About me

For friends and newcomers, here’s a little bit of bio info on me and my critter family.

Samantha . . .

Single, resident of Orange, CA. I’m trying to make up for lost time as a poor journalist by traveling the world annually. Last year was Thailand. This year will be Southern Mexico for Day of the Dead celebrations in October.

If you’re a Facebook member, let me know, and I’ll be your friend. Many of my travel pix live there!

I freelance in desktop design with www.kyjen.com, a pet-toy distributor to wholesalers. I also work with the Media Center at UCLA where I advise and educate students at The Daily Bruin. I teach classes in copy editing and page design. My day job is newspaper design.

About my family of four-leggers . . .

Katy: mutt extraordinaire; nickname: Pony.

I adopted Katy in 2003 as a tiny puppy weighing in at 7 pounds. I spotted her on an adoption web site and before I knew it, she was in my house and wreaking havoc. She was the typical puppy with separation anxiety and a thing for chewing … and chewing some more. We conquered that vice, but by 6 months of age, I knew Katy wasn’t going to be “petite,” as the adoption agency had believed. She weighed a whopping 50 pounds and was growing by the day.

Now, at age 4.6, Katy’s tall, sleek and shy. She weighs 96 pounds on a good day. Of the littermates who survived, Katy is the smallest. Her brother, Deke, adopted by a family in Los Angeles, weighs a tender 150. Yowza … We believe the dogs are part Lab, part Great Dane.

Mayo: sweetest boy-kitty ever.

I was living in Florida with Callie the cat and my two dogs, Lucky and Sadie. It was a particularly rainy November and from my back yard came this ragged black cat who begged with his eyes for food and love. I resisted for about two weeks. The feisty tortoiseshell, Callie, finally let this new cat venture through her cat door to the food within the house. At the time, I figured if he could tolerate living with all of us, he was welcome. (The picture you see features Casey, a buddy owned by Melissa, with Mayo and the late Lucky snoozing in the background.)

Mayo’s name came from his pathetic attempts to cry his way in the back door. He’d sit there, face stuck to a pane of glass in the French door, and wail. He eventually lost his voice and the croak that came forth was a warbling “maaay-yo.” You get the picture.

The vet discovered this scrawny creature had been put through the wringer. He had bb’s in his groin and two old fractures in his back legs. He was healed but damaged goods. Shy with strangers but safe with dogs, it was a strange mix but he was determined to fit in.

R.I.P.

It makes me feel old, but in my years as a pet owner, I’ve lost four. It hurts, even now, to think about it. All my pets give me great comfort and add to a colorful life of fun moments and great memories.

Callie: that feisty tortoiseshell. She was killed by a neighbor’s pet or a coyote. We never figured it out, but we believe she was probably 12 to 14 years old. She came to me in Petersburg, Va., where she fought her way past two dogs and into my home after being abandoned by her original owners. When I got a job in West Palm Beach, Fla., I couldn’t leave her behind, so I packed her up and she made it 16 long hours in a cat box to her new home. That was 1998. She and her new pal, Mayo, then made the journey with me, Lucky and Sadie cross-country to California in 2000.

Sadie: the lovable and very picky Chow-Lab mutt. I almost ran over her on a dirt road in North Carolina back in 1989. She was a mean, nippy bitch at a whopping 5 pounds. It took 6 months before I saw her curled, Chow tail wag. Her nature was to love a few, but she loved deeply. She had a “whoopsie” litter of pups at age 2. My parents adopted one, Burbank, after a friend couldn’t keep him. He would become The Most Spoiled Dog Ever. He died 4 years ago. (He’s photographed below-right with his pal, Lucky.) Sadie hated cats but made her home with two. A solid 50 pounds, she made it through bone cancer and a toe amputation, then a radical procedure called a TPLO to fix a busted knee. She died at age 14 when her hips went out after a dog attacked her (and me) in our neighborhood.

Lucky: the wise ol’ golden gal. She was probably one of the best dogs I’ll ever have. Adopted from the animal shelter in Chapel Hill, she almost died of parvo the same week I took her home. Shelter employees told me to put her down. My roommates and I (a bunch of ragtag UNC baseball players) kept a 24-hour vigil and willed her to live. She repaid me with undying loyalty and absolute obedience. She lived almost 17 years. What a trouper. She died at home, quietly and likely of heart failure.

Flip: the regal and engaging gray chartreux. She belonged to my pal, Tess Felder, and came to live with me when Tess moved to Ireland. She endured a cross-country flight from Florida, then landed unceremoniously in my living room amongst many four-legged foreigners. At the time, my house was home to Lucky, Katy, Shelby (my sister’s dog), Callie and Mayo. She made herself right at home and became No. 1 creature. Three years into her grand adventure with us, cancer struck. It was brutal and quick. I miss her so. She was 12, going on 13.

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• Contact me
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