My God, Ellenpoly, what a story! I was tremendously reminded of Gerald Durrell's marvelous book "My Family and Other Animals" which is the story of his growing up with his weird family on the Greek island of Corfu. The stuff he said about the situation of cats in Greece sounded very similar to your story. The Durrells, of course, were eccentric English people, and did things THEIR way...which was anything but the way the Greeks did things.

This whole thing doesn't speak very well for the Greek soul, if you ask me. If I reincarnate as a cat I will try not to land there!

- LH