Saturday, January 21, 2006

Here Kitty Kitty

For a number of years now, Emily and Lauren have recited the famous children's mantra, "Can we have a cat?" Initially, the answer was to which the answer has always been, "No". The main reasons for this (from my viewpoint) were:

  • "Our house is too small. Where would we put their beds/litter trays."
  • "They're too expensive, especially the vet fees."
  • "There's no way I'm doing any litter training or cleaning litter trays for the next however-many years."
Mark and I both grew up in housholds with cats, so the stance was bound to soften. It turned out that Mark wanted a cat too and agreed that he would clean any messes. Then, the move to America loomed. We knew that we'd be moving into a bigger house, so that excuse was gone too.

"No way," became "When we're in America". "When we're in America" became "After we've settled in", which became "You can have one each as Christmas presents", which became "We're going to England for Christmas, you can have them after Christmas".

Memory
Memory
Rosalind
Rosalind
Hence, they could hardly believe it when today, we finally decided to go to the cat shelter. We now have two additions to our family. They are both 5 months old and may be from the same litter. (They were both found, abandoned, along with seven other kittens and two adult females. The shelter staff couldn't work out which kittens belonged to which mother.) They are both already litter trained and have been neutered. The people at the shelter named them Memory and Rosalind. Emily and Lauren have decided to keep these names.

4 comments:

Jonny Goodacre said...

They don't look like they come from the same litter! Although maybe the ginger on the nose is similar. Are you going to set them on the snakes?

Viola said...

"They don't look like they come from the same litter!" -- Cats from the same litter don't necessarily look alike. When I was a child we had two cats from the same litter and they looked nothing like each other.

As far as setting them on the snakes is concerned, I think that it would be the snakes setting on them! One of the conditions for getting cats from this shelter was that they are kept indoors and not allowed out. I think that this is because there are a lot more dangers and diseases here cf. the UK.

I suppose that we could have just lied, but after talking to the people at the shelter we decided that the "indoor cats" idea made sense, and I think that the house is big enough for them to not feel restricted.

Lorraine said...

Congratulations to the girls! Our cat, Phoebe, is now 7 years old and she is a very important part of the family. She is a terrific hunter and a wonderful friend. Although she still hasn't forgiven us for getting a dog.

Anonymous said...

That's wonderful news. Growing up with animals is a wonderful experience. I grew up with cats and two years ago my sister gave me a kitten (from the SPCA)when I moved into this bedsit. I had been a bit concerned with taking on the commitment, expense and responsibility of having a cat but now I don't worry about that at all. Delilah is so important to me that she is travelling with me from NZ to the UK in a couple of months (and she costs more than me). I wouldn't dream of going anywhere without her. I love her to bits!

And you're right of course - considering they probably had different fathers anyway, they could easily be siblings.