Time for another semi-annual post. I could make a resolution to post here more often, but that would just put more pressure on me which would ultimately drive me further away from posting. So, we'll just see how it goes.

After Bubba and I lost Rowdy, I have been feeling sorry for Bubba having to be all alone while I am off at work. In the back of my mind, I know he just sleeps all day curled up in the recliner with the "warm fuzzy" I leave there for him, but for those brief waking moments when he may wander through the house, I wondered if he was lonely. Although Bubba and my relationship had not changed at all after Rowdy, I know that I felt the void quite often. I couldn't stop thinking about "It's just you and me now." and, "All we have are each other." and various depressing cliches. So, not wanting to go through the agony of having to put down another dog, I opted to get another kitty....for Bubba, of course. I know it will be agony losing my felines also, but for now I have no real point of reference for that event.
Since the economy has become so horrible, the local no kill shelter is overrun with homeless quadrupeds. Several times a year they offer reduced price adoptions. Dogs are $35.00 (?) and cats are $25.00. That price includes an already spayed or neutered pet, with all current vaccinations, worming, and an implanted microchip. On Halloween day, I went to the shelter in search of our new addition to the family.
Let me say that the experience was a bit overwhelming. There must have been about 250 cats alone awaiting homes (I was very careful not to go where the dogs were waiting). Some were in large common rooms with about 19 others. Kittens were in cages with what I assume were their litter mates, in the front of the building. There were very few kittens left. None of them especially called to me which I actually found very odd. Who can resist a kitten, right? The others were housed in individual rooms, in individual cages, with glass windows facing the hallway. There were three rows of six or seven cages on both sides of the room. You were allowed to enter the rooms and remove any one kitty at a time from it's cage so as to get better acquainted. How to decide on just one!? My heart ached for all of them! When you walk into the room, the ones that weren't sleeping immediately started mewing. As you walk by the row of cages, they would reach through the bars of the cage with one arm and plead with a batting paw for you to pick them. If you paused in front of the rows and bent over to peer into the third row of cages at floor level, the occupants of the cages above you would reach out and snag your hair, your clothing, anything to turn your attention back upon themselves. It was a bit horrific for me.
I must have spent three or four hours at the shelter. I started a list of names of possible matches so I wouldn't lose track. I wanted a female, believing the transition with Bubba would be less dramatic or competitive. I wanted a young kitty for selfish reasons. I know older animals are harder to find homes for, but I was going for longevity, hoping for 15-20 years of vitality.
Once upon a time, I had one totally awesome dark calico when I lived in Oakland. Her name was Misha and she was the most devoted, loving kitty. Stan probably remembers her. He found her when I was away for the day, after she had been hit by a car, and he took her to the vet for me. If I never thanked you for that, I apologize and thank you now, Stan. She had a broken or dislocated hip (I don't remember which now). I made a bed for her on the floor in a box, right next to my bed. The first night home, injured hip and all, I awoke to her pulling herself up onto the bed with her front claws, dragging her damaged, splinted hip behind her, so she could join me on the bed. I didn't sleep the rest of night for fear that I would crush her. I've had a fondness for calicoes ever since. I kept that thought in my mind as I searched for just the right feline, but every calico I saw, which were very few, had too much white. I must say that black cats were plentiful. Black cats are a good bet too, but there can only be one Bubba.
My experience with kit-tehs has also taught me what I want to avoid in personality and design. Too much talking, too demanding of attention, can't get enough attention, too scared or hateful, too much white, and what I call "Clarence Cats" ones with long noses and an almost cross-eyed appearance, much like a Siamese, and Siamese cats proper, were all eliminated from my choices. That narrowed the choices down to about 160.
By now my list consisted of about three names. None of them actually felt right. Well, there was one. His name was Domino, one of the more clever names given by the Humane Society staff, an older black male with perfectly symmetrical white markings on his face. When I held him over my shoulder as I hold Bubba, he was perfectly calm and content. He never squirmed or protested. Totally mellow. I liked that. He would have come home with me if I hadn't decided to make one final stroll around the large building.
I came upon a room that I had missed earlier. By this point I was tired and depressed and I just wanted to leave. I almost didn't go in, Domino had made such an impression, but still, he was an older male, two strikes. As I entered the room, she was the first kitty I noticed. On the bottom row, first cage on the right. A little dark calico with extremely little white. She was awake and as I approached she simply looked at me. No pleading, no retreating, just an intelligent gaze. The tag on the door proclaimed that her name was "Dot" 1 1/2 years old, DSH, female. She just kept gazing at me as I opened her cage. She waited for me to lift her out. I threw her over my right shoulder. She didn't try to jump off or squirm away. Mellow, I liked that. I set her on the counter in the room and the told the young boy volunteer that happened to be in there with us that she was the one. He returned shortly with one of those cardboard transport boxes and off we went to the front counter to fill out the proper paperwork.
She never fidgeted in the box. I began to fill out papers and was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. My vision became blurred by tears and I couldn't read what was in front of me. At first I tried to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks, as if I could reabsorb them back into their respective tear ducts. I had to restrain myself from completely falling apart and decided to send the welled up tears rolling with a blink of my eyes. I reasoned that the staff had probably seen this response many times before. Fortunately no one paid any mind, and refrained from showing me any sympathy which would only have made my emotion less controllable.
Paperwork completed and reviewed, I grabbed my Box O' Dot and headed home. She never made one peep during the ride home. The literature they give you tells you to keep the new kitty in a separate room where they can smell each other under the door until they get used to one another, maybe for two or three days. Then gradually introduce the two cats together. I left her in the box on the kitchen floor until Bubba lost interest and then I let her out. She explored, Bubba watched. Then Bubba began to follow her. Then she became annoyed with the constant surveillance, then she swatted Bubba, then Bubba swatted at her, then Bubba ignored her, then she used the new cat box, then Bubba used the old cat box, then they swatted at each other, then they chased each other around the house, and then we all went to bed.
This photo represents day two. Once they were warmed by the mid-morning sun and reached out to each other with that first tentative, affectionate, exploratory touch, they became fast friends. Friends that is, as long as "Dot" recognizes Bubba's supremacy and his rightful place on the throne.
It took me about three days to revise "Dot's' name. Dot didn't even make sense to me. I tried to come up with something clever for a Halloween kitty. Nothing common or simplistic like spook, or goblin, I thought of C.C. for candy corn, then it got revised to sissy, after all, she was Bubba's new sister, then some other brand of Halloween candy, Snicker's perhaps, or Reese's (peanut butter cups) and it became pronounced as ree-cee, and then, somehow ree-cee morphed into Izzy. Izzy Borden Bot. Bot short for robot of course. She sometimes contorts into these herky-jerky movements when she is excited, like a robot. And Izzy Borden because despite her initial demure attitude, she is rather whacked out.