New Cat Update
Posted on May 28, 2003 Posted by John Scalzi 21 Comments
I know you’re just itchin’ to get an update on the new cat, so here it is: The new cat has shown himself to be of reasonable good nature, which is a very good thing. He came out of his little box early and met the rest of the pets, and those encounters have generally gone very well; the kitten is understandably anxious about Kodi, who outmasses him by roughly 170 to one, but in those same sort of circumstances, wouldn’t you be as well? Kodi, for her part, is endlessly fascinated by the new cat and just wants to play with it in ways not actually involving her mouth or teeth. Lopsided Cat is getting along well with kitty, which is not terribly surprising as they are most likely related. Rex is more interested in kitty’s food than in Kitty himself, which is just like Rex. Kitty also handles being handled well, which is essential considering Athena, who has already declared the cat hers and intends to spend most of the next few weeks with her sticky little hands on the new cat.
My biggest worry about the new cat is that we’d have a couple of days before he figured out the cat box, but he figured it out last night and used it a few times since then. This is a considerable relief because for the moment all his stuff is in my office (he’s too small yet to get down two flights of stairs to the basement, which is where the real catbox is, or even down one flight of stairs to the outside world), and I was concerned he’d find a nice quiet corner in the office as his tinkle station and then my office would forever have that not-so-fresh “feral cat urine” smell. This has been avoided, to my relief.
The only minor complaint at the moment is that kitty decided that 4am was prime play time, which, needless to say, it is not. I myself had no problem with this, but some time during the night Athena had crawled into bed with us as well, and it was only through fast if groggy action that kitty was kept from attacking our daughter’s big bad head (at right you see kitty using a similar maneuver on the dreaded Shoe of Doom). Kitty was banished to my office for the night. He seems to have handled the exile just fine.
As anticipated, Athena has been given naming rights for the cat, and as also expected the first suggestion right out the gate was “fluffy.” We explained that while that was indeed an adjective one could use to describe the kitty, she might want to pursue other, less obvious options for a name, so give it a couple of days before finalizing the decision. Other names under consideration include Purple, Bubble Gum and Flower. At the moment, Flower is in the lead. Nietzsche, alas, was shot down early, as were the suggestions of Hegel, Joe Jackson and Mjollnir, Hammer of Thor. But we still have a couple of days yet.
The best cat I ever met was a male, all black cat named Purple. That gets my vote.
The shelter that provided our cats had named them “Korey” and “Kailey”.
Ugh. They sounded like red-headed twins. We promptly switched their names to Peanut and Max.
Sounds good so far. For what it’s worth, we found from raising Boris and Natasha (no points where THOSE names came from) is that by handling them early, they became very used to it, and even would jump into my lap for strokes. I was raised thinking cats were very standoffish, but these two changed my mind. (Actually, Boris was the one who demanded skritchies. Natasha didn’t like it as much, but she loves jumping into my lap for catnaps.
Did I tell you about that kitten someone talked me into taking in December? Well, it only lasted a couple of weeks before I had to adopt him out. Turns out, I’m *really* not a cat person.
Two interesting points, though…
First, I named him Joe. He came to me the same day that Joe Strummer died.
Secondly, I was absolutely amazed that this feral kitty, who it seemed had lived wild ’til I took him home, went directly to the box and did his thing in the sand.
How the hell do they know about that?
I knew a little kid once who named his cat “Jelly Bean.” Bubble Gum reminded me of it.
My story:
I got a cat from a Vet school after they took out some stuff that I’m hoping he didn’t need…and hopefully they got an ‘A’ doing so. I originally named him Tristram because I was told it meant sorrow and he was born on or around 9/11. This was deemed lame and hard to pronounce by all of my friends…so I rebounded to the other extreme of Buddy. I believe, however, that he probably thinks his name is some combination of Little One, KitKat, Buddy VonHugecat, and NO SCRATCHES!
Theeee End.
Hammer of Thor. Heh. We have two cats: Cinder, the Killer Red Wookiee; and Genghis Khan, Ruler of the Mongolian Hordes. We also had a cat growing up that my sister named Fluffy. His name sort of morphed into Fruffy, which my stepdad insisted was spelled with a PH, thus Fruphy.
It seems inherently wrong to me to give cats undignified names- I don’t think I’d ever name a cat something that I wouldn’t name a child. Except, of course, for historical/literary references: Tristram, for instance, is a pretty badass name for a cat. (Especially if you had a female named Iseult… that’d be nifty.)
Fluffy was a cat that use to wait for me at night, as I drove into the driveway. Little bigger than your new kitten, but not by much. The problem is, Fluffy, would never move out of the way. As it was a late hour, I couldn’t beep the horn without disturbing the neighborhood. So, I had to get out of the car to sho the kitten away, and as always, the cat would gladly oblige. Then for a minute, everything remained peaceful until I finished parking the car, and no sooner than I had put one foot on the garage floor, Fluffy would attack my foot. I couldn’t get the kitty off my foot, without being clawed in the fingers and arms, so I had to make a run for the back door of the house, with Fluffy still partially attached on my leg (I’m not exagerating, here). Fluffy was not my cat, just some kitten who came around, without fail, to greet me at that late hour. I went away for a few months and when I came back I was informed that Fluffy had been run over on the road. Probably playing “chicken” at night, with the passing cars. Whenever the name, Fluffy, gets mentioned next to a cat, I am stricken with laughter, uncontrollable laughter. That might have sounded crude but the Fluffy name just effects me funny bone, brings tears to my eyes.
Get used to play sessions in the middle of the night for a while. Kate and Abby were allowed to sleep on the bed with us as long as that’s what they did. But, all too frequently for about the first three to four months we had them, one of us would wake up and have to shoo them out of the bedroom and close the door because the girls would decide that it was time to play.
My mom and I got cats one day, a boy and a girl. The boy was mine — he was mostly gray with some white. He got named Thumper, so his sister got named Flower. Seems more like a girl name because of that, at least to me.
How about Homer?
My wife insisted on Curious, Contrary, and Intrigue. Fortunately? She didn’t insist on renaming Fion.
A childhood friend was given cat naming rights when he was not much older than Athena. He named the cat Nothing (as in “What do you want to name your cat?” “Nothing.”)
I hear tale of a non-profit agency in my neighborhood that has a cat named Underfoot.
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