YatCats start off the New Year at YatPundit
Nala (ginger) and Arwen (tux), the #YatCats
YatCats
We lost Amber, are eighteen-year old familiar, over last summer. It was devastating to lose the most important member of the family! We go on, of course, and at the end of August, I convinced Mrs. YatPundit that it was time for a kitten. So, we went to the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter to add to the family.
Inside cats
Amber was an outside cat. She eschewed her litter box and did her business outside. We regularly received presents of birds and mice. Remind me to tell y’all about the time she caught a bat and brought it home! As she got older, 15ish, though, Amber still wasn’t interested in the litter box, and needed to go out more often throughout the night. That disrupted our sleep patterns a bit. Mrs. YatPundit decided that, next cat would be an inside kitty. I agreed, with the condition that we would bring home two kittens. Amber had friends and foes in the neighborhood. I didn’t like the idea of an inside cat who didn’t have cat companionship. It wasn’t a hard sell.
Orange and Black
Mrs. YatPundit loves ginger kitties. Her cat growing up was an orange tabby. Then we got Brandy when we moved out to #themetrys. Brandy was with us for ten years. Pippin, her cairn terrier partner in crime, was with us another six years, then we got Amber. So long as one of the kittens was a ginger! So, off to the shelter we went to get YatCats.
The Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter is a no-kill shelter. We checked in and they took us to the “intake” room. That’s where they have the itty-bitty kittens. We looked at each orange tabby in there, but they were all males. Girl ginger kitty was one of the requirements. After striking out with the littles, the volunteer showing us around took us to the “older cat” room. It’s a room with chicken-wire walls and lots of shelves and things for Cats To Sleep On.
The kittens in this room were all 12-16 weeks. Some of the smaller ones huddled around us, but the volunteer had one in particular in mind. There was a ginger female sleeping on one of the shelves. She was the target.
Two!
Since we were planning to bring home two YatCats, I got to pick the second. I wanted a black kitten. You know all the stories about how black cats are the least adopted. So, to get to the ginger kitty, the volunteer had to pull a black kitten off of her. Both were asleep on the shelf, two peas in a pod. That made up my mind as to which black cat was coming home! I figured, if these two got along enough to sleep that closely, this was a pair. They’re not litter mates, so I call them “pound mates.” I picked up the black kitten, and it turned out she was a tux/socks cat rather than a midnight. No problem.
By the time I put down the tux, I turned to see wife with the ginger. It was all good! We did the paperwork, and they were scheduled to be fixed the following Monday morning. We picked them up that afternoon.
Meet Nala
Nala the ginger kitty!
Nala cat is the ginger. I learned something new about cats. All-orange gingers are overwhelmingly male, but this little bit is a girl. Brandy and Amber were orange-and-white, and Amber actually had more white than orange. Nala is all-orange and a cutie. She’s a short-haired ball of floof. Nala looked like the runt of the littler when we picked her up. The backstory is she was dropped at the shelter with two siblings. They were fostered by volunteers and returned to the shelter at six-ish weeks. Nala’s put on a lot of weight since becoming one of the YatCats.
Meet Arwen
Arwen the Tux Cat!
Arwen is the Evenstar. The paperwork listed her as “medium-hair.” There’s definitely more hair on her than Nala. Arwen is more a people-kitty than Nala. Arwen likes being in the same room with us, where Nala will go sit on the bed, or in a window sill by herself. Since I teach a lot from home now, Arwen comes into my office and hang out while I’m teaching. Her meow is like a bird-chirp. It’s cute. She will pace around my feet while I’m on WebEx, delivering a class. Then she’ll start chirping and I’ll have to pick her up. I wonder if the students can hear her purring?
Arwen is walking around the house with a fabric mouse in her mouth, and just settled under the Christmas tree. She’s chirping at it. Nala is napping at wife’s feet. Life is good.
#YatCats will be a weekly event here!
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