Mike and I have talked about wanting to get a cat since before we got married. Unfortunately, we have never been able to find an apartment we like that will allow us to have a pet. We plan on staying at our current aparmtent for at least one more year so a cat of our own is not in the near future. However, for the past ~4 months we have had a "part-time" kitty.

Jackson (or Yackson as we like to call him) first showed up in our apartment when he darted through the door as my parents were coming in. He's a wildly adventurous mostly outdoors cat the belongs to our neighbors. Every couple days Jackson likes to come visit us for a time of peace and quiet. Jackson uses our home as his official bed and bath. He knows that when he comes over he will have a warm, cozy place to get smothered with attention and lots of petting. He also graciously entertains us as he chases bugs, and plays with the variety of impromptu cat toys we have gathered for him.

Recently, he had his first overnight with us, because we just can't bring ourselves to wake him up from a nice nap to throw him out into the cold winter night. This worked well until he decided that 4 am was play time and thought Mike's legs were a good play toy (he's not declawed). The benefits of having a part-time kitty are great. We get to love and cuddle him, but we don't have to feed him or clean his kitty litter. When it's time to eat or use the "restroom" he lets us know by meowing loudly at our backdoor. Jackson decided to visit us today for a couple hours so I'd thought I'd share a few pictures of our favorite part-time kitty.