Esmeralda -my first cat and best friend.

I never had children. I married at 40 and it was never an issue with me only my mother.
Any regrets, up to now no. But, now all my friend have grandchildren. Grandchildren looks like alot of fun to play with. Also, since they are only a rent a child (for a few hours), I don't think I would feel penned in. Neither of my nieces have children. This is driving my sister insane.

Cats, I was given Esmeralda by a man I worked with at the Boston Phoenix. He already had 3 cats, 2 dogs, and one rabbit in his studio apartment on Marboro Street in Boston. This herd did not seem to brother his wife. Esmeralda was a kitty, a coon kitty. Pretty and fuzzy.  I fell in love at first sight. I had to adopt her. Besides, I was saving her from that fuzzy, large nimbly, 10 pound rabbit.

I was in my twenties. I lived in Brookline with roommates.  Martha had worked with me at the Coop in Cambridge. She invited me to live with her and the roomies. The other roomies were the Katz twins, Sue and Ellen. Sue worked at the Boston Phoenix. She worked in the Art Department with the very cool 70s crew. Ellen was engaged to Bob, the student architect. Bob shared a room with Ellen.
Our building was a very old brick apartment building. When it first was built in the 20s, it would have been swanky. This was the 70s and it now was rent controlled. It was in bad repair. We had a land lord who would take vacations, after he shut off the heat in our building and put on a big lock on the boiler room's room. He was not a nice guy.

On the other had, Drab as our apartment was it was huge.  It had two bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a double sized living room, a strange room off the living room filled with boxes, a dinning room, and a large kitchen. There were three buildings side by side in this complex. But, the architect designed the units so that the back bedrooms were not as wide as the front room, and were built  in an open U shaped. The next bedroom apartment was 25 feet from my bedroom. We had many windows, and since we were up on Summit Ave high up the hill, we had greats views and wonderful cooling winds in the summer. The winter was cold but, we were young.