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curly.
Beverly: These are the oldest breed known to man. They’re from Israel and they’re actually in the Bible. They’re in Genesis 28 to 30 — they’re Jacob’s. Very, very special. They have anywhere from two to six horns.
Miranda: Yeah, they really do have a lot of horns.
    Three dogs came rushing up to the fence.
Beverly: Her name is Raspberry, and then the black one’s Squooshy, and the big one is Puppy-Puppy. If you hand-feed them they’re wonderful, but they’re wild if you don’t.
Miranda: Were these ones hand-fed?
    Beverly laughed, so I laughed. I suggested we go inside, so I could interview her away from the sound of the birds. We went in the kitchen and she prepared the kittens’ lunch while we talked.
Miranda: Give me a sense of your history.
Beverly: I started off with one female.
Miranda: Okay. And you’re from?
Beverly: I’m from Huntington Beach.
Miranda: How long have you lived here?
Beverly: Let’s see — thirty-seven years? Since ’72.
Miranda: How do you make an income?
Beverly: The cats. The birds are not cutting it right now — they’re just not.
Miranda: Do you notice the economy? Does that affect it at all?
Beverly: Oh, yeah. They’re not buying like they used to.
Miranda: Do you have a computer?
Beverly: I do, but I don’t use it.
Miranda: So no online selling — none of that.
Beverly: Uh-uh. And that’s a down thing too, because everybody does it by computer now. I’m hurting my own self, but I don’t have the time or the energy. I just don’t. I’m not interested in computers.
Miranda: You’ve got a lot else to keep you busy. Do you feel like you have a community here or are you pretty isolated? What’s it like in this area?
Beverly: People-wise? Yeah, I’m isolated.
Miranda: What’s been the strangest part of your life so far?
Beverly: Losing my husband was the worst.
Miranda: Would you say he was the love of your life?
Beverly: Yeah.
Miranda: How old were you when you met him?
Beverly: Sixteen.
Miranda: So how did you meet him?
Beverly: At church. A very handsome man. Blue eyes, six foot two, six foot three — really sharp.
Miranda: And do you have pictures?
Beverly: I do, but I’m embarrassed. My husband, Fernando — I would feel bad for him.



Miranda: I understand.
    I felt a little ashamed to have asked. And yet it would have been more romantic if she had pulled a picture of the blue-eyed husband, the one I had just suggested was the love of her life, out of her blouse. Two lives, one after the other, but the second life can never compare…
Beverly: I planned a surprise for you. His name is Sebastian, and he won’t be here till four thirty.
Miranda: Oh, well, you know what — we have another interview at four thirty.
Beverly: Oh no.
Miranda: Sorry, I didn’t realize that.
Beverly: I’m really sorry you can’t see Sebastian. He’s thirty-five pounds. He’s double what we’ve got here. And she walks him on a leash like a dog, and it’s just the darnedest thing you ever saw in your whole life. And the thing of it is she does drum rolls on him — hard. She gets in there and just pounds and he just takes it all — I don’t know how, but he does. Look what I made you guys.
    Beverly pulled a giant bowl of fruit salad out of the fridge. It was the kind with marshmallows; they’d melted into the juice, turning it milky. I started to make a polite noise of regret, but seeing her face fall, I realized refusing was the opposite of polite. I squeezed my iPhone in my pocket. Would it be weird to check my email right now? Or maybe read the news? I had an overwhelming desire to take a little time-out. One option was a bathroom break.
Miranda: Wow, that’s a lot of chopping. Could you point me toward the —
Beverly: Yeah — took me all morning.I can send a cup with you home on the road.
    She had bought an enormous amount of fruit and spent all morning chopping it. She’d asked her husband to herd the biblical sheep toward us at the exact moment we exited the