Introducing

Tuesday began rather as usual. I went to work and left the family at home without any plans. Or so I thought. However, Nicole messaged me a little before noon saying that they were going to look at three sibling kittens at PAWS Cat City and asking if I wanted to come along.

I had a meeting before lunch and was getting hungry, so I opted out of joining them, which was probably for the best. They arrived at Cat City five minutes after it opened, but there were already enough people in line that they never even got to see the kittens. All three had been adopted.

Undeterred, my intrepid family drove to the PAWS in Lynnwood, where they saw three other kittens, these ones somewhat older and unrelated to one another. Two were just a couple months old, one about a year, all three male. I understand Nicole tried to adopt them all, but the management wouldn't let her. They had to settle for two.

That plus a stop at Dairy Queen took all afternoon, so that when they came to pick me up from work just after five, they had the two kitties in cardboard boxes still with them. They were brainstorming names, and asked me for five before they would tell me what they'd thought of. They didn't want to keep Lenox and Arlow.

Nicole dropped me off at Paola's to put away the garbage cans. I sent the rest to pick up cat food while I walked first to the library, then home, arriving just after them. The plan was to isolate the two cats, one in Rachel's room and one in Lydia's. We all crowded into the rooms one at a time for the unboxing.

The older kitten is gray and striped. He was very shy at first, and Rachel was noticeably disappointed at the assignment. But he relaxed a little while we were eating dinner, and has come out of hiding.

The younger one is orange and seems like he might have Gibson's build. He's much more sociable, and seems to like belly rubs. He's been hanging out on Lydia's bed a lot.

We've decided to call the gray-haired one Lloyd. I think that will stick. The other is going by Rookie for now, but we're less sure about that one.