idris

So after all that with the dogs dogs dogs DOGS...we aren't getting a dog. Several reasons. One: this place is too damned small for the dogs we want. It's Chihuahua sized. Or Pom. And while I am just fine with little tiny dogs, I hesitate to bring one home to live with a cat who will forever outweigh it. Two, when we move out of here...which we will...there will be bigger dogs. A Norwegian Elkhound, a Siberian Husky. Three: the Shibas and Jindos do not, as a rule, do well with cats unless they were raised with them. None of the rescues--none--are cat-safe, and we can't have a puppy yet. Not here. Not with our schedules. We knew this. I knew this. Nous knew that I knew; he was just waiting for my reason to reassert itself, knowing that 'no' is never a good idea.

So. Dog on hold. Nous under orders to either get a TT someplace or start planning our exit strategy from this very small apartment or both.

And in the meantime, there is Idris.

I searched the local shelter's kitten listing. We got Louhi from them. Nous said--a little black boy kitty, maybe. And lo, one appeared. And THEN he said, but we don't choose a cat by color. It's gotta be personality.

Which is why we spent two hours playing with the little black boy and the little flame-point Siamese boy, who mostly played with each other. Their personalities, I kid you not, were Thor and Loki. The Siamese was a little older, a little bigger, eyes so blue and pale that you could see the pink when his pupils caught the light, as if he were albino. Genial. Sweet. Not the brightest problem-solver; he couldn't figure out how to get down from the very tall cat tree, level to level. Nor could he quite climb as high. Little black kitten, no problem. Straight to the top. He was a little hissier (the kittens were just made roommmates today), more inclined to assert his space. I liked the Siamese better. I felt guilty because I know black kittens have a harder time getting adopted, and the degree of 'better' was super minimal and heavily influenced by how much I like the Siamese looks. So we played with them, and watched them, and waited for their kitteny madness to simmer down so we could get an idea of them. Two separate employees kept coming in to check on us. I knew one of them was pulling for us to take the black one (Tater, they called him. His sister, Tot, had gone home the same day she came in, being grey and white). She added that the Siamese would probably be gone tomorrow; his two sibs had gone within a day. Tater might be there awhile.

So Tater came home with us, and became Idris about twenty minutes after his arrival (another compromise; I wanted "Garrus". Technically our Idris is named for the character in CJ Cherryh's Fortress series, although we're going with the Elba-style spelling. Our vet has enough fun saying Louhi, rather than Louie. We don't need an Idrys to complicate things.)

Louhi's furious. That, we expected. She hates new things. It'll probably take her a couple weeks to get used to him. He is a little scared of her. She's a little scared of him. He can fit under the couch, and she can't, so that's where he is at the moment, napping and purring by turns. She's playing sentry by the kitchen, fully cognizant of the new food dish and the kitten food in it (we'll transition him to raw gradually).

So. Idris is home.