It's a girl!

Since we lost Tyler, we've been trying to evaluate whether Calvin would need a new friend. It was hard to watch him initially as we were only around a few days before leaving for Mexico. He seemed to enjoy his time in Richmond with Louis and Star (Erin's boyfriend and the family cat respectively) while he was there. When he got home though, he just seemed a little lethargic and depressed and just didn't have anybody to play with. We decided we'd have to get him a pal, but wondered whether he would be better off with a kitten or an adult cat. If you've seen Calvin with his "hedgehog", you'd know, as we decided, that a small kitten is probably not a good idea! We decided to look for a cat about his age. Our vet had just found a young cat at their door. She was very skittish, but they eventually caught her on a Friday and we met her on the following Monday. Adult cats don't always get along, so they allowed us to take her home for a trial period (one week) with Calvin. Calvin immediately took to her, but she was a little stressed to deal with him. See the picture of Calvin to see what he's like, even with us!


See, Calvin's a wee bit talkative. Okay, he's a lot talkative. He is friendly though. He brought her toys to play with and makes happy trilling noises when she's around. He's been nothing but nice to her. She, so far hasn't been so nice, at least to Calvin. She also doesn't seem very playful, which is what we were really looking for as a buddy for Calvin. She is a super-cuddler though. When Monday came, we had to make up our minds about whether to keep her or not. She wasn't really exactly what we're looking for as a play buddy though. That said, she's a gorgeous cat and we hope she will mellow out some and be willing to play with Calvin, especially since we decided to keep her. Apparently she heard about this though, and since we paid the adoption fee for her, she's been a bitch toward us, not only not cuddling but actually hissing at us when we reach down to pet her. She is putting up with Calvin more though and did play a little bit today, but not with Calvin. We named her Diana after the Roman goddess of the hunt (and also the Moon). The vet says this may just be that it's taken her a week to catch up on her sleep and food (she was very hungry and exhausted when we got her), and now she's feeling independent enough to go find her place in our world. We're still optimistic that she'll come back around to her super-snuggly prior self. In fact, we're betting that if nothing else, when winter comes and we have the heat set low she'll *have* to get snuggly again.

We are pondering the possibility of getting a kitten to 1 year old cat in additon to Diana and Calvin. We're becoming more and more convinced that Diana is never going to be very playful, and Calvin is still moping around. He really needs someone to play with and we just don't have time to play with him as much as he'd like us to! And let's face it, Brett's just not fast enough to race him several laps from the basement to the second floor. I can't believe we are thinking about getting 3 cats...