we decided on a name.

wonderkitty!

the name will not officially have the exclamation point, because i think that intentional punctuation is pretentious, but i have a hard time writing it or saying it without the exclamation point. she's the wonderkitty! she's out to save the world!

we went through a whole weekend's worth of names. some better than others. i liked glinda (the good witch of the south) since she's halloween colors and we took her in near halloween. i also liked ethel (pets are good with names that are ridiculously more serious/old fashioned/old money than they are. see mr. bigglesworth for an example).

my favorite, however, was Eartha Kitty. because puns are funny. and hell, we were going to end up calling her kitty regardless of what her actual name was, so why not make her name actually BE kitty? but karl didn't know who eartha kitt was. sigh... did the brits not get those batman reruns?

wonderkitty is a reasonable second choice, and certainly better than other names were were considering: bailey, stretch, chirp (from the noises she makes), essie (from S.C., scaredy cat)...

kitty!

06 October 2004 - 4:44 pm

she doesn't yet have a name. i'm taking suggestions.

after having not ever seriously considered getting another pet, karl and i caved to the stray that was howling outside our window on tuesday night and took it in.

it was not her, actually, who initially caught our attention. it was the smaller orange kitten who was playing with everyone who walked by. not only was it the friendliest stray i'd ever seen, it was one of the friendliest CATS i'd ever seen. loved being held and petted and played with. karl and i waffled about taking it in, and finally decided that we'd leave it out tuesday night, and if it was still there wednesday night we'd take it in. it had fleas, and we didn't want to take it in unless we could give it an immediate flea bath.

we'd seen this bigger cat with the smaller one, but it was very skittish, so we couldn't get close. the little cat wasn't there on wednesday night, but the bigger one was. we'd decided we'd like to try to get them both, because we couldn't stand the thought of leaving one of them homeless on the street, and cats are better in pairs anyway. so karl worked his kitty magic (unknown talent!) and got the cat to come up to him and be petted. the cat started purring like a harley, so we lured it inside with some deli turkey.

once inside, with the door shut, the cat freaked out. sat, petrified, by the door, meowing so loud that the neighbors came by to see what was up. after a while, it calmed down a bit, and got comfortable next to us, enjoying the rubbing. karl went out to get food and litter, and i continued to make friends.

when karl got back, we scooped up the now fairly happy cat and took her upstairs to the bathroom, for her bath. the trip to the bathroom freaked her out a little more. not surprising since she'd probably never been inside before. after another hour of being non-threatening, we gathered our strength for The Bath.

we were sure this was going to be a nightmare teeth-and-claws fest, but it wasn't. she was clearly not happy about the water, and tried to escape the tub a couple of times, but was generally calm and resigned. she even purred while we lathered the soap.

after the bath, she curled up on my lap to be toweled off, licked herself dry while we picked off the dead flea bodies, and went to sleep. she didn't complain at all when i clipped her claws. at 3am, we finally called it a night and shut her in the bathroom with some food, water, and a litter box.

this morning, she hid under the sink while we showered, but ventured out for some lovin' later on as i was getting ready to leave. she has very quickly learned about the lovely sound of the cat food tin being opened, and showed her enthusiasm by standing on her hind legs for a good long time, watching me open it.

tonight: flea comb to hunt down all remaining fleas, and an introduction to the rest of the house.