How This Whole Thing Started

Stepen Conrad Bitsarelli (Bits)

January of 2007 Brad and I moved into a townhouse in deep SE Portland. It wasn't the best neighborhood, but the inside of the townhouse was nice and we made it our own.

When we first went to look at the place, a little white kitten came out to say hello. He had huge blue eyes and was incredibly friendly. Being January, it was cold and rainy. I was pissed that his owner had let him outside. Our future property manager, Janet, told us that the cat belonged to the neighbor, but she had just gotten brain surgery and was staying with her sister. Her four sons were staying with their father. Janet mentioned that maybe we could take the cat in, since there's no one around to take care of him. I was excited by this idea.

There was a community of feral cats in the neighborhood. They were tough, smart and hungry. We would put food and water on our back porch and they would congregate back there. There were at least 10 of them, probably more.

The blue eyed cat, who we later learned was named "Bubbles" hung out with these cats. He wasn't feral himself. He loved human attention and, in the most technical sense, had an owner.

We started feeding Bubbles and the rest of the hungry cats in the neighborhood. They hung out on our back porch, knowing that they'd be safe back there and would never want for food or water. They wouldn't let us near them though. Only Bubbles made friends with us.

After a couple of weeks I asked our property manager if she had talked to Tabitha, our post-op neighbor. She said she had left a message with Tabitha's sister several days ago and hadn't heard back. She took this as a sign that it was OK for us to take him in. So we did. We renamed him Bits.

At that time we had a 11 year old cat named Amy. She was an amazing girl and she and Brad were absolute best friends.


She was an only cat and tolerant of other animals only if they left her alone - which means staying out of swatting distance at all times. Bits was an unaltered tomcat. This was going to be interesting.


Above is a picture I took right after I first brought Bits in the house. I hadn't yet learned the technique of slowly integrating a new cat into the house, so they faced off almost right away. You can see Amy's dark grey head at the top of the stairs. Now imagine the sound of a 25 lb cat hissing and a 6 lb cat whimpering. A lot went down.



Amy was irate and refused to be in the same room as any of us. Bits, was unfazed by her (mostly) and immediately got to doing what he does best - snuggling.

I got home from work the next day to find 3 dirty young boys standing on my front porch waiting for me. I had never seen these kids before and I have to say, I was terrified. (I later learned that their ages were 12, 10 and 8. Their oldest brother was 18 and nowhere to be found.) They clearly had already given up on life. They had a problem with me, it was clear from the look in their beady eyes. That, and the youngest one was holding an axe.

The oldest, dirtiest boy spoke up.

ODB: Do you have our cat?

Me: What?

ODB: We saw our cat in your window. That white cat belongs to us.

Me: You need to talk to your mother. The property manager left a message for your aunt letting her know that we were going to take the cat in and take care of him.

They stared daggers at me while I dug in my purse for my keys. I finally got the front door open and dashed in and locked the door behind me. About 30 seconds later I heard a loud banging on the side of our apartment. I looked out the side window and saw the youngest dirty boy beating on the side of our home with a large stick. I was appreciative that he had abandoned the axe.

YDB: (With a full on speech impediment.)I'm gonna bweak you house down! Give me my cat back owe I'm gonna take a s#*% on yoow powch!

I called Janet immediately.

Me: Janet, 3 boys just confronted me and asked me to give them their cat back. Now they're beating on our apartment with sticks and the youngest just screamed he was going to poop on my porch.

Janet: Don't you dare give that cat back. Let me call Tabitha.

Well I could drag this story out, but I'm not going to. The cops got involved because Tabitha threatened to charge us with burglary 2 (aka catnapping). Everyones hands were tied. So after living with us for 4 days, Bits went back outside and went back to being neglected. We continued to feed him and be friends with him. He just couldn't come inside. Amy was happy.

Tabitha and her sons never once took Bits to the vet. He became as skinny as a rail and was still unfixed. His balls were gigantic and by God, he used them. (Janet even offered to take him to the vet for Tabitha to get him fixed. She refused. Whitey's are a proud people.)

Presenting...Mini-Bits!Quite possibly the cutest cat ever.

Now, of course Tabitha took no responsibility for Mini-bits. He quickly became part of the feral community and almost as quickly was run over by a car. His little life lasted from March 2007-July 2007. May he rest in peace.

Later in July, Tabitha and her sons were evicted. They were set to move to a new place that only allowed 2 cats...they "had" 3. By that time, she was recovered from surgery and had let the catnapping incident fall by the wayside. She approached us and asked if we'd like to take Bubbles. I immediately said yes. Brad was unsure. He was concerned that A.) Bits wasn't the same sweet cat that we took in 8 months before and B.) That Amy would be mad at him. After about 30 seconds of discussion, he realized that it would be easiest to support my decision.

I took Bits into the garage and made him a vet appointment. He was skin and bones and covered in sores and fleas.














He had 2 large abscesses at the base of his tail. I cleaned them and put Neosporin on them every day. I got him to the vet and got him fixed. They treated him for fleas and gave him a clean bill of health.

Janet (Myers Property Management) found us a nicer place to live in August. Bits, Brad, Amy and I packed up our stuff and moved east to almost Gresham. We now live in a nice neighborhood, with clean neighbors and so far, no one has threatened to poo on our porch. Bits fattened up and he and Amy had learned to live with eachother.

Then came one of the worst days of our lives. On March 5, 2008 Amy passed away. She was old and overweight and her body was done. She lived a happy life and we miss her very very much.

It's a terrible thing to lose someone that you love so much. I still have a hard time with it. (As much as I miss her, I know Brad misses her 100x more.) She was the cat that made me fall in love with cats in general.

After a couple of weeks we could see that Bits was getting lonely (and destructive) so we decided to get a second cat. Before we could do that I wanted to take Bits to the vet to make sure all was well. I was paranoid now after watching Amy go from healthy to deceased in less than 72 hours.

I took Bits to a different vet this time around. They noticed on his chart from the first vet that he hadn't been tested for FeLV/FIV. They said they thought it wasn't necessary since he had been indoors for almost a year. I insisted that they test him for my own peace of mind.

Obviously, Bits tested positive for FIV. I was in shock. Amy is dead and our remaining cat has AIDS. The vet quickly reassured me that he can live a long healthy life. We just have to keep him indoors, keep his food dishes clean, and be hyper aware of his health. These were all things we were already doing and will continue to do.

And then some.

I love you Bitsarelli.