Y’ALL.
Okay, so I have been in a very deep depression lately so I had an emergency ketamine session and I’ve been following all of my normal tools and they’ve helped but I was still struggling a little and finally I admitted that this house is just too sad after the loss of my two geriatric heart kitties who decided to leave me in a single week. I’ve been putting off looking at cats because grief is hard, but also I was thinking that maybe I could foster a kitten and that would give me a sweet distraction so Victor called a shop that has rescue cats and asked if they had any orange kittens available to foster and the guy was like, “I don’t know what breed they are” and Victor was like, “I don’t think orange is a breed?” and the guy was like, “Oh” and Victor said, “Soooo…could you go check?” and then you could hear the guy yell, “BRO WHAT BREED ARE THOSE KITTENS?” and after some mumbling he came back and said, “They’re a mangled mix” and Victor was like, “THEY’RE MANGLED?” and the guy said, “Yes, sir. They’re a mangled mix” and Victor was like, “I’m just checking again…did you say they’re mangled?” and the guy sighed in frustration and said, “It’s a mangled mix. They’re not full-blooded mangled” like he was letting us down that they were only partially mangled and I whispered “Do people want mangled kittens?” and Victor just shook his head and the pet store guy said, “I don’t know what else to tell you, bro” and then he hung up and we just stood there looking at the phone.
Then Hailey walked in and asked what was happening and I explained and Hailey said that maybe the kittens were “bengal-mixes” and that makes more sense but it still felt questionable. We went to an adoption drive and I held a few babies but none of them felt like they wanted to come home with me. But then Victor was on our neighborhood discussion board and a lady had rescued some very hungry, very flea-ridden feral kittens behind a trash can at a horse farm but couldn’t keep them…and one happened to be an orange boy who needed socializing. And I said no because my heart hurt a little but then the next day she posted again that the orange boy had purred for a few seconds and really needed a home and so…
We went over and I loved on him but he wouldn’t purr for me, which seemed like a sign, and so I said that I’d foster him and socialize him and get him all his shots and then find a good home for him. And he snuggled up in a towel and slept every second other than when he was getting shots and dewormed and checked out by the vet who gave him a clean bill of health other than lots of fleas and a prescription of lots of rest.
He slept in a nest of towels I made in my shower and made tiny hisses when we came near, but then at 3am he settled down and purred so loud I literally cried.
And within about a day this happened:
And now I have a kitty.
But I do not have a name, which is not surprising since every animal I’ve ever had has had multiple names until one fit. (Dorothy Barker was named “Knives” for two full weeks.) We’ve had many fantastic suggestions, including:
The Big Le-meowski
Will Feral
Orange Julius
Olipurr Twist
Wilfur Brimley
Claw-nopin (because he was so laid back when he first arrived we thought he was sedated)
Catrick Swayze
Norman Meowler
Truman Catpote
Freddy Purrcury
Hissy Bordon
Meowrice Sendak
George Purr-nard Claw
Bananas Foster
Lando Catrissian
Catpurrnicus
Mewlius Ceaser
Fur-cules (rhymes with Hercules)
Winston Purr-chill
Atticus Finch
William Shakespurr
But currently we are testing out these top contenders:
Pierre Pawgust Renoir (because Pierre August Renoir was famous for painting with a cat on his lap, so much so that many of his later paintings were identified because of the cat fur mixed into the paint.)
Tanuki (Because tanuki are known in Japanese lore as being mischief makers and also because Victor wants to buy a tanuki statue and so when he said “If you get this cat then I get the tanuki” and I was like, “Deal” but then I was like, “I could just call him ‘Tanuki’ and then you don’t even need the statue.” He disagreed, which is fair.
But the leading favorite is Percy. Because I love a good nickname and Percy can be Purr-cy Bysshe Shelley, or Persimmon because he’s so orange, or Perseus because he has tiny bites on his nose that look like a constellation, or Omicron Persei 8 because Futurama.
Suggestions still accepted.
PS. When I started this post I had to stop a dozen times because Purrsy was furious at the state of my writing desk and decided to clean it by just knocking shit off and eating stray papers I needed:
Deeply disappointed in me.
But then he flopped into my lap and is currently purring so loudly and demanding so much attention that I can’t even finish this properly or go back to fix all the typos.
I mean…
Come on.
Discovered what petting was 48 hours ago. Now cannot stop demanding it.
PS. This is your sign if you are heartsick about a beloved pet who has passed that you may have more room in your grieving heart than you know. I didn’t think I was ready, but this is the best medicine.
