Strolling With Kitty

We walk our cat on the moonlit beaches of Oxnard. People give us strange looks and ask if that’s a dog. No, we reply, it’s Spike. Our black cat has walked and hiked by our sides ever since he survived a drive-by shooting wound through the chest as a kitten. Spike is a real trouper who follows us everywhere and, we hope, has at least eight lives left.

--TRACY and MICHAEL DE MARTINO

Oxnard