's horrible; they bleed from everywhere."
She moved with friends to Lake Wylie, where she hoped to regain financial footing as a digital photo artist. The first day she found a mother cat and five kittens under her deck. "I started shaking. Oh no! I've got these two dogs that were rescues and these old three cats that were rescues, and already had more than my fair share."
More and more starving, feral cats arrived. Today, she's spayed and neutered the colony -- stabilizing a problem that neighbors warned her couldn't be helped. Most of the 42 cats are solid black, but she knows all their names and recognizes their faces. Almost all flee at the sight of a stranger, but these glossy-coated cats are the fattest, happiest-looking feral cats imaginable.
Only a handful live indoors, the rest congregate on her porch and yard on the banks of Lake Wylie. Their twice-daily feeding time is a major undertaking, as she scoops out Friskies from cans into more bowls than she can count. She changes the litter -- at least one box in each room -- every day. Amazingly, her home doesn't smell like either litter box odor or canned cat food. "I'm not going to have a smelly house," she says. "That was a promise to my two housemates."
She estimates she used to shell out $400 each week just on food; now her housemates spend about $80 every three days on food and cat litter.
People, of course, try to foist cats upon her constantly. She will have none of it. "If you see an emergency, it's yours to do something with," she says. "If it is to be, it's up to me. If you want something to happen and you care enough, why don't you personally take it upon yourself to intervene in that cat's life?
"People caused that problem," she says. "People who didn't spay or neuter their one animal. So how many animals were out there because how many people didn't spay or neuter their one animal?"
Call her a cat lady -- it's a description she accepts gladly.
"I'll tell you that there's nothing that is probably more rewarding than seeing that look in your cats' eyes."
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