...Cats

Last week, D wasn't the only one that came home to Cleveland Heights. He flew in from Jackson on a blustery Friday afternoon. I picked him up - Cowboy hat and all - and on the way back we paused to pick up two little cats from a rescue organization called Lucky Paws Animal Rescue.We had picked out these girls right before we left town and the lady who had them in her foster home was gracious enough to take care of them while we were on vacation. Annie (the kitty formerly known as Jill) and Grace (the kitty formerly known as Drew) were loaded into my car and arrived in their "forever" home.

Now, adopting a cat (or two) is a lot harder than you might think. From San Francisco to New york to Cleveland and everywhere in between, there are a lot of shelters and rescue organizations. Luckily, D and I were on the same page about what type of cats we wanted. Two, so they could keep each other company. Outgoing, so they wouldn't get scared when we had people over. Young adults, who unlike kittens would be more willing to tackle the "Mickey" mice under the Fridge. (Whose poorly thought out late night snack of my Godiva chocolate pretty much sentenced him to a feline presence to contend with). The trick was to find some that we could call our own.

Our biggest resource was Petfinder, an online database of pets that are ready for adoption. Here you can find, cats, dogs, birds, geckos, pigs... if it's domesticated, it's on that website. We looked over the pictures and descriptions of what seemed like hundreds of feelines and narrowed down a few that seemingly would be a good fit. However, they were dispersed amongst several rescue organizations.

That's when phase two of the search kicked in. Each organization had an application for potential cat owners, asking why you want a cat to what you do for work to what you will do with the cat on vacation etc etc. Then the phone calls started. This was the "screening" process where not one but two separate women associated with each organization called to ask pretty much the same questions on the application, making sure I gave the same answers. I dubbed them the "kitty police" when talking to D about it. Yeah, I know they are well meaning, but there was an excessive amount of promising not to declaw the cats that had to be done.

Well, we managed to pass the screenings and made an appointment to go view some kitties one Friday night. (Actually this was right before we hit up The Greenhouse Tavern - see prior posting). The coordinator warned me that M, the foster woman's home we were heading to had "a lot of cats". And boy was she right. M probably had 30+ cats around available to be taken home. A rainbow of cats swirled around us in her driveway, weaving in and out of our legs. We paused and waited to see if any would stand out to us. One or two came up initially, but they were almost "too" friendly, climbing up my back and asking for attention incessently. Others were too young or too old. But pretty quickly a little black one attached herself to D, cuddling up to him. I could tell we had found at least one of our kitties. She was so sweet!

We learned this little girl was about 2 years old, and had been in foster car for most of her life waiting for someone to adopt her. She had a brother there, an orange tabby. Despite multiple tries, he remained uninterested in us and constantly walked away. We wanted cats who would be happy to sit on the couch and provide company to whoever was home if D or I were working in the hospital. His indifference led us to bypass him and keep looking. Luckily, another orange tabby showed up. Technically she's a "dilute" tabby, a softer version of her bright orange counterparts. This girl siddled up to me, meowing hello. A few minutes more and we were sold. Lil black "jill" and orange "drew" it would. A perfect pair right before halloween.

One more thing remained: names. Jill and Drew, especially Drew, had to go. But what to call these girls? Definitely nothing cutesy like "muffin" or "snowball". On the other end of the spectrum, we quickly nixed fang and killer. We've both had pets growing up with "people" names, so that was a logical place ot start. In honor of our love of crossfit, we named them "Annie" and "Grace". These are both named WODs. Annie is 50-40-30-20-10 of Double unders and situps and Grace is 30 clean and jerks for time. Yup, we're totally crossfit nerds. and proud of it!

Well, one week into our cat adventure and we couldn't be happier. Yes, they have their quirks. About once a day Annie launches into a "meow attack" where for no apparent reason she tries to talk to us for a few minutes straight. Grace will occasionally spaz out and run under or behind a large piece of furniture, then emerge minutes later and trust us to rub her belly. All in all it's a pleasure to have them scurrying about the house, especially when D is working late.

We like to think that these girls have hit the cleveland cat adoption jackpot :)