Jones died last summer after a long bout with cancer.

Jones was our big yellow tabby with a screwed-up tail. There is really no other way to describe it, he was born with a curly tail like a pig, sort of a furry orange chicken wing, and when he was happy it would gyrate like a beckoning finger. His sister, Spike, was born with only half a tail. Our other cat, Raven, was born with a big kink in his.

When we go to our friends’ houses we always admire their cats and their long, straight tails, touching them over and over because surely they can’t be real! Wow, cats with regular ol’ tails, not the deformed circus freaks we live with.

After almost a year of my daughter asking if we were ready for a new kitten, my parents found themselves with a pregnant cat named Blue. Grampa took it upon himself to call Cindy and tell her she could have any one of the babies that she wanted. Heck, she could even have two.

Cindy spent her spring break at my parents’ house and called me when Blue had her kittens.

“When were they born?” I asked as I drove through Park City, Utah, trying to find Sundance while Dearinger checked the map. Again. I figured my daughter would be eager to discuss the new arrivals so I did my part to keep the conversation going.

Cindy, being a literal child, was quite irritated. “I don’t know the exact time, I don’t follow Blue around all day!”

After some carefully worded questions I was able to ascertain that the kittens were indeed born that day, March 29. Somewhere between midnight and 10am. In the tool shed where Grampa keeps spare car parts. On the shelf next to the alternators. But behind the air compressor. The blue one, not the red one.

“Why do you need to know this, Mom?” Cindy asked.

“I don’t, I was just wondering what day they were born, that’s all.” I was picturing feral kittens running free on my parents four acres, too wild to catch by the time someone noticed them. Thankfully Cindy had been watching Blue’s ever-expanding gut like a hawk and knew, down to a 10-hour time frame, when the kittens were born.

I know how hard it is to tame wild kittens. My brother, John, had one living in his house.

He was the only one of his friends that wasn’t married, so his house is where the guys would go, you know, to get away from the old lady and have fun with no one bitching at them. The place showed the signs of a perpetual party, like a John Hughes movie when the parents went out of town. Beer cans, old pizza boxes, empty bottles of every description on every surface. At some point, someone had left a kitten there.

John put food and water out for it, but that was the extent of their relationship. A few times he tried to catch it but they just ran in laps around his two-bedroom house. When he thought he finally had it cornered it climbed the curtains all the way to the ceiling, out of the reach of John’s long orangutan arms.

So he left it, leaving the wild animal its berth, coexisting peacefully once they reached their unspoken agreement. John will not touch the cat, and the cat will not claw his eyes out.

Unlike my brother, I’m not comfortable living in the house with a feral animal. Every furry beast must be named, washed, and if the mood strikes, I have to be able to paint its toenails or put a ribbon in its hair. Any new kitten must be young, tame, and malleable.

Cindy marked the days on her calendar until Blue’s kittens were exactly six weeks old. She reminded me every day, up until it was time to make the four-hour drive to bring home her new pet.

Steve and I decided not to get another cat, but Cindy’s dad came to the rescue and said that she could keep the new baby at his house, unless it was evil like the black cat I tried to pass off on him, the one that will only poop on furniture who now resides in my back yard, which he befouls daily in an unspeakable manner. After thousands in vet bills, tests, hormone shots, getting clawed up while trying to coax medicine down his throat, and I’m reduced to a hose, a bottle of orange cleaner, and a poop scoop. I thought he might even wander off and go live with a neighbor, but the little shit has been camping outside for years and hasn’t left my yard.

I assure Cindy’s dad that these kitties were not spawned from the bowels of hell, unlike Raven, and should have no problem using a litter box. Cindy has one already picked out, a Blue-look-a-like named Sky. I tell John that the kitty is a girl and won’t feel the need to spray the house down.

On the drive to my parents’ house I start to sweat. What if Sky isn’t a girl after all? It’s so hard to tell on those little creatures. Cindy is already attached to Sky, I hope I don’t have to be a meanie. We got Raven fixed when he was six weeks old and he still liked to pee on anything that did or didn’t move. We don’t want to go through that again.

Pushing Gordo, the Chow/Rottweiller and surrogate father to the kittens out of the way, I went in the tool shed and grabbed Sky. I turned her over and examined her netherregions, wishing for the millionth time that I wasn’t so nearsighted. Hmmm, maybe if I compared this one to the other cats. I picked up Haynes, so named because he is black with a little white triangle underneath that looks like underpants. Kitty business all looks alike to me. I poked around and picked up Shiitake. Are those little testicles or not?

“Don’t tell anyone where I touched you,” I said to Fuzzy as I put him down on the ground, Gordo protectively licking his forehead, making sure I didn’t harm his little friend. Just then my dad walked around the corner and asked if I needed help.

“Yeah, I can’t tell the boys from the girls,” I said, looking for the cat Cindy named Squeaky, the only one left I hadn’t violated.

“Here, I’ll show you how to tell the difference,” he said in his instructing, fatherly voice. He picked up two kittens. I leaned my head in to get a good look. “See? The boys have a pecker and balls. The girl cats don’t.” He put both cats down again.

“Thanks,” I said. “That clears it all up. Sky is a girl though, right?”

“Sky and Squeaky are the only girls,” he answered.

Confident now, but still confused, I went in the house and washed my hands several times and got the cat carrier. Everyone gathered around as we ceremoniously coaxed Sky into her temporary home.

Steve and I looked at the hawks circling around and then at each other. Squeaky was going home with us. Heretofore and forevermore known as Jin.

Jin, our first cat with a normal tail.

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