CAT BIOGRAPHIES 2025

On the Occasion of Our 40th Wedding Anniversary -July 20, 2025

My Long Suffering Wife® and I are celebrating our 40th Wedding Anniversary TODAY! Live Aid saved the world July 13th, 1985. We were married July 20, 1985. For three weeks before the blessed event I completely ditch Sally, down at the stadium wallowing in dirt and generator smoke 12 hours a day until Thursday the 18th. Ha! Good training for the next forty.
The secret to our marital success? Maybe we're just two dullards who lack the imagination to dream that our lives could somehow be better with two other people.
Comes now the Pageant: I've decided our bliss has really been molded by our beloved felines, so here's a Biographical Treatise about them all, the affectionate and the not-so-affectionate. Warning: this is not my first foray into the exciting (and burgeoning) field of Cat Biographies: click to read my 1996 exposé, the Cats of VSM (my mother). Shaw cousins, Uncle John makes an appearance http://www.morbeckorama.net/CatBiographies

 Morbeck Marriage Cat Timeline

1985:Married: 

   Five years with NO cats. Both of us travel a lot (mostly to Atlantic City) so we feel it would be irresponsible to own a cat. Besides, we’re too busy drinking Cold Barley sandwiches.

1990:MRS. KITTY Arrives!

We’re living in Fairmount on Wallace St in a first floor apartment. A beautiful Siamese Cat waltzes in and stays with us for the next twenty years. Moves twice with us, gets her leg attacked by a Rutledge dog (Y2k), dies of old age in 2010. Shoo-in member for the Morbeck Cat Hall of Fame. We name her after newly acquired Phillies left fielder John Kruk (Mrs. Krukker) but her name has too many “K’s” in it for daily use.

1993: MINGAMO (Mingamo Joe)  

 Sally goes to the Morris Animal Shelter and chooses a cute little gray kitten who purrs when she picks him up. Little did we know he would turn out to be a feline terrorist. We love him but he is MEAN, taking random swipes at all who ever has been near or dear to me. Breathes his last in our Rutledge living room after laying down to take a nap, 2010. Greatest Cat Name EVER: named after sister Nancy’s childhood invisible friend.

1996: HOUDINI 

We take in a feral cat who is a stray living outside our Bergdoll Mansion apartment in Brewerytown. Houdini is terrified by Mingamo on a daily basis. When we have identical twins in 1997 it is very upsetting as Houdini has an identical twin brother who lives outside in the cold. We find a good home for him in Manyunk after I have to cut a bunch of drywall away in our laundry  room because Houdini is hiding behind the wall from Mingamo.

2010: NINI & ORANŽOVÁ

Mingamo and Mrs. Kitty die, leaving two positions open in our Cat Universe. We go to the Media SPCA and pick up two suitable replacements, Brandon (orange) and Jasper (black tuxedo). Our twins Benjamin and Gabriel are due to get tooth extractions at UPenn the same day. I sign a statement acknowledging that their jaws may be broken in the process. We rename Jasper “Nini” and Brandon “ORANŽOVÁ”. Cousin Julia wins the “O” Cat naming contest, submitting the Czechoslovakian word for Orange as the winning entry. “Zovi” dies first in 2017, followed by the sainted “Nini” in 2019. Their earthly remains are both in the back garden.

2011: OMLET 

Our friend Chelsey Sokoloff is attending DCC (Delaware County Community) and brings home a shivering little kitten from the parking lot. Her father Bob valiantly nurses her back to health with an eye dropper. And then SOMEHOW we end up with a third cat. Omlet (Originally Omni-Cat) is a bit of dud (don’t tell our adoring sons), but we love her anyway. Her greatest moment comes during the 2023 playoffs when she sleeps in front of the Fox scoring bug (inconveniently located on the lower right rather than the upper left where it SHOULD be!)  “Om” sleeps here because it is right over the toasty warm cable box, a device which spends fifteen years bleeding us dry of kilowatt hours even when we are asleep upstairs. She departs to the Great Litter Box in the Sky, Summer 2024.

2019: FRIDA KAHTLO 

We choose Mexico City for our destination in what turns out to be our greatest vacation EVER. We visit artist Frida Kahlo’s house in CDMX and there’s only one choice of a cat name when we're forced to replace the sainted “Nini”. She’s truly our most beautiful feline (sorry, Mrs.) but unfortunately, she seems to know it. She is hopelessly devoted to Sally to the exclusion of the rest of us losers. Sally works from home for a few years before she retires and Frida logs full forty hour weeks laying on the bed beside her desk. She (like Mingamo) is a feline terrorist, never giving poor Omlet an even break. Classic interloper/home wrecker. But her irresistible pulchritude is unparalleled!

NOT A MORBECK CAT, BUT WORTHY OF INCLUSION! 

 A special GUEST appearance by Legendary Twentieth Century (and a little beyond) Feline Deity for all Morbecks: OREO SENIOR! Joe and Michelle Senior (100 Rutledge Avenue) have an incredibly handsome tuxedo cat who is a “must stop” on our family’s nightly trip to and from our borough’s Triangle Playground. So beloved is   Oreo we choose to honor him with our INDEPENDENCE DAY 2002 Family Float Entry. A gigantic Trojan Cat!
We have a few wheel problems on the parade route and luckily Michelle bails us out with an emergency hand truck we use to get rolling again. Do we win? That’s beside the point. ALL HAIL OREO! As the sign says, “Rutledge’s Nicest Kitty: Scholar; Statesman(cat); Exemplary Citizen; Patriot. By the way, his name is spelled out in GENUINE Oreo cookies.