for the curious, in a recent court case here a woman was ordered to give up all but 3 of her 25 cats, which i think makes it official: the maximum number of cats you can own without being a crazy cat lady is 3.
So if gatto is "cat", and gattara is "cat lady", and gattino is "kitten", then does the northwestern Italian village of Gattinara secretly translate to "kitten lady"??? ;)