Cinnamon! Lemme iiiiiiin!!!
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, it is my distinct pleasure to present to you, live from the darkest jungles of Ceylon ::coughcoughGolden Valleycough::...
Cinnamomum cassia! Or, when she's not in a terrible lot of trouble...
Cassia.
You were expecting, perhaps, something tastier?
Something more...bark-like?
Woof.
I'd actually mooned over Cassia (formerly known as "Arlene") on the Animal Humane Society's adoption pages. But I'm a big believer in letting the animal choose you, so I tried not to get attached. Then leorathesane showed me a cutie in one of the colony rooms, but, damnit, they're all cute, and I wanted to get this right. I walked into the colony room, and the one Leora had pointed out trotted right up to me and tried to use my pant-leg as a scratching post (never wear corduroy to a cat shelter, gentle reader). Leora pulled the card and informed me that, yup, that was Arlene.
When we took her into the visitation room, she wandered around a minute checking things out (always a good sign with cats) and then plunked down in my lap and looked at me as if to say, "Yo. You gonna pet me, or you just gonna sit there with your mouth hanging open?"
She's, unsurprisingly, a bit skittish about the change of venue. She's a little clingy and not terribly interested in playing. But she also appears to have a cold, and goodness knows I don't play much when I have a cold. Mostly she's a cat who's only a year old and has been shuttled around a lot in the past month or so (she was brought to another shelter as a stray, and the other shelter brought her to AHS because of space issues). As soon as she realizes she's at this house for good, I imagine she'll settle right in.
Mister Brown has no idea what to make of her. We're keeping them separated for the nonce, but they've encountered each other in passing, and he's hissed at her every time. The rest of the time he spends staring at the door to the room we're keeping her in, trying to figure out what insanity is brewing in his house. But I'm confident they'll work themselves out with a minimum of trauma (to themselves or us).
So, yeah. Our new little girl is awesomely awesome. I've never lived in a multi-cat household before, so that should be extra-specially cool, right? Right! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go hold my new cat.