What I do notice about our cats though is that they probably share similar coat color genes, regardless of whether the breeds are similar or not.

In particular, they’re likely to have the genes that suppress tabby coloring and specifically the ones that create a black coat. (Often this doesn’t go all the way, which is why you can see faint tabby stripes and/or ticking in certain areas.) And then the genes that cause the coat to be “diluted” to grey instead of black. And then the piebald spotting gene, which causes white spots. Those white spots can be expressed in a large number of ways, including the “tuxedo” pattern that our cats seem to have.

Here are some links you might find interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_coat_genetics

And then lots of links that are in the genetics section of the Messybeast cat resource archive:

http://www.messybeast.com/catarchive.htm#genetics

This page shows how they get the different patterns of white spotting including the ones our cats seem to have:

http://www.messybeast.com/bicolours.htm

http://d.pr/uLX

http://d.pr/7Uud

I will now quote mah kitteh’s last statement:

“yawn.”

Also I have seen a LOT of cats just…completely perk up and get really really alert upon seeing what is going on outdoors.

The three younger kitties here don’t currently go outside (I am acclimating them to wearing a harness first, so when I take them out they will not think something is sitting on their back, etc.) but it is definitely like “whoah!!!” when I open a window so that only the screen is there between them and the fresh air and breezes and bird sounds, etc. They will sit there utterly riveted, making chirping sounds sometimes, and then later on when playing with toys they are super vigorous about it. (The other night, Shadow managed to wear himself out to the point of panting like a puppy…I slowed down with the feather toy after that because I did not want anyone overheating!)

Nikki is the only one who goes outside at all (well aside from carrier trips to the vet). She is indoors 90% of the time but used to be an outdoor cat at my parents’, so she has a definite taste for being outside and since I don’t live in coyote country or right next to a busy road, I let her out during the daytime sometimes (but I will go looking for her within about 15 minutes if she disappears from sight). She is not interested in going out in the rain and I never let her out when there are no humans home to let her back in so she is still more indoor than outdoor but she just gets this amazing look of happiness and aliveness outside that I try to balance my own worry for her safety with the very obvious delight and excitement she gets from being out. Like Fey, she does not really like solo play, but after being outside she will often play interactively.

Thinking about Fey snuggling and Anne’s kittens piling on top of each other reminds me of the three ferrets we owned when my daughter was younger. They used to sleep together in a small fleece hammock all wound and snuggled up together. Every night, we’d count them to make sure they were all there, and we could never tell how many we were looking at until we had located each head. I learned a lot about how important it is for so many creatures to have the right kind of physical contact with one another. For the ferrets, it was quite extreme. They’d get so tangled up around one another that you literally couldn’t tell one from another sometimes.

Right now Fey is curled up by my shoulder with her cheek resting backwards against mine. Like a lot of the older photos. She does that and purrs, then she washes, then goes back to snuggling, and repeats the whole thing. I think she’s doing the equivalent of what Anne’s kittens do when they all pile on top of each other.

Looking through some of your posts and blogs has helped me understand my son’s language better–and even more than that, has helped me think of ways to explain his ways of thinking to others. I intuitively (or maybe it’s not intuition–I observe) understand a lot of his actions and ways of thinking and can intercept people’s actions before they become serious stressors (and hopefully we find ways for him to handle these on his own). Where we reach an impasse is with some kinds of stimming–I am noise sensitive/prone to migraine while he needs to make the same noises repeatedly. I worry about him a lot as he grows, reading what you and others have gone through–when he gets bullied, he won’t tell others about it. I.e., he’ll take a mark at school for not having pencils/supplies but won’t tell the teacher someone’s stolen his pencil.