Changes

About a month ago, I left work at 3:00, ran all my errands including a large purchase at the pet supply store, and came home to find the answering machine blinking, the red light throbbing like a bad hangover. Yes, we still have a landline, No, we rarely get messages so I was taken aback to see so many. I proceeded to just push play and a series of voices played out a bad dream. Your cat, Tiny, was hit by a car. I'm so sorry, we just didn't see her. We turned around. It was quick. We don't think she suffered. We petted her. We put her in a safe spot. We came back after the wedding and brought her a box. Here's our number. I called back. What can you say? I thanked them for stopping and being kind.

Rest in Peace, our dear sweet Tiny. Who came into our lives unexpectedly and stole our hearts.

(One of her favorite spots: the placemats my M-I-L made for us. Tiny probably helped sew them.)

A week later, and Handy's already cat shopping. You will recall he has done this before. There are so many cats needing homes. But should I return the small cat sized Advantage I had just purchased? I decided to hold off...

He found several likely candidates, including a kitten. We were thinking it might be nice to have a kitten for a change. It's been 24 years since we had a kitten. We visited the kitten on the way to the airport, and brought him home the day after we got back. 

His name...the shelter gave him the name of a musician who lives in the area. I thought that while it was a nice name, we couldn't keep it. The musician is a book store customer. I can't talk about my cat X at work and then have the namesake walk in. And I was so right! Last week X came in the store when I was talking about the cat!

We bandied about a few names before we brought him home. He's gray. So I said Gandalf. Handy said Gary (gray misspelled). Ernest said Randi for Mithrandir. Frank liked that. I wondered how many other names Gandalf had?

When we got the kitten home we noticed he was quite a hunter. Hunter? There was a long line of cats named Hunter in my mother's family. Plus Hunter and Homer? So cute and alliterative. So Hunter it is.

Homer and Fifi are not too sure about the new addition. But they got used to Tiny, so they should get used to this one too.

Us humans? We think Hunter's just adorable.