Starting this blog on a somber note is perhaps not the best idea, but it is the one thing motivating me to try this out again. So that being said, I’d like to introduce you all to Menina.
If you visited this site prior to seeing this, you might recall it only contained
two test posts, both of them jokes, the first of which featured this image,
captioned “What are you looking at?“: 
The cat in that picture was my beloved Menina, and the caption, well, it wasn’t exactly original, but it captured her whole personality perfectly. See, Menina was a street cat when we adopted her, a very spicy, raggedy little ball of hair and claws that came literally crashing into our lives one rainy fall afternoon, like a wet tennis ball, through the kitchen and out our back door. And she never let us forget it.
When we met her, we weren’t sure what to do with her. She was a pitiful little thing, hungry and clearly injured from Lord knows how many scraps she fought through before getting to us. She looked plump despite that hard life, and yet we fed her, much to the dismay of our puppy Mia, her future sister, who let out the most insane bloodcurdling noises (you couldn’t really call them screams…) whenever they spotted each other inside the apartment.
I don’t remember exactly what I said to convince her, but eventually
my mom relented and agreed to at least take her to the vet
for a checkup, even if we wouldn’t adopt her afterwards.
See, this wasn’t the first stray cat I picked up and brought back home.
The first was my Silky, who I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention here.
I found her in a storm drain by my dad’s office, and she was
my first cat ever! 
I was obsessed with the Erin Hunter Warriors books at the time and wouldn’t take no for an answer when I asked to take her home. Unfortunately she ran away some years later and I don’t know how exactly her story ends. My mom was more hesitant this time.
Nevertheless, we needed to catch Menina first. She only sporadically showed her face around, and it didn’t really seem like she had a routine for where to go yet in the neighborhood, so there was a very real chance that something bad might happen to her and we’d never meet again.
Thankfully, that was not the case, but as the vet later told us, something bad did happen in the interim. Menina was significantly thinner when we caught her and brought her to the vet, which given how sudden that change was, had us worried about worms or similar but now, the vet concluded that she’d actually been carrying kittens, and must’ve lost them all.
We got her spayed and brought her back home, and in an astoundingly
short amount of times, things began clicking into place.
Maybe it was because she was too weak to protest the care we gave her,
maybe she could just sense our good intentions, but Menina,
she finally started to treat our place like home.
Even Mia ultimately welcomed her into the family. 
Still, she never stopped reminding us what a badass street-cat she once was, always giving us side-eye and yelling for food like we owed her money. That’s not to say she couldn’t be cuddly though. Yes, it’s true it did take her years to get used to the idea of being picked up for snuggles, but she purred when you laughed and she groomed you when you cried.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there for her when her health took a turn for the worse. I was an ocean away facing my own struggles, wishing I could curl into bed with her just like I did after every little tragedy as a teen, but I couldn’t. I also couldn’t have asked for a better cat to tease, praise and grow up with. I miss you, Menina.