Introducing Gordon

June 25, 2010 - 5 weeks old:




June 28, 2010:




Here he is sticking his tongue out like his mama does but I don't think he does it all the time. Was it a fluke?

When I was looking at cats to adopt last year, I knew that Sonny would be the guy for me. On his fact sheet he was listed as being good with dogs and cats so combined with his mellow temperament, I knew he was the boy for me.

I had all intentions of adopting a cat younger than a year after I had hopefully moved into a house within a few months but I'm still in the apartment and not sure when circumstances towards that will change.

In May, I start volunteering for our local library while they were doing a conversion to RFID and worked with another woman, Dianne, who had a pregnant cat. In our conversation, it just happened that I was thinking hard about adopting a young cat and she had a pregnant cat (long story short, she has property outside our city limits and often people abandon animals outside the city limits...).

My initial intention was to get a kitten from a rescue but this is not unlike a rescue seeing as the mama cat had been abandoned, got pregnant and had her kittens on May 21st.

I first visited the kittens on June 12th and had thought the female kitten (Gordon has two brothers and a sister) would be the good fit for me, Sonny and Jake but the tabby patch kitty really felt right. On the way home, I was just thinking about names for kittens and "Gordon" just clicked in my head. No rhyme, no reason, it just popped into my head and stuck with me.

After a second visit, I knew the little guy was for me. He's a bit behind in getting off the breast milk but that's okay. In other visits with him I was happy to see him look at canned cat food as a way to nourish his body. He was the smallest but now is about as big as his litter mates and oh, he's such a mellow kitten.

I've been taking a hand towel (seen in the third photo) that has Sonny and Jake smell on it and then bringing it back for Sonny to inspect, which he does for a few minutes. I have a rationalization that if Sonny recognizes the smell of Gordon, he wont seem like as much of an intruder (as cats are prone to think when a new cat is introduced). The reverse is true too for Gordon, so he recogizes the smells of my home when it's time to leave his brothers and sisters it hopefully wont be as traumatic for him.

I've started to kitten-proof around here and that's been good for the front bedroom, not as good for my main bedroom because now it lacks character. I took down the sheers on my bed canopy. The duvet is stored away and soon the gold curtains will be replaced with the black curtain I had over the door to the laundry room. I need to find a colorful throw to put on the end of the bed and perhaps find a cheap canvas to paint with some color to get back some personality...but that's not a problem. Gordon will be worth all of that effort.

It's been hard to visit him and have to leave him behind but he's so worth the wait.

Sonny checked out in great health at the vet recently and Gordon will be visiting my awesome veterinarian on the way home from his current digs.

In addition to my new addition, today is the last day of smoking. I am down to my last cigs and after that, I am done. In part for my health but also for Gordon's health. Also, helps to have that cash for veterinarian bills (shots, "deworming", neutering). So, bringing Gordon into my life will have some definite positives other than having a new furball to add to my little animal family.