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I have decided that cats have ethnicities. No, not breeds...ethnicities, and they should be named accordingly. For instance, Ishtar, the rotund Siamese mix who shared my life for 13 years, was Middle Eastern, by way of England. By the time I was a lot older, and he a lot fatter, it was clear that if he could speak he'd have had a British accent but was more exotic than your average limey - like when someone of Pakistani or Indian descent speaks and surprises you with a lovely, lilting British accent. Of course, I didn't have all of this figured out when I got him in the third grade and named him on the car ride home, but luckily the name fit.

The gray and white tiger cat who entered my grandparents' life a few years ago is a huge, lanky, skittish thing. His white is always a little dingy, and he's a bit of a ruffian, but still quite handsome. And something about the gloomy gray color, and his rough around the edges demeanor screamed "Ireland" to me. Once it was decided that he was Irish, I knew he would need a suitable name, but there are just too many to choose from - and my grandparents, including my English grandmother - didn't seem to like any of them. Then it came to me: Finnigan. It was perfect. Now, if we could only get him to drink Guinness out of a bowl!

But soon, my toughest challenge yet would be staring me in the face - every morning when I woke up, right around feeding time. She followed my best-friend - not a cat-lover - into her apartment building, and then into her actual apartment. The little uninvited guest was a light orange color (sand-colored, if you will) with pristine patches of white. More importantly, she was a fiery little thing - all full of piss and vinegar, as they say.

After my friend had hung up posters, spent several days living in fear as the cat clung to the screen on her sliding doors, and finally determined that she would not be able to find the cat's owner, "Sandy" came to live with me. But the name was lame. I just couldn't have it! Still, her ethnicity was a mystery to me. The sand color didn't speak to me, but after wrestling a flea collar on her - and coming away with the scars to prove it - I knew the little spitfire had some Latin blood in her for sure. But what to name her?

Sitting around with my roommate, with the cat staring at us, it came to me. We were three blondes, living together. So I dubbed her Rubia (spanish for blonde) which eventually became Ruby (or Rubers, or Rubes, or Ruby Tuesday, or Ruby Soho - depending

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