Assessing the Kitty Situation

Last Saturday, we passed by the Oakland Animal Shelter and looked at each other before screeching to a halt. Went in and looked at three kitties. One was a lover but she was also a major shedder. Knowing Bratworse’s inability to deal with loose strands of hair, I gently suggested another. Bratworse was insistent on the lover and only when we discovered that she hadn’t been fixed yet and we had to wait a week did she change her mind. We had wanted the kitties used to each other before we went away.

Another one we looked at was a playful playful kitty. The animal shelter now does this really cool thing by tagging their cages with personality tags. This one had Party Animal underlined three times (the other one, the lover had "Follower"). While we thought it would be a good match for Gizi who is also this party animal, we thought the havoc wreaked upon our place might be too much.

We instead chose one whose fur is SOFT SOFT SOFT! I thought Ashley’s fur was soft. This one has Ash's beat but not by much. We’re calling her Omega (Meg for short – she reminds me of Disney’s Hercules’ Meg). It turned out to be a really good choice.

We had thought Gizi would be an alpha cat but it turns out that Gizi’s just a playful oblivious kitty. (Bratworse says Gizi's like me, always wanting to play, often oblivious.) Omega’s got a stronger personality and will nudge Gizi out of the way for food. Omega is more playful by herself but will let herself get chased around by Gizi. We’ve been letting them out into the living room when the construction workers weren’t there but when they gather in the bedroom at night, we lock them in. Last night was the first night they had the freedom to roam the entire condo in the middle of the night and boy howdy, am I glad. Last night, I don’t think I woke up once to a cat for the first time in 6 weeks.

I can't wait to post pictures of our new family member.