(Ty, getting pounced on by Josh.)
He was 12. And he had cancer. Thankfully he didn't suffer.
With my 31st birthday fast approaching, my mother and my sister did what any good mother and sister do: they got me another cat. Because this cat was supposed to be a birthday present they tried to be sneaky about it, but really, how can you be sneaky about getting someone a cat?
On Friday my mom and sister adopted the cat from a rescue shelter, brought him to the vet for a checkup and then brought him to my house. This is the phone call I got at work at about 2:00 Friday afternoon:
Me: Hello?
Mom: Hi, it's mom. When you get home from work today make sure you open the front door very carefully and then close it very quickly.
Me: O-k??
Mom: Ok, bye!
Yeah, I pretty much knew that there would not be a snake waiting for me when I got home. Or a pig or a goat or a dog. How are you supposed to work when you know that there is a new kitty waiting for you at home? So I rushed home after work and got to meet Gus.
(This picture is blurry because he never stands still, ever. I'll try to get a better one soon, maybe once he actually decides to sleep.)
This is Gus. He is about five or six years old. He was abandoned. He has a few broken teeth and a notch in his ear. He is an absolute sweetheart. RT and I fell in love with him immediately. Josh, our other cat (Ty's twin brother) was less than thrilled and let us know by making an impressive array of Angry Cat Noises. (Which is really funny because he has never made an angry cat noise before in the eight years we've had him, and I don't think he really knew what to do, so mainly he just puffed up into a giant cloud of gray fur and made noises like this: MwwwrrrrAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!)
Now Josh and Gus seem to be tolerating each other and spend their free time giving each other dirty looks from across the room.
We're fairly certain the Gus is a nutcase.
He loves to be pet, and when someone is petting him he gets so excited that he rolls around and purrs like crazy. He got so excited when I was petting him that he actually dunked his head in his water bowl. Twice.
He has also rolls around so much that he has rolled right of the couch. Twice.
He demands to be pet. If you are not paying sufficient attention to him he yells at you, or slaps your leg with his paw (but he doesn't put his claws out).
He will sit facing a wall and sniff one spot on the wall for several minutes at a time. When he is done sniffing the spot he stands up on his hind legs and sniffs a higher spot directly above the first spot.
He likes to hide in the bathtub and pop out when you're brushing your teeth or putting in your contact lenses.
Last night I heard him jump up on the kitchen counter. When I went in to make him get down I caught him licking the bottle of Jack Daniels that RT had placed there earlier in the evening.
My new cat is a drunkard. This explains a lot.
