Cat-tacular Greetings
It couldn't go on forever; real life drama has finally reared its ugly
head in my life, and I couldn't be more ticked about it. So in a
very un-LJ-type of move, I'm not going to talk about the situation
until it's all over. We'll see how everything shakes out.
As a side note, that made it several months since the last instance of drama came rapping, rapping at my chamber door. I hope this is resolved quickly and that it's several years before the next go-round.
Everyone, please welcome cat_whisperer to the party. This not only makes the second Amanda on my friend list, but also a bona-fide feline defender to rival even the most dedicated follower of The Daily Kitten. Whenever somebody turns up on my friends list who doesn't have any mutual friends or communities with myself, I always wonder how they managed to find me... until I looked at the user info page which said Consider Adopting A Black Cat!
"Of course!" I said aloud, thankful that nobody was home to hear me talking to my computer... again. "That must be it; the power of Caesar the primary cat and Marcus the backup kitty led her to my journal." So once again welcome, cat_whisperer, and hopefully you will be entertained.
In the spirit of our newest superfriend, I will tell the story of how I acquired Caesar. Those of you who don't care, go look at the Princess Leia chicks some more.
I used to not like cats very much, but that was before my ex-finacee and I became a volunteer home for a trio of kittens via an agency called Friends 4 Life in June of 2000. How this works is that a household would take in a group of puppies, kittens or what-have-you and on Saturday would bring them to a local Petco for them to spend a few hours being considered for adoption by families. The agency vets the prospective volunteers and adoptive families pretty thoroughly, so the instances of bad pairings are thankfully small.
I didn't want to be a volunteer household for a couple reasons, namely that I had the (as it turned out very prescient) feeling that my then-fiancee would not be able to give up at least one of the little creatures once she laid eyes on them. I was right; as soon as she saw the little gray tabby, she fell in love and Theodora joined our household.
This left two others; Cleo, a magnificently beautiful black kitten that fought like a valkyrie, and William, a dingy black kitten with a habit of puffing up and hopping sideways in a vain attempt to prove how fierce he was. Amused by his antics though I was, I took them down to the Petco that weekend where they sat for six hours before I came back and bundled them into my car. William cried the whole way home, and I found myself trying to shush and console the formely willful warrior as he shivered and mewed desperately. Heartless Cleo, ever the bitch, simply groomed herself and tried to get to William through the bars of her carrier.
That week, I made a fatal mistake; I re-named William. He just does't seem like a William, I reasoned. That's such a geeky name and he likes to tussle, and brawl... like a gladiator. Like... like a Caesar!
Guess what movie I had just recently watched?
So the next weekend I once again took Cleo and the newly-minted Caesar down to Petco and when I arrived back there six hours later, I was down one black kitten. Cleo had been adopted, and poor Caesar seemed even more inconsolable than before. To this day, all you have to do is show him an overhead dome light and he freaks out.
The next weekend, my ex-fiancee asked me if I was going to take Caesar down, because it seemed I was running late.
"No," I said, rubbing his ears while he purred rustily. "No, I don't think so."
"Okay," she said, pleased by this answer.
About five weeks later, I got a call from Friends 4 Life, inquiring about the whereabouts of William--
"Caesar," I corrected automatically.
"Ah," the lady said, delighted. "Will you be bringing him down this weekend? We've missed that little face of his."
"No, I don't think so. Caesar is already home."
"Excellent," she said, obviously approving. "We have many adoptions that happen this way, and I'm sure that William--"
"Caesar."
"Right, Caesar, is very happy there. His shots have already been done, so there's really only one piece of business we have left to discuss..."
I bristled, holding him closer automatically. "Which is?"
"Well... we're happy and everything, but can we at least have our cat carrier back? Please?"
And that's how I got my little black man.
As a side note, that made it several months since the last instance of drama came rapping, rapping at my chamber door. I hope this is resolved quickly and that it's several years before the next go-round.
Everyone, please welcome cat_whisperer to the party. This not only makes the second Amanda on my friend list, but also a bona-fide feline defender to rival even the most dedicated follower of The Daily Kitten. Whenever somebody turns up on my friends list who doesn't have any mutual friends or communities with myself, I always wonder how they managed to find me... until I looked at the user info page which said Consider Adopting A Black Cat!
"Of course!" I said aloud, thankful that nobody was home to hear me talking to my computer... again. "That must be it; the power of Caesar the primary cat and Marcus the backup kitty led her to my journal." So once again welcome, cat_whisperer, and hopefully you will be entertained.
In the spirit of our newest superfriend, I will tell the story of how I acquired Caesar. Those of you who don't care, go look at the Princess Leia chicks some more.
I used to not like cats very much, but that was before my ex-finacee and I became a volunteer home for a trio of kittens via an agency called Friends 4 Life in June of 2000. How this works is that a household would take in a group of puppies, kittens or what-have-you and on Saturday would bring them to a local Petco for them to spend a few hours being considered for adoption by families. The agency vets the prospective volunteers and adoptive families pretty thoroughly, so the instances of bad pairings are thankfully small.
I didn't want to be a volunteer household for a couple reasons, namely that I had the (as it turned out very prescient) feeling that my then-fiancee would not be able to give up at least one of the little creatures once she laid eyes on them. I was right; as soon as she saw the little gray tabby, she fell in love and Theodora joined our household.
This left two others; Cleo, a magnificently beautiful black kitten that fought like a valkyrie, and William, a dingy black kitten with a habit of puffing up and hopping sideways in a vain attempt to prove how fierce he was. Amused by his antics though I was, I took them down to the Petco that weekend where they sat for six hours before I came back and bundled them into my car. William cried the whole way home, and I found myself trying to shush and console the formely willful warrior as he shivered and mewed desperately. Heartless Cleo, ever the bitch, simply groomed herself and tried to get to William through the bars of her carrier.
That week, I made a fatal mistake; I re-named William. He just does't seem like a William, I reasoned. That's such a geeky name and he likes to tussle, and brawl... like a gladiator. Like... like a Caesar!
Guess what movie I had just recently watched?
So the next weekend I once again took Cleo and the newly-minted Caesar down to Petco and when I arrived back there six hours later, I was down one black kitten. Cleo had been adopted, and poor Caesar seemed even more inconsolable than before. To this day, all you have to do is show him an overhead dome light and he freaks out.
The next weekend, my ex-fiancee asked me if I was going to take Caesar down, because it seemed I was running late.
"No," I said, rubbing his ears while he purred rustily. "No, I don't think so."
"Okay," she said, pleased by this answer.
About five weeks later, I got a call from Friends 4 Life, inquiring about the whereabouts of William--
"Caesar," I corrected automatically.
"Ah," the lady said, delighted. "Will you be bringing him down this weekend? We've missed that little face of his."
"No, I don't think so. Caesar is already home."
"Excellent," she said, obviously approving. "We have many adoptions that happen this way, and I'm sure that William--"
"Caesar."
"Right, Caesar, is very happy there. His shots have already been done, so there's really only one piece of business we have left to discuss..."
I bristled, holding him closer automatically. "Which is?"
"Well... we're happy and everything, but can we at least have our cat carrier back? Please?"
And that's how I got my little black man.