There’s Gonna Be Another Female in the House!

A feline female!  This is a big deal……

When I met Hubs 27 years ago I told him that I needed to have books and cats in a home to be happy and he was on board.  We got one cat and then another and then a few years later a dog and then another.  All four of them lived their full, long into geriatric lives, and we haven’t had any pets for 7.5 years.

 We moved to a new home 7 years ago and we no longer had a fenced yard and by this time the boys were old enough to be on three different sports teams that kept us busy many nights and weekends and we also began taking long summer road trips.  So, we have had no pets for a while with the exception of getting a hamster for  Youngest, but this past Easter it was sad when he expired after only 1.5 years.

 Soon it will be a year that I have had a job that wants me and my peers to work at home and I have increasingly been thinking how nice it would be to have a sweet cat curled up nearby.  Two weeks ago a coworker who also volunteers at a shelter, sent out a mass email about a cat she has observed at the shelter for months—a cat who is three years old and overlooked because she is not a kitten and because she didn't approach potential adopters often and who seemed miserable with the 20 or so other female cats in the room.  But my coworker knew she was sweet and wanted to see what she is like out of there and in a home.  She told the shelter folks she wanted to foster it and find it a home.  After just one day the kitty changed to a very, very happy, purring, lap sitting and leg-rubbing cat.  This is the first time I was included in her mass-email – she has occasionally looked for homes for a few cats previously. 

So I think it was fate and timing because this cat’s story spoke to me—about how she lived at the shelter for A YEAR and was MISERABLE but the minute she was put in a happier place she changed.  So I reached out and this past Sunday Youngest and I visited the kitty and she was so sweet and not scared at all and after an hour was rubbing our legs and letting us pet her belly.

 I showed her photos to Hubs and he accepted this (he is a neat freak so having any cat hair or litter box scenarios is not his fave).  I’m not sure why other than maybe I just need a cat every 25 years, but I know around my b-day in June I started saying I wanted a cat -- for the first time in years I was saying this.  The boys had a couple of separate weeks in FL with just Hubs this summer and I just found out they were advocating for me to get a cat.  I have also had some extreme stress/sadness this summer (nothing to do with work or the people I live with) which is why Hubs is being very easy going about this now.

(my coworker has been emailing me a photo a day of her)

So…..she is gonna be mine this Sunday!  And the Boys!  Right now they are fighting over the name.  I made a list of names that end in the “eeee” sound such as Roxy and Harley--those are the top contenders (kitty was named Shirley!!!) so I was thinking new name/similar sound.  I am out of town for a couple of days which is why the adoption day is this Sunday.  I’m sooooo excited.  She will be scared and hoping that a car ride doesn’t mean shelter time again. 

Oh, and she likes guys and feet so she should be happy at our house.

So what is the trend for cat food these days?  Some canned food at night so the diet is not just dry food (which has a lot of corn)??