The Story Of Cloud And Cyrano

It was 2004. In the last couple of years I had lost my Lizzy and Strega - both to cancer - and a feral I'd tried to rescue turned out to be in the advanced stages of FIV. I did, however, still have Banshee, Petunnia, Lucy and Buddy to keep me loved up, so why the thought of kittens started to obsess me I cannot quite say, but it did. I wanted a kitten. Just one more before I got too old. (Of those 4, only Petunnia had come in as a kitten, or, rather, a fetus.) I wanted a kitten, and was sure it'd be easy enough to find one, but there were practical problems. I couldn't see leaving a new kitten alone with old guard while I worked, at least not at first, and leaving a kitten locked up alone didn't seem right, either. Obsess. Obsess. Look at kittens on PetFinder. Obsess. And then finally it occurred to me that the answer was to get 2 kittens, to keep each other company through the transition period! Brilliant! And so I announced my plan to friends and family members, and, to my surprise, no one strongly objected or threated to have me locked up or anything. The very next Monday Jennifer (the cat magnet) stopped by my office to say that she's picked up 2 kittens in the parking lot of her apartment building. Oh, I said, they're mine. Jen asked if I wanted to meet them first, and I said no. I didn't even care what they looked like, I just knew that they were mine and that I'd felt them approaching psychically somehow. Cloud was the first to be named, with Cyrrie taking a bit longer. I remember Cyrrie was shy (except where food was involved) and Cloud was absolutely fearless. Tiny as she was, she made it to the dining room table top on her second attempt. I think they spent all of 2 days or so in quarantine. And so started this blog...