Brandon and Daisy Visit The Carolinas, Part I

We have gone to, and returned safely from, the Carolinas (mostly North Carolina), visiting my parents.

It was a very fun, if sometimes exhausting, trip. 

This is the story of that trip. There's not a large amount to tell, honestly, but I do have some things I'd like to cover and share here. Before I do, though, let's start with the basic bullet points:

• The cats were fine while we were away. Daisy's parents came over to the house every day (or nearly every day) to make sure they had food, water, clean litter, and love. From all accounts, Sadie hid every time they came over and Hank was so starved for love and affection that he wouldn't leave them alone. 
• I spent close to $400 on souvenirs, including t-shirts, a hoodie, a (purely utilitarian) sun hat, keychains, salt-water taffy, new sandals, tank tops, a skull-and-crossbones beach towel, and some other little odds and ends. 
• Between the two of us, we took hundreds of pictures (most of which have already been shared online at this point). 
• I saw and experienced incredible amounts of wildlife, both native/in the wild and in an animal sanctuary -- we'll get to this.
• We spent time in the ocean and collected more sand than you could possibly imagine in every crevice of our bodies as well as in all of our clothing/vehicles.
• We have become van people and may actually buy a van.
• We ate wonderful vegan food while we were visiting and Daisy even cooked some of her own for us/the parents.
• The parents' dogs adore us.

All of this and more, of course.

So let's start the story -- and that story begins on the Friday night before Labor Day, which was the first of the month. 

I mentioned here in passing, far earlier in these entries, that we'd bought and paid for this trip well in advance. I can't recall how far in advance, but it was either right before or right after our trip to Nova Scotia in May. That included the flights, the booking of the rental car, planning the actual itinerary, and making sure everything was bought and paid for -- locked in, PTO submitted for both of us as early as we possibly could do so, etc. We'd fly out very early on the morning of the 2nd, would arrive in NC by shortly after noon, pick up the rental car at the airport, stop in Raleigh (where we were flying into) for lunch, and be at my parents' place in Oak Island by nightfall -- or, at least, hopefully before the WVU football season opener vs. Penn State started, as it was an evening game and nationally televised. 

Hah. HAH. That is not how it happened.

The initial few hours of our travel were fine. I booked the Uber to pick us up and take us to the airport at something like 4am, 4:30, etc. Our flight to Atlanta was scheduled to lift off at 6:50. We figured that would give us enough time to get there, get through security, check our bags, and get to the gate -- and we were right. Daisy had checked us in online well before we left for the airport and had already paid for our checked baggage, so all we had to do was print out the tags from the kiosk, attach them, and let the desk workers do the rest. Our bags were both way underweight -- even with a giant box of probably 100+ comics for my dad inside my suitcase, it weighed only 28 pounds. After all, we were visiting my parents, who have a washer/dryer and we were only going to be there for five days and nights. It's still very much summer in the subtropics of the Carolinas -- you can pack light and dress light.

Now, mind you, I haven't been to either of the Carolinas in 30 years -- not for any length of time, anyway. I've flown through Charlotte's airport a few times over the past few years in other travels, and Charlotte is far from coastal Carolina weather/climate as they're quite far inland there. The last time I was down there, I went by car to Myrtle Beach with my mother and former stepfather in 1993. That was a fun enough trip, but it was very commercialized (staying in a beachfront hotel, doing touristy things, going to tourist-filled beaches, etc). I got the worst sunburn of my life on that trip, so if I ever get skin cancer in my later years I'll be able to blame it on Myrtle Beach in the 90s.

(Side note: I am wearing a Myrtle Beach t-shirt as I am writing this.)

There were fun parts to that trip, though. I remember making some friends at the hotel, finding a giant conch shell on the beach (my mother still owns this shell), eating a Bigfoot pizza from Pizza Hut, and staying inside after I got my sunburn watching Dinosaucers and Denver, The Last Dinosaur on the USA Cartoon Express.

It's funny the things you remember as an adult 30 years later.

Anyway, I knew this trip would not be like that one. For one, in those 30 years, Myrtle Beach has apparently gone crazy and become a lawless, gunfire-filled wasteland of a tourist-trap beach. I cannot independently verify this because Daisy and I only went as far as North Myrtle Beach, which is its own separate community (I'll get to this in a bit). I had mentioned to my parents that I wanted us to have a Myrtle Beach day while we were there, all four of us, as it's about an hour from their house. Neither of them wanted to do that -- too many people, too much crime, etc. Daisy and I made tentative plans to go down there for a few hours on one day we were there, but I told Daisy that if we didn't get to it, it was fine -- I wasn't visiting the area to see the sights, I was visiting to see my parents. 

For two, in those 30 years my mother met my "dad" after divorcing my former stepfather, had started a new life, bought three different homes (one on her own when it was just the two of us, and the other two, including the beach house, with my dad), had gone through numerous pets, jobs, and vehicles, and had retired to NC to live that beach life. And honestly, more power to my parents for being able to do that. Major props. It wasn't always easy and I remember times when money was quite tight, as well as many rough patches my parents went through together.

For three, I have become an adult -- and now an officially-middle-aged adult, at that -- over those 30 years. While there are still things that excite me about a beach vacation, souvenir shops and different foods/restaurants being but two of them, I am much more of a milder person at age 40 than I ever expected to be. Well, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure that I'd actually reach 40, so every day now is a blessing of sorts. As I've aged, I've learned to appreciate the simple things that money can't buy -- such as time with my aging parents and their dogs, time with my incredibly kind, patient, and loving wife, and just general rest/downtime when I can get it. We always think we're going to have more time than we do, and then when it comes down to it...we just don't. So, I try to savor and appreciate the little things in life that make us happy, that keep us going. That's what I wanted this trip to be, overall.

But, I'm getting far off track. 

So we got to the airport, got everything checked in, checked our luggage, and got to our gate. It was a fairly busy morning at the Omaha airport; we'd expected it to mostly be a ghost town, as it normally is for early morning flights, but it was not -- it was Labor Day weekend, of course, and people tend to travel over Labor Day as the last blast of the summer. Our flight was expected to be full. Not over-full, but still full. 

Boarding was supposed to begin around 6am. It did not. The plane was at the gate, everyone was there waiting to board the flight to Atlanta, and the doors remained closed. We sat there until about 6:40 or so before boarding started, and at that point it was already clear that we were going to be later than we expected getting into Atlanta.

We got into the plane, sat down and got situated, and the doors were closed. It was at that point where the pilot came over the intercom system and told us that the delay in boarding was because of a faulty engine part -- an air conditioner or something -- and that they luckily had a backup system and they had flown with one instead of two many times with no issue, so when we saw the mechanics outside the window working on the engine they were trying to disable the faulty system and we'd take off shortly.

We sat there at the gate for probably twenty more minutes before the pilot came on the intercom again and said that it could not be fixed at the moment, and the other unit had gone out too (or something), and that we'd need to get off the plane and take our stuff with us because -- while the flight had not yet been canceled -- we had a delay until at least 10am on our hands while they fixed the plane. The FAA had already been notified and they were working to get our connecting flights rescheduled for us in the background, for those of us who had connecting flights, and as soon as the work was finished, we'd re-board and get in the air towards Atlanta.

Okay, whatever. It was what it was. It caused some stress for me and Daisy, but shit happens. We begrudgingly grabbed our shit and got off the plane, and waited in the terminal at the gate for next steps. In the interim, Daisy had pulled out her phone and had found a replacement flight for us to take from Atlanta to Raleigh, because we would be missing the one we'd been set to board due to the delay. She waited to pull the trigger on booking it, though.

About half an hour after we were all shuffled off the plane, the pilot emerged from the jetway and let the staff at the counter know that work was complete, everything was fixed, and that they could start re-loading all of the luggage again and begin the boarding process. He did not tell this to the group of collected passengers -- we were just close enough to the front desk to hear everything he was saying to the desk crew. It was sometime around this point where Daisy pulled the trigger and booked the later flight in order to secure us spots on it. We'd be getting into Raleigh about two or three hours later than expected, but we'd get there -- and possibly still get to the parents' house before the WVU game started.

The boarding process began again from the beginning, which I thought was laughable because at this point, does it really matter what order/groups people were boarding on? Everyone would legit be going back to the exact same seats they'd left an hour previously. 

By shortly before 10am -- almost exactly three hours later than we were originally supposed to leave -- we were wheels up and in the air to Atlanta. In Atlanta we had to catch the subway (or whatever it is they call it, I have no idea) to our connecting flight's terminal, and then were able to get on the flight to Raleigh without incident. 

By the time we were on the ground in Raleigh, had picked up our luggage from the baggage claim, and made our way to the rental car place via shuttle, it was well after 2pm. We'd been traveling for about ten hours at that point, we were both running on two hours' sleep, and we still had a three-hour drive down to my parents' from Raleigh.

For those of you asking internally -- yes, we could have flown into Wilmington, NC -- which is a little less than an hour from my parents' house, and that was originally the plan. However, it doubled our plane ticket costs to fly into Wilmington vs. Raleigh, and we figured that putting the equivalent of an extra tank of gas into the rental car ($40 or so) and driving down from there would be far cheaper and easier than doubling our ticket costs, even if it were somewhat less convenient.

If I would've known the debacle that we'd have to deal with at the rental car place, I may have just gone fuck it, do it. 

So we get off the shuttle at the rental car area and...there is a line. There is a long line. It went out the door and around the front of the building, down the sidewalk next to the shuttle buses, and...it wasn't really moving.

Mind you, it's above 90 degrees, there's not a cloud in the sky, and it's humid AF. Daisy and I are both wearing all black -- I had on a pair of black shorts and a black High Spirits t-shirt, and Daisy had on a black tank and black shorts. And we were very hot and uncomfortable. 

The rental car place serviced three different rental car companies in one building -- Hertz, Dollar, and Budget (Enterprise and whatever others were on the other side of the lot). Our particular side of the building was Hertz and Dollar, in two separate lines. Dollar to the left of us, Hertz was to the right. 

Here I am, stuck in the middle with youuuu....

Ahem. Anyway.

It took half an hour or so in line before we were even inside the building (in air conditioning once more, thankfully) -- where we found that the line was going through those zig-zag style rope paths, and the line was about twice as long as we originally thought it was. We made friends with the people in line and graciously accepted bottles of water that the staff was bringing around to help all of the waiting customers cool down.

I wasn't concerned, really -- we'd booked our car months in advance, and had booked a full-size car at that. The rental agreement on Daisy's phone said "Chevy Malibu or similar." We'd had a Malibu on our trip to Nova Scotia last year and had really liked it -- it was a very capable car that got excellent gas mileage and we expected something similar. After all, the Malibu has been a staple of fleet/rental vehicles for over two decades now, and rental places buy them by the thousands. You can actually buy old rental cars directly from the rental companies really cheaply after they've been used for 2-3 years. 

After what seemed like forever (but was really about an hour or so), we finally got to the desk, where they went over Daisy's paperwork/reservation, and said something along the lines of "okay, you're good to go, cross the street out there to the 'gold' rental lot, pick a car, get in and drive off."

"Just...pick one?" we asked.

"Yep, doesn't matter which one, any in that lot are yours to choose from." 

This was surprising to us because we had never heard of this concept before. Just go pick a random car? Keys are in it? Hop in and drive off? Yep. That's exactly how they do it now.

So, Daisy and I wheeled our suitcases out to the "Gold" lot, to find...the exact same line we'd waited on inside, with all of the same people, and zero cars in the lot.

Well, I'll correct myself here. There weren't zero cars. There were zero actual gasoline-powered cars. There were two full rows of fully electric vehicles, including Teslas, just sitting there. Nobody wanted one because, I assume, they had no experience with them and/or were driving long distances and didn't know where they'd be able to charge them. 

After talking to the people who'd been in line in front of us, again, we found that the cars that we were supposed to be choosing from had all been very recently returned and their entire staff was out cleaning/washing them one by one and filling them with gas. They'd be bringing them back as they were available, one by one, as soon as they could. 

There were about thirty people in line -- some couples with children, some couples, some just single folks looking to get the car they'd already paid to rent. And all of them were pissed. 

It was around this point where Daisy began to laugh from frustration and exhaustion. I don't know if you have ever been in a scenario where you're so frustrated and tired that you have a brief psychotic break, but we were about at that point. We graciously accepted more bottles of water from the kind soul who had followed us all out to the lot in order to help try to keep us cool. However, some of the other rental customers were not being kind to this lady and were taking their frustrations out on her -- including a very gay businessman who was going full Karen on anyone who worked for the company within earshot, and who was on the phone trying to reach the corporate president as well. Like settle down, bro. It is what it is.

To be fair, some of the people in the line behind us did come out, hop into a Tesla or whatever, and drove off in their electric rental car. Those people either had experience with electric vehicles or didn't have far to go, I imagine. The rest of us formed up into a queue based on where we were in the line inside, and once cars started coming back to the lot, no matter what it was, the next people up got it.

This line outside lasted at least another hour, maybe ninety minutes. During this time cars would come in one by one. We were in the middle of the line, roughly. Some of the cars that came back were promising -- little Kia/Honda SUVs, some Subarus (Outback wagons and Foresters), Nissan Altimas, etc. I didn't see a single Malibu or anything like it -- well, I guess the Altimas were close enough there. One couple even got a new Prius when they were next up in line. 

Finally, we were up next, and the vehicle that would be ours pulled up....it was a minivan.

A 2023 Chrysler Pacifica, arctic white, with a full tank of gas and still dripping wet from the car wash.

Right behind it pulled in a few other vehicles all at the same time -- a nondescript sedan of some sort, a small SUV, and what looked to be a Chrysler 300. Daisy was less than thrilled.

"I don't really want a van," she said under her breath. "I want one of those." But there were other people in line who were already moving toward the other vehicles like sharks in blood-filled waters.

"Fuck it," I said, as I slid open the side door and hoisted in my suitcase, "more cargo room, put your shit in the van."

I must admit that my patience for all of this bullshit was really worn thin at this point.

So we got inside the van and...it was like a spaceship. Cabin room for days. Incredibly comfortable seats. Intelligently designed and engineered craftsmanship in and out. Amazing visibility. Easy-to-use basic control panels. Adjustable everything. Whisper-quiet. Handled like a dream. Fantastic acceleration and brakes. In less than twenty minutes of driving it, we were falling in love. With a van. A minivan. We never would've guessed how much we would love that vehicle. We were stunned. 

By this time it was nearing 6pm and the sun was already noticeably starting to go down. We still had three hours of driving to go and at least one stop to make (for food). We'd originally planned to get some groceries on the way to my parents' in order to save a trip in the coming days, but we wouldn't get to do that now. Our goal was to stop at a vegan restaurant we'd looked up in Raleigh and then just get to the parents' house as quickly as possible. My parents were already worried because we were taking so long and had been delayed in our travels multiple times, and my dad had already offered to just get us a hotel in Raleigh for the night so we wouldn't have to drive at night -- which, apparently in NC, is more dangerous than other places? I don't know. But we were on the road and told them that we'd get there when we got there, not to hold dinner for us or whatever, and that it would likely be some time before we were able to roll into town. 

I will say at this point that I've never been through Raleigh before -- not as a stopover between flights or in the city proper. Aside from an airport, this had been the first time I'd set foot in the Carolinas in three decades, so everything there was interesting and new to me. The city of Raleigh is fairly...nondescript? I don't want to put it down or anything because it is very much a city with high-rises and commercial areas and residential/shopping areas -- but it reminded me of a lot more southern version of Omaha. This in itself is not a bad thing, even though it felt like I was stepping into a similar, more southern parallel universe.

Well, Raleigh must have a thriving vegan community, because there was no shortage of vegan restaurants in the area. A quick Google search a few weeks before we left pulled up no less than five or six dedicated vegan places, and we'd found a couple of those we wanted to try while we were traveling through the area. The first, and closest one, was called -- simply -- Pure Vegan Cafe. It was a minority-female-owned business (which I didn't find out until we'd made our second trip there, but more on that later) and the menu looked quite promising.

(Yes, that's me sitting in front of their neon sign, and yes, that's what I look like now. That beard is white, y'all.)

Keep in mind that at this point it's starting to get dark and we were starving. Aside from a small bag of Five Guys fries we'd gotten in the Atlanta airport while we waited for our second flight, Daisy and I hadn't eaten much of anything for about sixteen hours or so. Despite this, we were in good spirits as the hardest part of our journey was done.

I ordered a buffalo "chicken" sandwich and a side of mac and "cheese." I put those in quotes because, obviously, vegan restaurant.

Daisy ordered what was called the breakfast burger -- which was a "burger" with fried onion, chipotle "mayo," "egg," "bacon," and "cheese" on it.

Daisy was the clear winner here. While my buffalo chicken sandwich was good and we both shared it, we also shared Daisy's breakfast burger, which was -- and I cannot stress this enough -- fucking amazing. We are certain (or at least I am, at this point) that the burger patty was an Impossible Burger, simply because no other vegan burger I've ever had has had "meat" that real. Daisy quickly declared it the best burger she'd ever had in her life, and honestly...I myself am pretty close to saying the same thing. 

Yeah.

You can see their entire menu/website here if you're so inclined. 

With food in our stomachs, we hit the road in our Spaceship Van and the GPS plotted us a roughly three-hour drive to Oak Island, mostly via interstate.

For those of you as unfamiliar with North Carolina as we were/are, the state appears to be...mostly laid out in a reasonable system of interstates just as much as any other state is, as long as you're traveling to normal places during the daytime where you can see where you are and what you're doing. When you're driving at night down these highways (which have fairly narrow lanes, honestly) and there are no streetlights marking anything, it's a drive into what appears to be an abyss of trees and forested areas alongside what just happens to be a major freeway.

When your GPS tells you to go down what I would call "back roads" to shave time off your trip, it gets even worse. 

"So your parents," Daisy said as we drove down one forested back road after another, "moved out of West Virginia and then picked the most West-Virginia-like place to get to and live in that wasn't West Virginia?"

"Looks like it," I said, "except on the other side of it is an ocean."

This is quite accurate. Oak Island is indeed an island -- it is connected to the mainland by bridges and nothing else. It is a beautiful -- and I mean beautiful -- area during the day, but at night it is terrifying to find, approach, and cross the bridge onto the island, and you'll find yourself saying aloud, as I did, "we're three miles from their house and we haven't crossed onto the island yet, where the fuck is it?" And then bam, big bridge, and you're there. 

Oak Island is a community of about 4,000 permanent residents (of which my parents are now part). During the summer months/tourist season, according to my dad, that population can increase almost tenfold. We were arriving during Labor Day weekend, the last big tourism holiday of the year, and when we pulled into town (roughly around 11:30pm or so) it was a ghost town. It was the eerie type of environment you see in horror movies. We saw maybe 2-3 other cars out and about, and it was muggy, swampy, and humid in the air enough to fog our windows and have a little of that low-lying fog on the ground in places. Everything was in shadow and darkness to the point where you never knew if there was an alligator lurking in the ditch or bushes next to you or if it would be a guy with a hook for a hand instead.

We pulled onto my parents' street and got lost because all of the houses look the same. I called my dad from the cell and said "we're literally in the street and it says we're here, but we can't find you."

"Oh, you're in the white van? We see you."

He directed us to the right driveway.

And so we were there. The parents had waited up for us, and we stayed up with them for about two hours just trying to decompress and shake off the travel before everyone went to bed. We had made it, our journey was over. And, to be fair, this was the most difficult part of the trip. Everything else would roll smoothly.

Well, smoothly enough.

But that's a tale for part II.

Hank The Tank, Addendum

Per the vet, Hank is perfectly healthy, and went from 3.2 pounds to 5.3 in the span of a month. The vet says he's on track to be a giant cat in the 10-12 pound range, maybe bigger. He got his shots, including his rabies vaccination, and Daisy registered him today. 

He is currently Daisy's work companion as she works from home, and is living his best life.

Hank The Tank, Part III: The Goblin

 All of the previous being said, Daisy has been in the mindset that it may not be a terrible idea to get a playmate for Hank -- another kitten he can spar with so that he leaves Pete alone.

While I was open on Hank, I am almost vehemently against this idea.

For one, for Pete it's not necessarily that Hank is going after him that's causing his anxiety, though that's part of it -- the largest part of it is that Pete is very territorial and more cats mean less territory for him and less of him being the center of attention. You want to make sure a cat will spray/mark everywhere? Reducing the territory he can claim as his own will dramatically increase those chances.

Mind you, it's not like the house is any bigger or smaller than before. He still has free reign of it. But more cats equal less space for him and more space they're gaining in territory from him as they set up their own domains. Hank does not appear to be territorial at all, as he was fostered and is used to being around many other cats -- but who's to say that another cat wouldn't be, and wouldn't come into the house, see four other cats, and immediately get as territorial as possible? It's all psychological. And Pete is too old for this shit, like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. 

Actually, as an aside, I always imagined Pete's inner monologue to be in Samuel L. Jackson's voice, but you get the idea. 

Adding to this is the timeframe problem -- we have a very short window of time to get Hank himself fully acclimated and used to the house (and the others to get fully used to him being around) before we are literally getting on a plane and leaving for a week to visit my parents in North Carolina. Those are hard-and-set dates and that trip was bought and paid for long before Hank was even an idea for us, let alone an actuality. I haven't seen my parents in six years, and for three years in a row we've had to postpone or otherwise cancel trips to see them due to Covid, monetary, or time issues. I'm certainly not going to cancel this one when it's finally been set in stone, the PTO has already been used for it, and when I've been looking forward to it for so long.

Also -- I just don't want another cat right now. I am very happy with Hank and our old farts. Maybe in a year or three when the old farts start dying off will I be open to more cats in the household, but for now, I really don't want even more stress and responsibility. We lucked out with Hank -- his personality is a great match for this household. Who's to say that another cat would be? What if Pete or the girls would go hard on attacking another cat? What if another cat had no interest in the boys but instead wanted to terrorize the girls? I absolutely don't want to risk that. I don't want the equivalent of the L.A. riots in my living room or bedroom every day. 

To those ends, however, I've also had to be slightly open to the idea to help appease Daisy. When we got Hank, the humane society said they were doing a "buy one, get one free" deal to where, anytime in the next 30 days, if we wanted to get him a playmate we could go in and do so, for free. While I don't think Hank really needs a playmate (more on this below), Daisy expressed her openness and want to keep looking just in case.

That 30 days expires August 15, by the way. 

Anyway. 

Over the course of the past few weeks with Hank, we've looked at a few cats that were sweet, but didn't have that same soul connection Hank did. There was one, however, that did have that hit with Daisy -- and we went back to see her that night again and she was already gone/adopted. Since then there have been almost no kittens to speak of on the website on a daily basis. Most of them, as soon as they're posted (even if there are no pictures of them), they're gone same-day. Again, I'm very glad that the humane society has such a great turnaround for cats -- people clamoring for kittens to give them good homes. It warms my heart, honestly. It gives me a little more hope for humanity.

Daisy and I made an agreement that once the 30-day window passed, we'd pretty much be done for the time being for looking for another cat for a while, at least until after we're back from visiting my parents and possibly indefinitely until one of the old farts dies. 

As for the past 30 days, however? Our first full month with Hank? Well, we've learned a lot.

Hank has many nicknames, because he won't fully respond to his name yet. He's still very young. Sometimes he halfway acknowledges it or we think he does, only to find that he's distracted by something else. That'll come in time. It probably doesn't help that we call him all sorts of things, such as:

• Little man
• Little dude
• Sweet boy
• Sweet baby
• The child
• The boy
• The smallest son
• Hankerman
• Hankerchief
• Hanky
• Hanky-panky
• Hanky-boy
• And, finally, the goblin.

He is known as the goblin primarily because, well, he acts like a little goblin sometimes. Have you ever seen Gremlins, where all of the little mogwais are getting into shit and being little buttholes because they want to be fed after midnight? Well, that's Hank about 30% of the time. That number used to be about 60%, but as he's gotten older and has gotten used to the house, he has calmed down significantly. The other 30% of goblining has now been focused on us, Pete, and Sadie. 

Maggie remains largely indifferent and does not give a single shit that he exists most of the time, as is her personality.

I mentioned that when we first started to give Hank the run of the house and when he and Pete first started interacting on a regular basis, he was bound and determined to be friends with Pete no matter what. And, really, even at his old age, Pete needed a playmate. After so many years of play-wrestling and then outright dominating the girls, who wouldn't really fight back, when they started to, he lost interest. Then he got old, and while he and Sadie/Maggie have the occasional spat, most of the time they're all lovey and cuddly with one another (at least to a vast extent; Sadie will not cuddle with Maggie and hasn't in many years, and I don't exactly know why). 

Well, after having the run of the house for the past three weeks or so, Hank will now climb up on Pete to cuddle with him. Sometimes there's some aggression from Hank when he does, like he'll play-pounce on Pete or bite his neck or what have you (which, surprisingly, Pete mostly ignores) and sometimes they'll spar/bat at each other a bit, but I can very much see that they're settling into a pattern of companionship and love. It is very clear that Pete loves this little boy and puts off Big Dad Energy™ when they're together, and Hank adores Pete. Hank will purposely cuddle up to Pete and lay with him, and when he settles down, Pete will wrap his paws around him and wash his face and ears, and will pull him close. Yes, there is video of this. Hank loves it and will purr the entire time, eyes closed. Maybe it's a dominance thing, maybe it's an I-love-you thing, maybe it's both. But about 95% of the time, they're now completely at ease with one another.

This makes me very happy, of course. Pete now has a little teddy bear of his own and he finally gets to have a dad-like role in the household.

Pete, by the way, is fine. He got some checkup work done last week at the vet, and he is not currently in kidney failure. He is also remarkably healthy for his age. The vets said he should likely be on the same kidney food that Maggie is already on though, as the older he gets the more likely he will develop kidney issues in the future. This is fine, because he already likes to eat/steal that food. Sadie should likely be on it too, honestly. Hank has zero interest in it. He's smelled it a few times and walks away without even trying it. 

We still give Pete his anxiety medicine on most days. I don't think Daisy gives it to him every day unless he's outwardly anxious every day. I think that's also helping him adjust to Hank wanting to be a little goblin cuddle buddy. 

When it comes to the girls, Hank is testing the waters more and more. He tries to play and spar with Sadie, and she has no interest in that whatsoever. Sometimes she'll growl or hiss at him, but most of the time she just ignores him or looks at him with the cat equivalent of the "are you an idiot?" look. I expected him to want to lay and cuddle with Maggie, but when he gets too close to her and tries to smell or lick her, especially when he's goblining about the house, she will hiss/cry at him and he'll get spooked and run away. Lately, he's really enjoyed sleeping in the cat bed on the couch that any/all of them occupy on any daily basis, but Maggie really loves. Maggie has gotten visibly miffed at him when she wants to lay in that bed and finds Hank passed out in it. This is, thankfully, about as territorial as Maggie gets. 

Our house is a 3-bedroom house. We have our master bedroom, and then Daisy and I both have our offices. Daisy's office is much larger than my own (I took the smaller one on purpose because the washer/dryer are in it) and hers is also used as a storage room. We keep it closed off now, as there is far too much for Hank to get into and destroy within it if he so chose. Well, Sadie loved that room -- she would go sleep/hide under the bed in there, there's a litter pan in there that only she really ever used, and it was sort of a sanctuary for her. Now that it's closed off so that Hank can't get in, she is somewhat distraught that one of her personal spots in the house isn't just free and open anymore. She will tell us when she wants in, and we'll let her in and close the door behind her. An hour or two later, she'll knock/pound on the door to let us know she wants back out, and she'll come back out. Yesterday, she spent multiple hours in there because she wanted to, and only knocked to get let back out shortly before I started work last night. This in/out sort of arrangement has mostly appeased her. 

We'll eventually get the room organized enough to where we can leave it open again full-time, and to where Hank can't get somewhere we couldn't get him out of or eat/destroy something he shouldn't, but until then it's off limits, even when Daisy works from home in there a few days a week.

In the overnights, Hank either sleeps mostly upstairs with Daisy, or will spend the entire night downstairs with me while I work. Aside from the first day or two he did this, when he was hyper the entire night and kept attacking Pete, and I had to catch his ass and toss him on the bed with Daisy while she slept and shut the door behind me, he's been perfectly fine. He knows, mostly, not to bother the other cats when they're sleeping, and will just curl up with them or next to them. Some nights he'll be up and down, usually pretty chill. Some nights I'll come upstairs in the morning to find him in the cat tree, or curled up tight with Daisy. Some days I'll wake up in the afternoon and he'll be sleeping with me, and other days I'll wake up and he's nowhere to be found until I go downstairs and see him passed out in the cat bed or on the couch. Hank keeps his options open. 

He has yet to break anything, get into anything he shouldn't, or tear anything up while we've been asleep, either in the daytime when I sleep or the night time/weekends when we both sleep. When we leave the house for any length of time (like if we go visit Daisy's parents, run errands, or go grocery shopping) he remains calm and usually just goes to sleep somewhere. 

When we sit down and eat dinner/watch TV, he doesn't really bother us or beg for food or be a bastard because he knows we're preoccupied. He generally will sit with us or go back upstairs to his cat tree.

However, he does get hangry -- as in, if his food bowl is empty, he will be a little terror until it is refilled. We discovered that this is a pattern this past weekend. He does not tell us outright to fill it -- like he won't try to lead us to it by crying or mewing at us and getting under our feet, like the other cats will -- he'll just be a bastard until I go get the food and fill the bowl for him. Then he'll come running and he will eat. He likes it when I watch him eat, or put my hand on his side or back while he eats -- he'll purr really hard, as if I am the food-giver, the life-bringer, the protector. He sometimes gets upset if I'm touching him while he eats and I stop and walk away, so I always try to be the food-soother. 

He will use every litter pan in the house but gets really upset when he catches Sadie or Pete using "his," the one we keep in our bedroom for him. Yesterday he actually got in the pan with Sadie while she was using it. I expected Sadie to flip out, but she honestly didn't care. 

I can't really describe how much love Hank has brought into the house. I just adore his little orange ass. He's brought so much love, peace, and overall amusement into our lives. He's also growing rapidly. His next vet appointment is tomorrow evening, where he'll get his rabies shot and anything else he needs so that we can fully register him, and I expect that he will have almost doubled in weight as he's almost doubled in size since we got him. 

Hank The Tank, Part II: He's a Menace

 It was not lost on us, not even from the beginning, that bringing home another cat would be a huge time-suck of responsibility and mediation. We did not know how the other cats would react to a new kitten. I was worried about Sadie the most, as she's standoffish and skittish on her best days and in my mind, would be the least likely to want a little goblin tearing ass around the house and taking my attention away from her. Pete, I thought, would love him as he'd have a little orange cuddlebuddy, and Maggie I figured would be mostly indifferent to the entire scenario, or would be scared by him and would try to run and hide anywhere and everywhere her fat old ass could.

I was mostly wrong on all three counts. But we'll get to that.

Once we were away from the humane society and he was indeed ours, we immediately drove over to the parents' to show them our new baby. The parents had just returned from Nova Scotia a few nights before, and it was the first time I'd seen them since their return. However, as we literally had a cat in a box, we couldn't stay long -- just long enough for introductions so that they could see the little orange-and-white thing that was understandably a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal of being in a cage a short while ago, then getting love from two kind people he recognized, before being put into a dark box with breathing holes and driven across town. 

We also had to stop and get his special kitten food, some toys, and a litter pan and some litter for him before we could go home. While we had a spare, unused pan somewhere in storage in this house, we didn't know where, and didn't want to tear apart rooms and closets to find it. We also were setting up our bedroom as the base of Cat Operations™ where he would be sequestered away from the other cats, at least until we could get him to the vet and certify that he was healthy and didn't have any parasites or sicknesses that could affect our old farts. He'd be safe and protected in our bedroom; we'd set up the litter pan, his food and water, and his toys in there and we'd cat-proof the room the best we could, so that there wouldn't be anything he could get into or destroy. 

First, however, we had to settle on a name. Daisy was not fond of "Otis," the name the humane society had given him, but at face value I didn't mind it that much and told her I didn't mind keeping it, really, if we couldn't come up with anything else. We cycled through a bunch of ideas again; I really wanted to name him after a comic book character or a Star Trek character. So, for a while, I wanted to call him Worf, or Logan, or Riker, or Clark, or Quark, or something of that ilk. Daisy shot down all of them but Kirk, which is coincidentally my own middle name (there's an entire story behind that that I'll probably eventually share here) but I didn't really feel that he was a Kirk. Names have power and meaning, and he was going to have whatever name we gave him for his entire life, hopefully many years. It wasn't just something we could give him on a whim. 

There was a time though where I was pushing hard for non-human names like Poutine and Waffle.

No food names, Daisy declared.

Anyway. 

We brought him home and sat the box down in the middle of the living room with all three of the old farts. We didn't want them to interact too much with him, but we did want them to see, know, and comprehend that we'd brought another life into the house. He didn't want to jump out of the box on his own (again, he was tiny and I'm not sure at the time he could have done so anyway), so we took him out and placed him on the floor in the center of the living room.

Pete eyed him with suspicion, and when he moved, Pete hissed and ran away. 

Sadie came up to him first, sniffed him and the air around him, then hissed and ran off herself. 

We took him over to Maggie, who was lounging on the couch and couldn't be bothered to move, to let her see him. Her response was exactly what I predicted -- she looked at him as if he was a new toy she had no interest in, and then realized very quickly oh, that thing is alive. She also hissed at him. 

Poor little boy.

But, the old farts had passed the first test -- they knew he existed and they didn't try to attack him and seemed more concerned that they would be attacked. I didn't get the sense that they saw him as an intruder, just someone new and slightly frightening because he was new. To be fair, the little boy did not go after any of them either, he was more of the demeanor of saying hi and trying to make friends. 

We set him up in the room upstairs and made sure the old farts got extra love and reassurances. Pete and Sadie immediately set up camp right outside the now-closed bedroom door, as they knew that there was a creature in there.

Maggie did not, and to this day does not, give a single shit about this new cat. 

As we both played with him, locked in the room, and gave him all the love, we continued to go through names. Daisy really wanted to name him after her father -- who, I will stress, is still alive, so it's not like it's a tribute or an "in memoriam" thing, which I shot down hard because I'm sorry, that's just fucking weird. We cycled through some more ideas while we played with this very active and rambunctious little boy, before Daisy looked at me.

"Hank?" she said, sighing, but also looking at the way this cat acted and how he played.

"Hank," I said, nodding. "This cat has Hank energy. This cat has big Hank energy."

And so, Hank the Tank was born. Well, christened, anyway. The "The Tank" moniker even fit as well, because of his giant feet. 

He is the sweetest boy.

We kept him in the room for the first few days. Daisy ordered some more toys for him off Amazon and a giant cat tree from Target (which took her three and a half hours to build while I was working a few nights later). She set up his cat pan in the corner of the room behind our giant mirror, so that he would have some privacy. I ordered two more bags of his food off Amazon, as he has a voracious appetite (well, he is a growing boy, after all). 

Over the course of a few days, we learned a lot of things about this little cat.

He is an aggressive kisser. He will stick his entire nose into your mouth. He will rub his face all over your face. He will lick your lips and face and will stick his tongue up your nostril. Repeatedly. 

He has tried, on multiple occasions, to breastfeed from Daisy.

He is healthy, parasite free, no illnesses and no ill effects from his Ivermectin overdose. Moreover, no problems healing from his neutering and no lasting effects from being picked up off the streets or being separated from his mother so early. 

He was 3.5 pounds at his vet visit, and by the time we go back in another week and a half to get his shots and get him fully registered, we expect that he'll be up another pound or more. He is growing very quickly.

The vet said that he thinks the shelter/foster family who had him was mistaken, as due to his teeth growth he looked more like he was 10 or 11 weeks old, not the 8 or 9 we were told. That would put his date of birth right around May 1, which is what I've set it at for birthday celebrations for him in the future. 

He violently farts when he's hyper or agitated. They stink. Daisy has discouraged me from calling him "Hank the Stank" or "Hank the Rank."

He is a cuddler. There are times when he wants to be picked up and held, and he will let you know because he is vocal about it. 

He is vocal in general and is always happy to see us. When we come into a room and he's in there, if he is awake he will come trotting over to us, mewing and running between/rubbing on our legs. He wants love, he wants to love and be loved. He wants acknowledgement and to be the focus of your attention.

He does not like loud noises -- of any sort. Doors opening and closing scare him. The TV scares him. The vacuum terrifies him. We've had some pretty nasty storms off and on as of late, and thunder makes him jump. He will cuddle up tight with Daisy (and Pete, but more on this later) when it storms. 

He adores the giant cat tree that Daisy purchased and built for him:

And finally, all he wants to do is play and make friends.

This has gone about as well as you'd expect, at least with Pete.

Over the course of about a week, once we'd been given the clean bill of health from the vet, we began taking Hank out of the room for short periods to let him explore the house. In the beginning, this was five or ten-minute stretches so that he could wander about, the other cats could see him and interact with him if they so chose (mostly, it was just hissing from the girls). This was slowly stretched out to an hour or so, or two hours, where we'd monitor him as he explored and monitor the older cats as they interacted with him and began to realize that he wasn't going anywhere. 

We had friends over to the house on two separate occasions, who oohed and aahed over him, which also got him accustomed to other people and other smells. 

Whenever the door to the bedroom was open, Pete and Sadie would bust in -- Pete would get his normal spot on the bed very quickly, and Sadie would usually run under it to her own spot, even when they knew Hank was in there. When we would try to get them out for the night so we could lock up Hank, they first left the room willingly, then begrudgingly, and then eventually they refused to leave because they'd once more recaptured control of the bedroom.

Or so they thought.

Hank has claimed the bedroom as his base of Cat Operations™ -- as I mentioned before. Upon his giant cat tree, which the other cats are too old and tired to climb up on or disturb -- he is lord of all he surveys. So, even once we gave him basically free reign of the house 24/7 (which took several weeks of gradual exploration time and introductions to the other cats he shared the house with), most of the time we'd find him upstairs in the bedroom asleep on the bed or on his tree (like the photo above). 

Maggie, as I said, does not give a single shit that Hank is in the house. When they had some of their first interactions, she chuffed at him in a "leave me alone" sort of way, and for the most part, Hank has abided by her wishes and doesn't bother her. He is curious about her, and she will watch him play, but neither of them disturbs the other.

Sadie was apprehensive for the first few days, but gathered enough courage to approach him when he wasn't being hyper -- they smelled each other, tried to lick each other, and then gave each other an "okay, you're cool" look before walking away from one another. Ever since then Hank and Sadie have been friends. He can tear ass around the house and run back and forth past her playing with his toys, or just generally being a hyper kitten, and she will either pay zero attention or she'll just watch him with idle curiosity. When he pounces on her back or side when she's laying down, or if she's walking to or from another room and he runs up to her, she'll occasionally hiss briefly if he startles her, but most of the time she's just like "c'mon man, I'm old." He will also cuddle with her or lay closely with her when she sleeps with me during the day. I could've cried when they became friends, because I was so worried about Sadie. I think it also helps that I always love on her and reassure her that he's just a baby, he's not a threat, when he's around and being hyper. I think that calmness from me really put her at ease. 

I have also verbally told her many times that she is loved and she is not being replaced, and I think to some extent that really helps too. 

Hank, however, is bound and determined that he and Pete will be friends, goddammit and that they will play together whether Pete likes it or not. 

Pete, so far, has been mostly unenthusiastic about this. 

I will take an aside here and state that Pete is a very loving, very peaceful cat most of the time. He is also fiercely territorial, claims Daisy as his love and true mother, and he is super jealous and protective of not only her, but me to an extent as well. If I'm paying attention to Sadie or Maggie, he gets jealous. If Daisy and I are trying to cuddle together in bed on the weekends, he always tries to get in the middle of us so he can be part of it too, or so he can become the center of attention. He also has no time or tolerance for foolishness or rambunctiousness, and he just wants to live in peace, eat his food, sleep 18 hours a day and get love from us when he wants it.

Now throw a young, hyper kitten into that mix who wants to wrestle and play with him all the time, because he recognizes Pete as another male. 

How do you think that went?

I'm not gonna lie, it was a pretty rough two weeks or so. 

Pete, who I expected to be ecstatic that he'd have a cuddle buddy with whom he could snuggle, gently play with, and love like his own son...immediately got massive anxiety and would run from Hank, crying/yowling and spraying/marking around the house -- including on Daisy's slippers and eventually peeing on her directly when he was particularly anxious.

Oh hell naw, not gonna happen on my watch.

We began to soothe Pete as much as possible, give him treats, love on him as much as we could....and immediately took him to the vet to make sure he wasn't having any UTI-like problems as well as to get him back on his anxiety medication we had to put him on when we bought this house. He's fine, he doesn't have any UTI, he's just anxious. And the medication helps him a lot. It gets him high (well, as much as "kitty Xanax" can) and he goes to sleep. As far as I know, he hasn't marked or sprayed anywhere for a week, and Hank is back to just being a hyper little nuisance to him again. Pete does have a follow up appointment later this week to have bloodwork done and get his vaccinations, as the vet said he'd lost a couple of pounds since his last visit (to where, who knows -- as to us he looks like he's slowly getting fatter) and as he's very old, they want to see if he's in the beginning stages of kidney failure too, like Maggie. 

But Hank. Oh, Hank.

Since Hank is so determined to get Pete to be his friend, he follows Pete around the house when he's hyper, nipping at his tail or attacking his legs. Sometimes he pounces on Pete and bites his neck. Sometimes he jumps on Pete's old hips, which hurts him, and Pete yelps and goes after him. But the general scenario is that they will lay on the bed together, facing each other, and Hank will bat at Pete's face. Pete will bat back and they'll lightly spar, but it's very clear that Pete is becoming irritated, as he'll begin whacking his tail hard on the bed. Hank sees the whacking tail and is like "Oooh, something to attack!" and begins going after the tail. It's about this point where Pete gets pissed off enough to get up and leave the room (or otherwise run away) and Hank then chases him. Sometimes Hank gives up, sometimes he doesn't and keeps going hard -- he's still a baby, he doesn't know any better. He just wants to play, and isn't getting the message from Pete.

We've had to separate them a few times and then give Pete extra love, some treats, and comfort to calm him back down again. It also doesn't help that Pete actually likes Hank most of the time, and always wants to be in the room with him or supervise him in some capacity -- so when Hank wanders off, Pete will follow him.

You can't reason with old cats. I've told Pete that if he wants Hank to leave him alone, the easiest way to do that is to not aggressively thwack his tail in Hank's presence and to not fucking follow him from room to room, but it's not like Pete understands that. 

To be fair, Hank loves Pete and wants to be around him all the time. In their quieter hours, he will sleep with Pete on the bed or couch, and we do have video of Pete holding Hank like a teddy bear and licking his head. 

But, Hank is young. Hank is aggressive. Hank is full of energy. Hank has little concern for boundaries or even the concept of them.

"This cat is a menace," I told my parents when I called them a few weeks ago and told them some of the stories about his interactions with Pete. "But he's a very cute one."

Hank has had full run of the house for about two weeks now, and while he is hyper and a curious little goblin (that's what we call him: "the goblin"), he is not destructive, he doesn't really get into things, he always uses the litter pan correctly (and all of the other pans too), and -- most importantly -- he doesn't run up walls, climb curtains, get into cabinets, get into food, shred the furniture, attack the old ladies, or anything else like that. Yes, he is a hyper kitten and he does hyper kitten things. But, he is a night-and-day difference compared to raising Pete, who I had to basically lay on top of to get him to stop being hyper and go to sleep when it was time to sleep.

Hank, on the other hand, is like "Oh, it's time to sleep now? Okay, let me get comfortable then."

He has the most wonderful personality and love language I've ever seen in a cat. I've frequently been awakened by him, sweetly, by him licking my beard/mustache and him sticking his nose up my nose, or his tongue up my nostril, when he cuddles with me. When we eat dinner, if he's not hyper, he frequently lays down between my feet or crawls under the couch blanket with Daisy. He loves looking out the window. He loves spending time with us and the other cats. I told Daisy he's the best decision we made since getting married. 

"Uh, the house?" she said. "We bought this house too, since we've been married."

I had to think about it for a minute. 

Hank The Tank, Part I

 No sooner than I finished my last writing here, our microwave blew up and we had to get a $600 mass-removal surgery done on Maggie.

For the third time for both of these things.

Maggie had a giant lump on her head we removed last fall. This past spring, she grew another one right next to her nose, and that needed to come off too. Over the past several weeks, she developed a third right under her left eye, and it very quickly doubled in size over the course of ten days or so. We took her in to get it checked out, and they offered to do it right there and then -- so we let them do so before it got any bigger. She got stitches that were removed two weeks later, but she's otherwise fine.

The microwave...sigh...we've had it worked on twice to fix it before, by the appliance repair people we can get to come out for $100 each time under our home warranty. Both times it was fixed, both times it worked fine for quite a while before eventually blowing out again. Instead of dumping more money into something that is clearly failing, Daisy just went online and bought a new one from Nebraska Furniture Mart, and it was delivered and installed last week. Yes, installed, because the one it was replacing was one of the big over-the-range microwaves, and they're far more expensive and much larger than a regular tabletop model. If I wanted a regular tabletop model I could have gotten one of those on Amazon for about $50 for a basic model that would do the job -- we didn't want that, we wanted the big one that fit into the spot over our stove, with a light/timer/vent fan, etc. 

Anyway, they came and installed that in twenty-five minutes and hauled the old one away since it was junk. I believe there was something like a $30 disposal/recycling fee; whatever it was, Daisy paid it and we were done with that foolishness. 

So, moral of the story -- there's always something stupid or expensive (or stupid expensive) awaiting around the corner if you're foolish enough to be like "yeah, stuff's really good right now." Heed my warnings and never say that aloud or even write it down, apparently.

So, on with the story.

About six weeks ago, Daisy's parents went to Nova Scotia to visit the family -- shortly after we returned from there (see previous posts here). We'd been taking care of their cats while they were gone, much like they always do for us when we're out of town. Daisy's parents have a black cat, a brown tabby, and a little orange and white tabby. Conversely, we have a black cat, a gray tabby, and a gray and white cat. They were gone for almost three weeks, so we were over there constantly to make sure the cats had enough water and food, Daisy made sure the litter was scooped and cat puke was cleaned off the floors, etc. Most of the time their cats are fairly skittish -- their big black boy is an asshole and doesn't really like anyone but the parents (despite our best, sweetest efforts to always love him and be kind to him) and their little orange cat they call their "upstairs kitty" because she so very rarely will come downstairs when we're there -- even when/if the parents are home. She is finally warming up to us, after about six years, and will come hang out a little bit, even letting us touch her on occasion, but she is still the most skittish cat I've ever met. Their big brown tabby is very sweet and loving and is the most "normal" of their three, and doesn't give a single shit about me and Daisy being in her space. She, in fact, wants the most attention, food, and treats, and will climb up on your chest to get rubs. 

So, the pattern on a lot of these days while the parents were out of town -- especially on my own days off, both over the July 4 holiday and normal weekends off -- was that we'd get up and do our own normal around-the-house stuff, then eventually go over to the parents', where we'd feed the cats, check on them and make sure they had some love and attention, and make sure the house was overall in order. On my/our working days, Daisy would go over there on her lunch hour (as it's about ten minutes away from her office) and would do the cat care then, or she'd stop by on her way home from work. Daisy also mowed the lawn at least once while they were gone, and every time we were there together she'd tend to Dad's garden, pulling in all of the new produce that was growing while they were away. Daisy is a very good daughter.

For some time, Daisy has wanted to add another cat to our household. Our three cats are old -- all three are sixteen -- and while they're in relatively good health overall, Maggie is in the beginning stages of kidney failure, and Pete and Sadie, while we love them, are definitely not going to be around forever either. As Pete ages, it is very apparent that he is not the spry, super-active hellion of a cat he was in his younger years, like he was when I started this site in 2007 (16 years ago this month, actually), and Sadie, while she remains my shadow and little old lady, is very clearly also showing her age and becoming crotchety at that. Sixteen year old cats are the equivalent human age of 80, so I've got three very senior citizens living with us.

I've always been mostly opposed to any new cats entering the household, primarily because of the relationship we have with our old farts as well as the dynamic they have with each other. Pete will always be Daisy's baby -- no matter how old he gets -- and she loves him the most. Likewise, in the eleven years that Daisy and I have been together, I've never seen an animal more closely bonded to a human than Pete is to her. She absolutely is his mother and he knows it. Pete has always been very close with me as well, as I had him first and he's been with me through everything, but he has an absolutely special bond with Daisy that now surpasses, and has surpassed for years now, the bond he's had with me. I didn't want any new cats entering the household that would disrupt that bond with us or make him feel threatened, like he was being replaced, or like he was losing territory in the household. The girls I was even more concerned about, as Sadie is already incredibly skittish and doesn't like other people, let alone animals. She'll hiss and growl at Pete and Maggie sometimes if they get too close to her and she doesn't want them around. She only wants me, and occasionally wants Daisy's attention too -- but mostly me. 

Maggie is a fat loaf of a cat who doesn't move much and doesn't want to, and she mostly gets along fine with Pete and Sadie, but never really chose a favorite "parent" between me and Daisy. She loves us both equally and just wants to be acknowledged and loved, and if we give her that in abundance, and she's generally fine.

I will stress that Daisy wanting another cat is not a new thing -- she's wanted one for many years, ever since likely before we got married. We tried adopting one once and it didn't work out -- when we were still in the apartment -- so we were kind of apprehensive about trying it again. Once we bought the house and had much more space to work with, and especially once I went work from home full time and she went work from home part time, we have been continually reassessing the situation. I have still been mostly opposed to getting a new cat, partially because of anxiety and stress, and because of the trauma I remember in trying to raise Pete from 6-7 weeks old to the point where he finally became a somewhat calmer adult cat. 

I cannot stress enough how much of an absolute asshole demon Pete was when he was a kitten. He had undying, infernal energy. He got into absolutely everything. He tore up furniture, rugs, and clothes. He destroyed window blinds and tried to destroy screens. He climbed curtains like a monkey climbing a tree. He ran up walls, knocked stuff off counters, was on the stove and in the sink/toilet/tub constantly. He bit, scratched, clawed, howled, sprayed, would dash for every door and would wreck every closet. He would find his bag of food, no matter where I hid it, and would tear it open and gorge himself on it -- I eventually had to keep it in a room he couldn't get into. I had scars on my hands for years from his claws and teeth. This is the cat who gave me a black eye while I was sleeping, because he decided that he wanted to run straight up the wall above the head of the bed, and landed on my eye when the laws of gravity took back over. He was not a good cat -- he was a demon from the depths of hell, and he didn't really start to settle down and become the Pete he is today until he was about two or three. I told Daisy that I absolutely could not put enough emphasis on how horrible it was to take care of him when he was a kitten, and got the sense that she really didn't believe me or that I was exaggerating my stories. 

I was far younger and had far more energy when I raised Pete. I am much older now and do not have the energy or patience to do that again, not that the old farts we have now (including much older, slower, old-man-Pete) would allow or want that sort of behavior in a new cat in the household anyway. 

Daisy and I follow the Nebraska Humane Society's postings on their website as well as on social media, and I don't think she's ever stopped looking for new kittens, to be honest with you. I've long said that I never want to live without a big black cat, so when Pete goes (as he will, eventually) I want to get another big black boy. I want a long-haired seal-point Himalayan-looking cat -- like Sassy in Homeward Bound -- and I've also always wanted a big orange cat. 

My influences on cats I like come from what I grew up with and the cats I've lived with and experienced. I grew up with orange cats -- the first cat that I had as adult was when I was still living at home and my parents took in a peaches-and-cream old girl named Kittybell, who showed up on our porch during a snowstorm and came and went for another year or so before my parents formally brought her in and made her part of the family. She was the sweetest little girl and was likely already well into her senior years before we adopted her, and lived up until a few years ago when she peacefully died of old age. My parents had another big orange cat named Digger as well -- he showed up shortly after Kittybell and seemed like he knew her. He had a hard life and had gotten the shit kicked out of him by wild animals at some point (we don't know what it was, but it was bad) and my parents nursed him back to health with many vet visits and surgeries. He lived long after Kittybell and my dad had to take care of his passing just last month when the vets found that he was riddled with tumors and was suffering. My parents also had Sam, who was, well, the seal-point Himalayan cat I'd always dreamed of, who also showed up as a stray sometime after I'd moved out of the house. He died some time ago too, but he was also a very sweet boy, and I got to spend time with him when visiting home. With the passing of Digger last month, my parents no longer have any cats. 

I think that was part of what finally made me a little more open to getting another cat -- mortality. My babies, even though they've been with me for over 16 years, will not live forever. As much as my cats are a giant part of my life and an institution of my household, they're not immortal. They will age, they will get old and maybe sick and eventually die. I don't want to replace them -- that's not my intention. But the thought of not having them, and watching them die one by one, leaving holes in my life where they once were, is almost too much to bear. Also, because they're now quite old, I thought that they'd put up less of a fight if a new kitten was brought into the household. They're not gonna go on the warpath like they would have done (and did) years ago -- I figured they'd be more likely to be like "Oh, how cute, a new toy. Oh, that thing is alive. Well, still cute" and go back to sleep.

Daisy has always wanted a flame point or seal point Siamese cat, though she does gravitate more towards the flame points. She has always wanted a big brown tabby too, a fluffball with Maine Coon characteristics. I wasn't opposed to either breed. I have my preferences too, like I mentioned above. I also like Torties too, for example. I think Torties are gorgeous. But really, for me, it's a personality thing. I don't care what a cat looks like if I can't connect to its personality, or if I don't think its personality would connect well with our old farts. We've gone to the Humane Society many times over the years -- mostly just to look or for what we call "kitten therapy" after a bad day at work or what-have you -- and many times have I liked the way a cat looks only to find out it doesn't like to be held, or petted, or growls and hisses around other cats, or bites or claws, or tries to hide when Daisy and I both pay attention to it at the same time...and sadly many times I have been like "well, not a good fit for us, but maybe for someone else."

The Humane Society always gets a lot of cats in the late spring and summer months. Kittens especially, as they're picked up off the streets or fostered kittens become ready for adoption. They always have a giant variety -- I'm guessing probably 20-30 new kittens are on the website every week -- and they are all adopted very quickly, within a day or three of being made available. This gave me some hope about the world -- that these cats were getting good homes, there was good turnaround on adoptions, and that cats weren't just sitting in kennels languishing around forever because nobody wanted them. 

While the parents were out of town, we began visiting the Humane Society fairly frequently again. I was still very apprehensive about any new additions to the household, but long ago Daisy and I had made a pact that we would have to both be onboard, all-in, on any kitten we were interested in. If one of us was unsure or wasn't completely in or comfortable, then it would be a no. I'd said no many times over the years; I wanted to have an open mind now for the first time in a long time. 

There was a brown tabby that Daisy was very interested in. He had a sweet personality, was lively and excitable, and was a little fluffball of cuteness, but at the time neither of us were all in. Well, maybe Daisy was, I don't know for sure. But I wasn't yet sold. We left him there, thought about it for a few hours, and decided to go back to get him. When we did, he had already been adopted. This devastated Daisy, and it actually affected me far more than I thought it would at the time. I liked that little guy a lot, but at the time when we should've pulled the trigger, I wasn't all in. I regretted it. His listed name on the humane society website (they give them all placeholder names so that there's something for recordkeeping) was Edward, which we weren't a huge fan of. During the time we were thinking about it for a few hours, we decided we were going to call him Edward Henry "Hank, the Tank" [surname]. When he was gone upon our return, having the name picked out made it feel like more of a visceral loss.

Keep this in mind, as it will be important moving forward.

Another week came and went, and on the following Thursday night, we went back to look at a fresh set of kittens who had just become available. There was a long-haired little gray cat, who looked very similar to Sadie (and acted like it; she did not want to really be held or be around other cats), and a little medium-haired black kitten named "Spooks" who was very sweet and loved attention, wanted to be held, etc. There was also a medium-haired female tortie who was just gorgeous and loved attention just as much. We had gotten some good vibes from them, but none of them had that "all-in" feeling. That "Hank" feeling.

"[Daisy]," I said, "here's the thing. We can't keep comparing every kitten we meet to Hank. We're going to see cats with many different personalities, and not all of them will have personalities that are completely readily apparent upon a first impression."

She agreed, if a little begrudgingly.

It's a hard thing to describe, really. It's a feeling, a connection, a spark. Some cats we looked at had a little of it, some had a lot, but none of them were enough to light the flame. 

When we went upstairs (the secondary cat/kitten area) we saw a few more cute little babies, including what appeared to be a brother-and-sister pair of orange cats -- a male with orange-and-white markings, and his "sister," who was mottled peaches-and-cream throughout her entire coat. The girl seemed like a little snot, continually pouncing on her brother, but the male was genuinely curious, wanted attention, stood on the side of the cage and cried for love, and would look at you with his big blue/green/gold eyes. Their shelter names were Otis and Delilah. 

They were a "bonded pair" and needed to be adopted together, so we didn't think much of it other than oh, what a sweet little boy and left for the night. One cat would be pushing it for interactions with our old farts. Two would likely set off a kitty race war in our home. 

The next night, when we saw that all of the kittens we looked at were still there 24 hours later, Daisy wanted to go back, just to double-check the vibe levels and to look at a few new ones who had arrived and became available that day. We got there with an hour or so left before close, but it was still fairly busy in the facility, with lots of people looking at cats and kittens. Spooks was still there, as well as the little gray girl and the little tortie.

When we went upstairs, we found that Delilah had apparently been adopted earlier in the day without her brother Otis, so apparently they weren't as bonded of a pair as we thought. Otis was in his kennel cage alone, and he was upset. He wanted companionship and love and attention, and it seemed as if people were looking at him like "oh, orange cat" and dismissing him outright. Daisy and I felt bad for him, as he was so adorable.

We went downstairs again and then came back upstairs again one last time before leaving for the night. By this time the crowd had thinned out and there were only a few people around, so Daisy made the bold decision to open the cage containing Otis and pull him out to hold and love on him. He purred and mewed and graciously accepted the love. I held him for a few minutes too, stroking his soft kitten fur before handing him back to Daisy.

It was at about this point when a girl in her twenties approached us and said something along the lines of "oh, so you're playing with my cat, huh?"

The audacity. Like, bitch be gone. Who does something like that? I didn't even know what to say to her. What I wanted to say was "I don't see your name on him anywhere, lady."

In Daisy's arms, Otis purred and wanted all the love, nestled in, kissed her face, etc. 

I believe it was sometime around this point where Daisy was "all in."

We put him back in his kennel and he looked so sad that we were leaving him behind. We immediately went downstairs and asked if we could get a private room visit with Otis. The staff told us that adoption hours were done for the day, but we could fill out the application and submit it, and would be able to come back in the morning when they opened at 10am and get in the queue for viewings/visits.

Daisy immediately filled out the application on her phone and submitted it, and we went home for the night, with plans to be back as they opened the next morning at 10.

In a whirlwind of passionate "that bitch isn't getting my cat" energy, I was stunned when Daisy was up, excited, caffeinated, and waiting outside the doors of the humane society twenty minutes before they opened the next morning. It was Saturday, July 15th. There was a line to get in. We were second in line -- first was a lady who wanted to go in and get a big dog, as we found out while talking to her while we waited.

Daisy is never on time for anything, and I can count on one hand the number of times she's ever been early for anything. 

The lady from the night before was nowhere to be seen, even as the line got longer and longer behind us while we watched for the staff to open the doors.

In the interim between leaving the night before and the following morning, I was about 80% in on this little orange cat. Now, mind you, as I mentioned above I have always wanted a big orange cat. But it couldn't just be looks, it was definitely a personality thing. And Otis, as they called him, had it in spades. He was immediately lovey, was playful and active, and he had giant feet. This signified to me that he would likely grow up and become monstrous in size. I knew before we went back there was a much greater chance that day that we'd be leaving with him than not. And I was okay with that. Was I "all in" at that point? No. But I was okay with it. 

When they finally opened and we got inside, the lady in front of us who wanted a dog was first up, and we checked in, had our application approved, and were told we were in queue to meet the animals. They made us pick three to look at. Daisy chose Otis, Spooks, and some other cat, I can't remember. Of course, we picked Otis first, and we must have been the only people who had come that early to look at cats, because the "cat wing" of the shelter was deserted -- with nobody walking around in it anywhere but us and the humane society lady who had the paperwork and who was apparently our designated chaperone.

I will never forget the events that transpired next.

As we went back upstairs to where Otis's cage was, far at the end of the hall, as we approached him, his eyes lit up and he stood up on the cage door and mewed, as if to say you came back! you DO love me! It was very clear that he remembered us and recognized us. The shelter lady opened the door and he practically leapt into our arms to love and be loved. 

The visiting room was across the hall from his cage, and it's where we learned more about his history. He had been rescued off the streets of Omaha as a stray, at the approximate age of four weeks, in a really bad part of town. He had been fostered in a home with other cats and had therefore been litter-trained, socialized with other cats and people, and had been cleaned up. When he got to the shelter he'd been neutered and given some parasite-cleansing meds, including treatment to get rid of a particularly bad case of ear mites, and in his treatment he'd accidentally been overdosed on Ivermectin, which he had recovered from with no ill effects. He'd just been neutered a few days before and was still too young to get his rabies shot, but he was otherwise good to go -- his first day at the shelter had been the first night we'd seen him, Thursday. He was approximately 8-9 weeks old at that point. That would've put his birthday, roughly, a week before we went to Nova Scotia -- to put that into perspective.

The shelter lady said she'd leave us alone for a few minutes so we could get to know him better privately, and left.

I held him for a while and he melted into my chest and arms -- Daisy has a picture of this somewhere -- before I looked at her in the eyes and said, aloud, "I want him." That soul connection was there. He was loving and cuddly and playful. He was vocal with his mews and purrs, and ran back and forth across the floor of the room on his giant paws, chasing and playing with toys. His body, excluding tail, was maybe the size of my hand, just a little fuzzy orange-and-white blur of fur with eyes and legs. 

When the lady returned, we told her in no uncertain terms that we wanted him, and she began getting the paperwork ready as well as the cardboard carrier box that would be his transporter for the day. 

"He should be okay, but we strongly recommend you get him to the vet for a checkup within 72 hours," she said. "As in most shelters, we have upper respiratory infections in cats and kittens that run rampant throughout this place. He doesn't have any of those symptoms because he's been pretty isolated, but you probably want to get him checked out anyway just in case."

The adoption fee was $150(!) for this little man, plus tax and whatever licensing fees and etc etc there were tacked onto the bill. We were happy to pay it, and walked out of there with a giant cardboard box with a little confused cat inside. 

When we got to the car and were inside, away from any other hearing ears, I turned to Daisy and said, "Haha bitch, we win -- 'your' cat. Please. You snooze you lose!" In reference to the lady the night before. 

We now had a new son.