New Family Member

I've been neglecting not only my blog but Facebook. Between getting reintegrated into normal life as well as the start of the church program year, I've been crazy busy. I still haven't cleaned my house yet, either! (It is neat, just not clean.)

And to add to the craziness, we decided to adopt not one, but two new cats. So Friday we went to the pound and played with several cats. Two chose us. One had been named Miss Kitty (original), is 9 months old, and when we took her out of her cage at the pound, placed both of her paws on my shoulders, looked me straight in the eye, and purred. We took her home with the new name of Eliza. The other cat who chose us is named Parker (we kept that name), rubbed his face on Taciturn's arm and purred, and gave me a kiss. Obviously we thought he'd like to come live with us. He still has his manhood, though, so we can't take him home until Tuesday afternoon (surgery is Tuesday morning).


A bit of background about what we are used to in cats--we had an old cat, Allie, who died of cancer last year at age 12. I had Al since she was 4 weeks old--she was picked up off a playground where she had been dumped and given to us. Al was almost totally feral and never really warmed up to people. Something that didn't help was the torture to which she was subjected by the disturbed child who was then (briefly) my stepson when she was still a kitten. She was always cold and aloof, fully expecting to be beaten and so she responded to petting, picking up, etc, with full scale attacks. Guests were greeted with a sign telling them DO NOT PET THE CAT!

I think she was six years old before I could pet her and keep her in my lap for long periods of time. An interesting exception was when I was divorcing the father of the above stepson--she kept very close to me, sat in my lap for hours at a time, and would hiss and claw at that man when he would try to pet her. He then would turn to me accusingly, and I would shrug and say, "You know I can't train her to do that!"

(Allie was a very good judge of character.)

To make a long story short, we are not used to a loving, affectionate cat. Al would occasionally allow us to pet her, but after a few minutes it got to be too much for her--she'd nip at us then zip off.

Eliza is the total opposite! She hates being away from us. She climbs onto our shoulders, she jumps into our laps, she sleeps with us. She is so calm and easy to be around. The two times we have left her she hid. Allie hid when we were there and came out when we were gone! Eliza is such a joy. I wish I could tell the folks who surrendered her for adoption that they did a great job with her. (Apparently they moved and couldn't take her.) They must miss her terribly. She is a very affectionate and well socialized animal.

Since Eliza is so much fun, we are eager to bring Parker home. I'll blog about that later this week!