Newbie in the house

I have to say, Boo Boo seems to love being an only cat. He has always had other cats in his life, and sadly for him, he has always been the lowest cat in the hierarchy. The one who got beat up, had his snackie treats stolen, and got knocked out of the good spot on the bed (between the pillows). Since Bailey died over the summer, he has reveled in his aloneness. He struts around with all the authority of a mountain lion. Then he goes back to sleep because after all, he is 17 years old.

(I know, I've used this pic before but it's so awesome. Plus, he hasn't changed any).

The rest of us however, have missed having other cats around. Boo Boo is great and all, but a cat who is only awake eleven minutes a day doesn't want to spend that precious time playing. Food to eat and litter boxes to miss. I think its good for kids to have pets to interact with. Boo Boo has been here since well before any kids and survived every single one of The Screaming Years. So even if he were more active, he still would not hang out with the noisy children.

Having decided it was time to bring in a new cat, I started looking around listings. We did not want a kitten- I mean, I looooove kittens but no way would Boo tolerate such a thing. I thought someone between 1 and 7 years old. Bat Cat died a few years ago at 16 and Bailey died over the summer at 15. Boo is surprisingly healthy but still at his age we gotta' assume he's near the end and we just can't take more cats passing in our near future.

I found a cat I thought looked nice online. The shelter was about a half hour away but meh- what the heck. I communicated with the staff by email several times, packed up a carrier and went to see her.

She seemed like a nice cat. Not that interested in me but excited to be out and playing with whatever rolled her way. I had already filled out the paperwork and let the staff know I wanted to take her.

Great! They said, just bring your kids and husband to meet her and then if that goes well you can come back and adopt her!

Screeeeeeeeeeech- huh? It's an hour drive round trip and this shelter is only open 5 days for 4-6 hours. My kids are involved in stuff as well so the next opportunity to get back there would be a few weeks! Not to mention, honestly, if my kids don't like her, tough shit. And if she doesn't like the kids, tough shit for them again. I had thought I could take her that day, but that's not how it works. Argh. Ok. Moving on.

I decided to try our local humane society. There were a few possibilities, one in particular was just gorgeous.

She was apparently a head- rub addict, and was pleading through her cage for a hand to just lay there to be rubbed across. She got scared when I opened her cage to take her out so I didn't. I went and asked the staff about her. She had been adopted before and returned. The reasons were because she did not always use the litter box and the owners reported she had mood swings.

Um, NO THANKS I GOT ENOUGH OF THAT IN MY HOUSE ALREADY!

So I moved on again.

I went to a big box pet supply store that gives space to local shelters to show cats waiting for homes. When I walked in the cat room I went to the first cage with a cat in it, but heard a little sound from the opposite corner. Someone was saying "hey you! don't look at that cat there, she'll claw your face off and start rumors about you but there's a beauty in the corner who is sweeter than ice cream!". Well, that seemed like a long speech considering I was the only 2- legger in the room so I went over. There was a jet black cat with a few white markings making the cutest little meeps at me and stretching her foot out the bars, waving hi.

The staff brought us to a visiting room where she proceeded to ignore me and sniff at stuff. I spent a good 45 minutes with her and she only grazed my knees. I had toys and dangly things and even snacky treats but she was just not interested. Meh, no problem. She didn't try to kill me either so that was good.

We had a winner! The staff started the paperwork and I did mine. The shelters run a background check to ensure you're not the kind of warped jerk who hurts animals. So, what do you think came up? That's right. That. She's looking though the listing and asks me awkwardly " Uh, do you know a Mr. Fuckta.....Mr. Fucktard Moron?

My blood chilled. Of all the shit. I try to explain briefly what was listed. That I took out a restraining order (not the other way around!!!) on behalf of my daughter but he had moved away several years ago and we had not seen him since and everyone was safe. Crap, she was still giving me the googlie side eye. I explained the whole thing. Then she was giving me the look of WTF ARE YOU SERIOUS. Yep. Background check passes.

So! She is 2 years old. She had babies about a year ago and they were all placed but she spent the next year in shelter, unadopted. Poor little thing! We tossed around a lot of names. We have a thing where we name our cats with a "B", so we had Banana, Bindi, Brooklyn, Beruca Salt,  and Brandy. We had just gotten mail from the vet addressed to Mr. Boo Lastname and thought that was hilariously hilarious. That caused us to toss around a few other choices that would make for fun mail and we came up with "Barackabama". Also fun would be watching my Dad's head blow off his neck and roll away ha ha. Ultimately we (I) decided that would be disrespectful. Bindi it is!

And she is the nicest little cat! She purrs super loud and with voice, she sounds like a pigeon. She loves to play with the kids who are so far reasonably behaved. In fact, we demanded they be supervised 1:1 with her until we could see they were respectful. Teena has been good but keeps trying to entice her when she's clearly worn out or sleeping. Genea however, has listened to everything. Genea has earned the right to be unsupervised and is so happy the smile is almost levitating off her face! She told her psych and my mom "I did everything Mama told me and now Bindi loves me so much"! Of course, the pink glitter icing on the cake is that Teena is still required to have an adult watch her.