Because...

Because my beloved rescued a dog by his office on Beverly Boulevard near Fairfax in 1973 and

Because we couldn’t call him “Beverly” 

Because he was a skinny, wiry beige Terrier with a fragile ego, bruises, and worn out pads, we called him “Fairfax” and bought a yard for him 

Because the house we were renting in Laurel Canyon was a cracker-box on stilts with no yard at all and

Because the yard we bought conveniently had a house in front of it for us to live in, we invited in some stray cats

Because, you know, once you open the door to one, you can’t close it mid-stream. 

The first cat was all white, and, naturally, we named her Beverly in honor of Fairfax’s founding street.

The second cat we called Pico, after a very  l - o - n - g  street in Los Angeles, 

Because he needed something long about him

Because he was an all black Manx cat with a short nubbin of a tail and was always on the wrong side of the door…  Meoooow, let me in; Meoooow, let me out.

Then we got pregnant and decided to move to a home with a yard and a pet door and room enough for three humans and three four-leggeds, and…

Because, when our first child was born at home, Fairfax was a hero-protector, and he got steak one night,

Because I was feeling blue on day three after the birth and sent Fairfax to get my beloved husband Mark who had fallen asleep on the couch with the mail and Fairfax did get him! So, steak it was!

When our first daughter was eighteen months old and knew already that cats were cool and

Because we had refrained from calling her by some weird street name, or freeway but rather named her Mosa and

Because our friends were moving back to Australia and couldn’t take their cat Mao we took the cat in and

Because she’d had a “bit of a romp” (our friend Rona said) “with a male cat” Mao gave birth within nine weeks to three kittens named Little Girl, Bow-Tie, and Stripey and

Because of that, we were now a household of three humans outnumbered by six cats and one dog. And it was good…

Because when we walked Fairfax on leash with baby Mosa in the back pack carrier, Beverly Cat would hide in the bushes up-street and jump out and attack unsuspecting Fairfax, whack-a-whacking his nose. This made all of us giggle… except for Fairfax

Because, my husband said, Fairfax was an old Jewish man in a dog suit and was good at rolling his eyes but felt beholden to put up with all this chazarai, poor dog

Because he owed my beloved for saving his life.

Because Mama Mao and two of her kittens and poor Beverly and dear Mr. Pico all died, so all we had left was Mr. Bow-Tie, we got another cat from Pet Rescue and Mosa named her Punkin

Because she looked like a Halloween cat

Because she was black and orange with a little bit of white on her. And

Because by then our second daughter Megan was born, and

Because, when she was little she mispronounced Fairfax’s name “Fuck-a,” and at seven was old enough to rescue her own cats, and name them pronounceable names, she and I brought home two from outside Ralph’s supermarket. 

Megan named them “Wart” and “Mort”

Because Wart had a bump on one ear and

Because Mort rhymed with Wart and 

Because they were twin brothers and

Because our favorite dinnertime game was Family Rhyme-Time, so Wart and Mort joined the family and then… 

Because Fairfax was thirteen we celebrated his Bark Mitzvah and he read from the “Arf-Torah” and again, he had steak.

Then we moved to a new house that was closer to a Junior High School Mosa wanted to attend. A short while later Fairfax died. And

Because we were all sad and not ready for another dog, we bought a stuffed dog and named him Fairfax-simily… and 

Because zero dogs and two cats weren’t quite enough, one day, when our older daughter was almost sixteen, she and her dad went to Animal Rescue and brought home a female dog which Mosa named Daisy McDougal

Because that was the name of a character in a play she was doing at school, and Mosa really liked plays and drama, but…

Because Daisy McDougal promptly tried to bite two children, we took her back to Animal Rescue so she could go live on a farm with lots of space and no children, and instead brought home Mr. McDougal - a mutt, which

Because he’d lived on the streets and knew how to fend for himself, would always pick up trash and chase squirrels, and

Because that wasn’t enough, on the way home from our younger daughter Megan’s Junior High School, we rescued a seven month old Golden Retriever puppy from the middle of a busy street and 

Because we couldn’t find his people and no one claimed him, we found him a good home and named him “Marvin Gardens”

Because, in his case, “gardens” was a verb and he would bring in entire branches from the nectarine tree when the nectarines were green and he would say, Look what I found, guys! A bunch of tennis balls! and he would eat them all and get terrible gas and sleep near my side of the bed and fart all night so it smelled of burning tires in our bedroom which was also filled with the sounds of all-night licking and scratching and tags jingling and nobody was getting much sleep, but, 

Because it’s such a short time in our lifetime we put up with it - even when Street Dog Doogie McDougal ate carpet and a light-bulb and chewed the top off of some furniture polish and decorated the back lawn 

Because he’d eaten four vials of teeny tiny glass beads and left on the grass for us: blue sparkly poops and pink sparkly poops and gold sparkly poops and green sparkly poops and he’d also eaten one entire chocolate cake from way up high on a bar counter that pushed all those beads through.

Then he ate what would become a fifteen hundred dollar chicken bone from someone’s trash on our river walk one Sunday and by Tuesday morning, it was clear he was in pain, so we took him to the vet who surgically removed that chicken bone from his stomach 

Because otherwise he would have died. But he didn’t. And it was good. 

Because Marvin had missed him, and not known what to do when the letter carrier came by

Because, even though Marvin weighed twice what McDougal weighed, McDougal was always alpha dog and showed Marvin what to do.

When McDougal did die, and Marvin was the last of the fur tribe

Because Punkin had come to a bad end, and Wart and Mort died, and Bow-Tie was long dead, Marvin Gardens became the sweetest, most lovable only dog and in his old age, he gave so much love, that when he too died, we decided that we would end our open door policy

Because our hearts were hurting and it was ever-so-much easier to travel to camp weekends and family events out of state

Because both our daughters were out of the house and

Because then, we wouldn’t have to hire a pet sitter, so we didn’t open the door to any more critters… but the doors to our hearts are always open and 

Because we can get our four-legged fixes from other people’s fur-babies and

Because we are content to have both grown daughter’s cats walk around on our laps and snuggle up and play whack-a-whack-a games with yarn and paper while the granddaughter charms us with her wit and humor and

Because at eight she too loves cats, dogs, and critters, and playing Family Rhyme Time, we are happy.