Belly rub. Now.

No comment.

Incognito-ish

"Peek...."

Sonic incognito

The first time we ever took Sonic to the vet, the doctor took one look, said, "Oh, you're one of those," and threw a towel over his head. Sonic was happy.

[Shadow, of course, freaks out if anything other than an adoring hand touches his regal fur.]

:-)

Feline thespians

Yep. These two definitely know how to project a role.

I’m so cute

I’m so grand

And so it is.

Blessèd be,
Michael

Shady cats

This is a common evening spot for both of these kids.

Blessèd Be,
Michael

Did someone say "Vet"?

Shadow and Sonic become suspicious whenever both of us are home in the morning....
 

It was a false alarm.

Blessèd Be.

Creature of the mist?

Walhydra is continuously amused by the phenomenon of cat names.

After decades of cat-personhood, she has come to suspect that one can no more speak the true name of any cat than one can say YHWH out loud. It just isn't done.

Walhydra generally thinks that Gary Larson had it right with his take on dogs versus cats:





















However, back in the early 1990s, a marvelous gray tabby adopted Walhydra and hubby Jim. Because he reminded them so much of a famous B. Kliban cartoon, they named him Meatloaf.

Meatloaf moved in with them (minus certain reproductive bits which wouldn't go well with being a second-storey apartment cat).
Soon afterwards, he said, "Hey! I can't be Meatloaf. You guys are vegetarians."

Hence, the Wise One became Miso the Cat.

Over the nearly seventeen years that they knew Miso, Walhydra found the name permutating as both she and Jim played teasingly with it: Meesy, Misopoulus, Mushroom, Mustafa, Catmobile, Little Guy, Skinny Butt, Hassenpfeffer....

It obviously didn't matter much to him. He was a beneficent sweety who forgave all and still came to their voice...or to the sound of the Tupperware cheddar cheese box from the refrigerator being opened.

But now it's a different family, with two gray brothers who will have their first birthday the day after Saint Padrick's Day.

The elder (and smaller) of the two is a comical shorthair who looks very much the Russian Blue. Sonic was the fastest kitten, and he continues to be the light-hearted, curious one, who likes racing and rough-housing... and whose favorite game seems to be hiding under anything at all.

















Toss your shirt on him, and he stays there. Give him a chance, and he crawls under the covers and burrows to the foot of the bed.














Shadow is a much larger, longhaired gray. He affects the reserved, sensitive stance of a mystic. He will play hard-to-get when Walhydra tries to pet him—and then suddenly plop onto his back for a belly rub.

Walhydra had heard from someone that there were longhaired Russian Blues, so she Googled it. She was intrigued to find sites about the Nebelung cat.

She showed Jim the picture and said, "Nebelung is German for 'Creature of the mist'."

"Yep," said Jim. "That's Shadow alright."

So...anyway....

To finish off this gallery entry, here are a few rounds of the Wide World of Cat Wrestling.














Blessèd Be.

What a great toy!

Sonic and Shadow wonder why those big hairless cats just sit by this thing and don't play with it.

Miso the Cat approves

Faithful readers will remember that the occasion for the first post on this blog was the death last September 14th of Walhydra and Hubby Jim's dear 17-year-old cat, Miso.

This sad event coincided with Walhydra's attending a "Social Software in Libraries" training, one which got her quickly past her stage fright and plunged her into the blogosphere. She sat in that class, distracted all day by her grief, and realized that she had the topic for a new blog's first entry.

Though they both wanted another cat eventually, it proved immensely difficult for Walhydra and Hubby to get past the loss. One doesn't just go out the next day and replace a person one has shared family and household with for 17 years.

Then, about four months ago, Jim started exhibiting the symptoms of "kitten madness."

When he and Walhydra made their weekly Friday night pilgrimages to the Buns and Noodles bookstore (pace Alison Bechdel), he would always gravitate to the cat books and kitten calendars and go, "Aaaaaaaaaaaawwww!"

Walhydra would shake her head knowingly...but didn't feel ready.

Vacation to Mohonk came and went. Jim's trip "behind enemy lines" to a statistician's conference in Salt Lake City came and went.

And finally, a week ago today, Walhydra found herself standing with Jim, staring at rescue kittens in cages in the local pet stuff warehouse store.

"I'm not ready for this. I didn't realize how not ready for this I was," Walhydra kept repeating as she led Jim away down other aisles.

It was no mystery, but it was indeed startling to discover how uncomfortable the prospect of meeting and befriending new cat persons suddenly seemed.

But then, there were these three brothers. Almost five months. Born to a rescued mama who was obviously part Russian Blue.

And they were the only cats making direct, calm, "you will take us home" eye contact.

Before she could get over her qualms, a straight couple adopted one—the middle one, oddly enough.

"Oh, no," Walhydra thought. "Now we have to take the others. Oh, their poor brother, all alone...." and so on.

Tonight as she types, Walhydra notes ruefully how quickly the little bugger... uh... fellows have graduated from "let's hide under the bed all day" to "let's see how high we can climb."

She keeps hearing new, alarming sounds of various sorts from other rooms. That and galloping feet.

The first night that the sweeties climbed up on the the bed to sleep with Walhydra and Jim, Walhydra was startled by tears.

She had reached down to scratch one of them under the chin—and realized, "It isn't Miso."

The memories of that wise old familiar, of all his deep, weighty Quaker manners, came back as they hadn't for almost a year.

But now, several nights later, Walhydra notices how the two little guys are picking up on Miso's habits.

They race the length of the house while Walhydra brushes her teeth. They climb up beside her for scratching while she reads in bed. They play bundling-board.

All you cat folks out there can fill in the rest of the story yourself.

These are delightful little fellows—who've managed to destroy only one potted plant so far. Grrr....

And here they are.



The foster family gave these two the names Sonic and Pudgesicle...

But, of course, cats announce their own names once they adopt the humans with whom they intend to stay.

So....

The sleek-haired gray with the stripe to his tail, eldest of the original three, will probably go by Flash.The longer-haired youngster, the shy, stealthy stalker, told Walhydra to call him Shadow.

Walhydra knows better than to argue.

And Miso the Cat approves.

Blessèd Be and
Blessèd Be.