{"id":22139,"date":"2011-08-14T10:50:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-14T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=22139"},"modified":"2011-08-14T10:50:07","modified_gmt":"2011-08-14T16:50:07","slug":"re-catted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/14\/re-catted.html","title":{"rendered":"Re-catted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the loss of Indy several weeks back, the $64,000 question has been when we’d get a new cat. Unlike the other kitties we’ve lost, something about Indy was particularly difficult for us to process or discuss, so considering a replacement just didn’t come up in discussion.<\/p>\n

(This is also the first time our family has been cat-less in Katherine’s lifetime, and, in fact, since Mist joined us from SoCal after we were in the house in ’95. So there was also a sort of sudden change that made the whole thing more difficult and more odd.)<\/p>\n

Then three things happened in the last 24 hours:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We’ve been doing little memorial stones<\/a> for our various cats over the years, as sort of an official closure. \u00a0They’re over in the side yard, under the big lilac there. \u00a0The one I ordered for Indy arrived yesterday.<\/li>\n
  2. I had a real urge to suggest something about a new cat to Margie last night. \u00a0But, for whatever reason, I didn’t.<\/li>\n
  3. This morning Margie mentioned that when Katherine was filling the bird feeder, she complained about how the bird seed container was \u00a0under the cat food container. \u00a0When Margie suggested we could swap that around, Katherine opined that would be sad.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"\"<\/a>
    Kunoichi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    So all of those merged together to lead to a discussion between Margie and me this morning about getting a new cat. \u00a0And so, after we went to \u00a0Kaylee’s birthday party (Happy Birthday, Kaylee!), we headed to the Denver Dumb Friends League<\/a>, the local shelter we support (and have used before).<\/p>\n

    We knew we wanted a female, spayed, preferably short-hair, thus forestalling marking, pregnancy, and hair all over the furniture.<\/p>\n

    We toured around, and there were a lot <\/em>of cats there, more than in the past. \u00a0Saw lots of cute kittens, lots of other cats, and filled out a little “we’d like to see this cat more up-close” form, finally coming up with four cats.<\/p>\n

    Yeah …<\/p>\n

    The first cat we saw was a medium-haired blue cream domestic, about 6 years old, named Kunoichi<\/a>. She was a bit skittish and shy, but was soon coming over to us in the little visitor’s room and asking for brief pets. \u00a0She was lovely, and we all fell in love with her.<\/p>\n

    We should have stopped right there.<\/p>\n

    The next cat was one Katherine had spotted, a 4-month-old kitten named Pebbles — black short-hair with white paws and chin. \u00a0She was darling, a tiny thing constantly wanting to climb on shoulders or chests to rub against your face and be petted.<\/p>\n

    So there was really no need to look at the other cats, and that raised a big question: which one to choose.<\/p>\n

    Kunoichi was the obvious practical choice. \u00a0Pebbles is still young, has the typical shelter upper respiratory tract infection, meaning she needs to be medicated and that she hadn’t been spayed yet. \u00a0And Pebbles would not be safe to be out for several months more.<\/p>\n

    Of course we were discussing this while we had Pebbles in the room with us, taking turns climbing on each of us and rubbing and purring and the whole nine yards.<\/p>\n

    And, of course, the obvious thought came to both Margie and me — Do we really need to choose? \u00a0Why not bring both home?<\/em><\/p>\n

    Which is even less practical, and a big deal and all that. \u00a0And, of course, once the suggestion was made …<\/p>\n

    So, off to the races, and we got \u00a0a variety of good deals for buying a kitten \u00a0and getting a super-sizing discount on another cat, etc.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>
    The cat soon not to be named Pebbles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    So here’s part of the logistical problem. \u00a0We have traditionally put the litter box out in the garage, with a cat door from the house to there. \u00a0Problem being, we don’t want Kunoichi going out just yet — and, once Pebbles (renamed) gets free rein of the house, we don’t want her going outside at all until she’s much older. \u00a0And, garage being where cars come in and out of, having the garage open to the outside (esp. at 5:30 a.m. when I leave and really can’t afford to go chasing after a cat) is not a good idea.<\/p>\n

    And, of course, short-term we need to keep Pebbles apart from Kunoichi, and entertained and loved in quarantine. And Kunoichi needs to figure out the rhythm of the household, and what loud noises are not threats and how to communicate in some way other than insistent squawking. And why, of course, we ended up with two new cats.<\/p>\n

    UPDATES: I’ve had this post 90% complete for the last 12 hours. Since I began …<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Kay is doing a great job with Pebbles, spending time with her.<\/li>\n
    2. We still haven’t come up with a good name for Pebbles. \u00a0“Smudge” (which is what she does to classes, plus refers to the dark spot on her white chin) was leading for a bit, but “Neko” seems to be taking the lead.<\/li>\n
    3. Mary and Stan were able to stop by for dinner (and boxes) on their way home from Pike’s Peak, so they got to spend a lot of time with Kunoichi.<\/li>\n
    4. Last night went okay, except for a brief moment when Kunoichi decided to play in the cardboard boxes in the hallway. \u00a0Aside \u00a0from that, she jumped up onto the bed and slept with us without any sort of disturbance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Since the loss of Indy several weeks back, the $64,000 question has been when we’d get a new cat. Unlike the other kitties we’ve lost, something about Indy was particularly difficult for us to process or discuss, so considering a replacement just didn’t come up in discussion. (This is also the first time our family … Continue reading “Re-catted”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/pebbles.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21917,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/02\/farewell-indy.html","url_meta":{"origin":22139,"position":0},"title":"Farewell, Indy","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Aug-11 10:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight, we drank, as a family, a toast to Indy, our cat. * \u00a0 \u00a0 * \u00a0 \u00a0 * Back when I first got onto the Internet, I ended up participating in the Belief-L Listserv, the \"Personal Ideologies Discussion List.\" \u00a0In 1996, for a second year running, we had a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pets"","block_context":{"text":"Pets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/pets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/\/images\/1e4ac24021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14763,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/05\/11\/mimi-and-the-night-visitor.html","url_meta":{"origin":22139,"position":1},"title":"Mimi and the Night Visitor","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-May-09 7:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"Was wrapping up stuff before going to bed last night, when I heard a minor kerfuffle at the cat door into the garage -- the sort of bat-bat-flap-flap-hiss-hiss that marks Indy and Mimi bumping noses. (They are generally pretty tolerant of each other, but occasionally have a minor tiff.) I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pets"","block_context":{"text":"Pets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/pets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8408,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/27\/picky_picky_pic.html","url_meta":{"origin":22139,"position":2},"title":"Picky, picky, picky …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 27-Nov-05 11:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So last week we ran out of cat food in the upstairs tub, which is usually filled with Friskies, whence the cat food bowl is filled. The horror! Mist and...","rel":"","context":"In "Pets"","block_context":{"text":"Pets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/pets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8576,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/07\/cat_on_a_fence.html","url_meta":{"origin":22139,"position":3},"title":"Cat on a Fence","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 7-Oct-05 5:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We ran across Indy on our walk.this post enabled by airblogging.com....","rel":"","context":"In "Pets"","block_context":{"text":"Pets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/pets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/47a91fac8a.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14461,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/07\/state-of-the-cat.html","url_meta":{"origin":22139,"position":4},"title":"State of the Cat","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Apr-09 11:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Mimi continues to become more fully integrated into the household. Tentative exploration downstairs is now full-ranged expeditions of adventure, in and on and under and behind and around. When startled, she still dashes at full tilt upstairs, but that's becoming more rare. She is amazingly vocal -- and not the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pets"","block_context":{"text":"Pets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/pets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12110,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/11\/14\/awwwww.html","url_meta":{"origin":22139,"position":5},"title":"Awwwww …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Nov-07 11:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"So indy got into a tussle with some cat the past few days, and got a corneal puncture ... And, now, eye drops and pain meds and (eek) a...","rel":"","context":"In "Pets"","block_context":{"text":"Pets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/pets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2340\/2020692832_1d541c32aa.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}