My Boyfriend: Cat Magnet

Ed and I were enjoying a great, if somewhat crass, free walking tour of the center last Saturday with a group  of expats.  We were standing in a circle in the Red Light district, listening to our guide's stories of lusty sailors buying indulgences at the Oude Kerk, when all attention shifted to Ed's legs.  When the smiling and pointing began, I figured that either a very small prostitute had crept up behind us, or that, yet again, a cat had glued itself to my boyfriend.

You see, Ed has this "something special" about him that cats can't resist:

Montserrat, Catalunya, Spain

Guadalest, Alicante, Spain

Cabo de Gata, Murcia, Spain

The Boy and his Cat

It's not just the cheese-begging cats of Spain that are drawn to Edward's feline aura.  In Amsterdam, too, they creep from alleys, bushes, trash cans, and porches, in response to his cooing call of "Kitty!":

Hold the bike ride!  It's a kitty!

It's cold and I look shady, but I'm gonna pet this street kitty.

These close encounters of the cat kind don't happen just every once in a while.  To illustrate:  The same day of the Amsterdam walking tour, when a teenage-sized grey kitten decided to trace figure-eights around Ed's pant-legs, stealing the 30-person audience from a street full of under-wearing women and the tour guide, the following occurred:

How did this well-fed orange tabby get into our stairwell??

Nothing to do but pet it, I guess.

No, no, kitty!  Not inside our apartment!

Come on, zombie kitty.  Please don't go upstairs.

Not ten minutes later, after ousting the pumpkin-headed tabby and taking out the recycling, we happened upon this lil' kitten:

 ... I have nothing left to say.  I'm too busy grinning over that last set of photos.  That kitten sure loves dry leaves and things that drip.

Ed's not the only one prone to playing with strays...

... but at least I don't hiss at fish.