Cat Thanksgiving, 2006

In 2006, I was renting a cheap room in Santa Ana, where the property was overrun by a colony of feral cats, neglected by the community and left to fend for themselves on scraps and garbage. It was heartbreaking—many of them were sick, constantly re-infecting each other with colds and worse. They were painfully thin, doomed to short lives on the streets. We managed to rescue one of them, Tiggi, but didn’t have the means to help the others.

That Thanksgiving, after cooking a feast for just the two of us, we had more leftovers than we could possibly eat. So, after setting aside a few meals, we decided to share the rest with the cats. What started on the back porch quickly turned into a street party of sorts, as the cats, one by one, began dragging off their own personal servings of turkey and stuffing.

Cat Thanksgiving, 2006, was a true feast for the starving strays outside. I remember a light drizzle falling, with some of the cats already huddled on our porch for shelter. But as soon as the Thanksgiving dinner hit the air, they emerged—cats darted out from behind trees and dumpsters like they’d been waiting for the signal. When I moved the food closer to the dumpsters, twice as many hidden felines appeared, slinking out from the shadows to join the feast. It was as if they’d been lying in wait for their own secret holiday banquet.

Everyone ate their fill that night—except for one white cat I’d named Skeletor. He missed out on the feast, though I hoped he was getting fed somewhere else. I’ve never seen a turkey carcass picked so clean, so fast. Happy Thanksgiving!