Dolly the Pocket Princess, Part I

 Okay, look.

I know I have a problem, and that problem is that I cannot resist kittens.

It's my lot in life. I have always known, since my early twenties, that one of the very few reasons I was put on this planet was to raise and love cats -- to recognize the ones who needed love and needed to be taken care of, and love them and care for them for their entire lives. 

Over the course of the past two decades, I have laid claim to nine different cats. Three of them have since passed, and the remaining six are alive and well. 

Is the math not mathing there for you? Just...stick with me. 

Last night, before I started work, I pulled up the Humane Society website. This is something I do every evening as a habit; they update their adoptable pets pages every night around 7pm, roughly. Sometimes it's a little earlier, sometimes it's a little later. Even when we were full up on pets, when we had already gotten Gary and when Pete was still alive, I still liked to check the page out of habit. Volunteering there will do that to you, I guess; you will want to see what wonderful little babies they have up for adoption. 

Last night I opened the page and audibly gasped -- after days upon days of no kittens and only adult cats being offered, suddenly there were three full pages of adorable little kittens, each one more beautiful than the last. They came in all shapes and sizes, from shorthairs to longhairs, tuxedo cats and fluffy orange boys and girls to a litter of wolf-looking possible Maine Coon mixes. I was stunned; it's not that the Humane Society doesn't get gorgeous cats -- I mean, we adopted five different wonderful cats from them ourselves -- but they rarely get a lot of them at a time and even more rarely get a lot of them in the dead of winter, long after kitten season™ has ended. That's almost unheard of.

The last time I was stunned by kittens at this time of year was when Empress unexpectedly fell in our laps at the end of December in 2023. I had basically given up looking for my Empress and then magically a cat fitting my wants for her just appeared at the Humane Society. Daisy was first in line to snatch her up for us. 

This time around, I was overwhelmed looking at the site -- each and every kitten on it was adorable and precious and I could imagine them sitting next to me on the couch. I felt slightly guilty, because I did not really want another cat, and Pete's ashes had literally just been returned to us a week ago. They were sitting in his urn overseeing me in the room while I was ogling other cats. It seemed strange, like a betrayal, like I was looking for his replacement. 

But. 

I knew Daisy, if passively, wanted another cat. She wanted the final cat, the one to fully complete our household.

Now, mind you, I don't need any more cats. The remaining five -- the new generation after Pete, Sadie, and Maggie, are great. They are all wonderful little babies in their own ways and we got all of them for reasons. Hank was the only one we got on a real sort of whim, when we weren't exactly expecting to get a cat when we did. Empress was chosen because I'd been looking for Empress for some time, Daisy chose Mable because we'd just gotten news that Pete's kidneys were failing him and she never wanted to be without a black cat (plus, we thought she was really cute). Daisy really wanted Charlie as she loves flame points, and even though I wasn't immediately interested in him, I absolutely fell in love with that sweet boy upon meeting him, and Gary chose us -- he told me I was going to be his dad and he needed our help to nurse him to health.

We had a full, mostly harmonious household even after the golden oldies died. Mable and Emmy don't really get along, but they can avoid each other most of the time and be fine. Everyone else loves each other and all integrate into one big family unit. Pete was the patriarch of that family unit, and taught them all the ropes. They've all grown and matured into their personalities, and the household is pretty peaceful most of the time.

But there was still that pull. Whether we wanted to admit it or not, Pete left a very noticeable hole in us when he came to his end. It is not a hole that would necessarily be filled with another cat, but I told Daisy that once he was gone, she had free reign on that decision -- if she wanted another cat, it was her choice. I did not need to be involved, I did not need to help make decisions or give permission, it was not necessary that I was part of the equation. If she saw a cat she couldn't live without, it was her call and hers only, and she could name it whatever she wanted (within reason). 

Well, Daisy saw all the cats on the website too, and we oohed-and-aahed over all of them one by one. I don't know what it was, but something in me changed, something in me was like "okay, well, I guess I am ready and open to this again." I did not think this would happen, but as I have stated before on this site, I know who we are as people. 

Daisy wanted to go meet them. We have our volunteer badges; we can legit enter the building 24/7 at any time if we want to; we are not bound by any business hours since we work there. However, my sleep schedule is already a wreck, and I was working a full normal shift for the first time in a week, so even though it wasn't crazy busy, I can tell you that it was a very tiring experience to get back in the flow of things. I declined the offer to go look at the cats with her.

Partially, I didn't want to influence her were she to go look at all of the kittens. I want to stress that there were many different ones, all between 8 and 14 weeks, of many different colors and patterns. My own personal dream cats weren't part of that group, though -- I have wanted a ragdoll, a long-haired seal-point Himalayan/Siamese, or a giant long-haired fully red orange cat forever -- and those cats come up so rarely that I'll likely never see one. Besides, Gary is part ragdoll (and definitely looks it) and I already have an orange cat (Hank) and two long-haired girls (Emmy and Mable). So, I'm good, whatever she wanted to do was completely up to her. I know I would only add to any decision paralysis she already had were I to accompany her.

Plus...I was tired. The holidays had worn me out, and I knew I had to get back up a few hours after work to be over to the parents' for New Year's Eve dinner. The last thing I wanted to do was work a full eleven-hour shift, then get off work and get dressed and go across town to look at cats when I was burnt out and exhausted. What I want to do after working an eleven-hour shift is to take my pills, disrobe, and immediately go to bed -- and that's what I do every morning, incidentally. I get off work at 7 and usually by 7:20 or so, I am in bed next to Daisy. There's always going to be more cats. 

When I logged off on Wednesday morning and went upstairs, Daisy was already getting dressed. 

"Holy hell," I said. "You're actually going over there."

Never mind that while we have access, adoptions didn't open until the building opened, at noon, so she couldn't just bring one home, but she wanted to go in with nobody around and meet all the cats.

I was already undressed and in bed before she was out the door, but she had only slept a few hours out of anxiety and anticipation as well as the giant container of cold-brew coffee she'd made the previous day, so, Daisy's body was ready.

As I started to drift off to sleep, I began receiving numerous snapchats of Daisy interacting with all the cats there. The orange ones were beautiful but sort of shy (at least the one I thought was the prettiest), the black fluffy ones were spicy, and the calicos were very sweet and loving. The calicos -- one boy, one girl -- were isolated upstairs as both of them had just been diagnosed with worms and needed a full course of dewormer (this will take a few weeks usually), so Daisy was very careful with them. 

I briefly slept for a few minutes before Daisy was back in the house and had stripped the cat-clothes off her to come back to bed with me, where we discussed the cats she'd seen and the vibes she'd gotten from them. She really liked a few of them, especially the spicy black boys, but didn't know how well they'd interact with the rest of the house because of their spice levels.

For those of you who are confused with that description, "spicy" means that they growl, snap, hiss, or in general don't really want to interact much with humans or other cats. Some kittens are like this because they're still slightly feral, others are just really scared and stressed in a shelter environment. Others are spurred on by the sights and sounds of other cats around them hissing and growling and think they should join in. It's a really hard meter to gauge and not exactly accurate at all as to how a cat may act once at home in a quiet environment. Unfortunately, in a shelter, the spicy ones often get passed over, because people want to adopt friendly animals, generally. 

I personally have never shied away from a spicy cat because I know my capacity for patience and love when it comes to cats (read: far more than my compassion and love for other humans) and I know I would be able to calm and nurture the cat into relaxation and chill with some time and a little work -- and likely a lot of help from Daisy as a unified front. Maggie and Sadie were both spicy, feral barn cats, and while Sadie relaxed pretty quickly, it took Maggie a while to really trust and love humans. So, I know it's possible with a lot of love and patience. Most people don't want to put in that work, or it sounds daunting or impossible to them, so they don't bother to try adopting a spicy baby.

Anyway.

I told her my thoughts -- I was partial to the orange cats, one of whom was fluffy and beautiful but very shy, and the other who looked a bit like Charlie but had Emmy-like fur. Both were boys. I thought the spicy black longhairs were absolutely gorgeous, but I wouldn't pick them over the orange boys. I do have a thing for orange boys of course, given that Hank the Tank is a big orange man and is so very loved. The wormy cats were the ones Daisy liked the best and the boy of those two she had an absolute soul connection to, but with five other cats in the house it would have been an absolute nightmare to lock him in the bedroom and keep him not only isolated from the other cats for four weeks, but keep him in a cage isolated from us, as roundworm is transmissible and we would surely get it. I couldn't bear the thought of locking another cat in another cage in our bedroom, nor would we be able to actually bond with this cat via snuggles and cuddles to show him we were safe and okay and relax him.

"Four weeks versus his entire life with us though," Daisy said. 

"I know, but we couldn't let him sleep with us, he'd have to be in the cage, and that bonding period is the most calming, comforting period for them," I said. "It's what allows them to imprint on us and realize we are the mom and dad and only want to love them. Take that away and we could never expect that cat to be lovey or cuddly with us, maybe not for years or ever."

"What do you think?" she finally asked. 

"I think if you want to go back over there today once they're open, and if you come home with a cat, I will love it no matter which one you choose. And if you decide not to go back over, or go back over and don't return with one, I'm fine too. I like the orange ones and if you got another cat I'd be sad if it wasn't one of them, but I'm likely just feeling that way because I am absolutely exhausted right now and need to sleep."

During this conversation, our vet called with Gary's test results. He has no parasites, no abnormal tests, and the fecal sample looks great. He does, however, have a higher than usual white blood cell count, which our vet does not think is infection related (all other bloodwork and kidney/liver function/etc looked good) but he does think is a likely food allergy -- which is likely the culprit of why he is constipated on occasion and has diarrhea on others. He'd been mostly good, normal function, for probably six months or so before this started up again -- and I will say only two things have changed in that time: one, I ran out of the Iams food that they'd all been eating pretty consistently, and there is a different Iams food in the bowls now, and two, we started giving them the Hill's Science Diet sensitive stomach food because we thought it would help Mable/Pete and yes, Gary too. He loves that food and eats a lot of it, but it is very possible there's something in it he has a food allergy to. 

Also, it could be environmental allergies presenting in different ways -- we did just have to start running the furnace again for the fall/winter and he could be allergic to dust, dust mites, etc etc. It's a rarity that would cause stomach/constipation issues but the vet absolutely couldn't rule it out, so it remains a possibility. If that's what it is, we also can't really remedy that. We have carpets throughout the entire house save for the bathrooms, dining room, and kitchen. So...yeah. 

I will also note that Hank had some sort of food allergies when he was a kitten that he eventually completely grew out of, and that could be the case with Gary too -- he may eventually grow out of it. He's still young. 

Anyway.

Shortly after the conversation with the vet ended, I fell asleep; Charlie was cuddled up with us and the last thing I remember was Daisy on her phone next to me in bed as I drifted into unconsciousness.

I awoke about two hours later to the sound of two things -- Daisy coming up the stairs and into the room and a kitten crying, absolutely losing its shit inside the box she was carrying with her.

"You got one?" I said weakly as I got up to pee. I'd drank most of a 19.2oz tallboy can of Liquid Death a couple of hours before I'd gone to bed, and finished it off to take my morning pills -- and it wanted back out. Fiercely.

"Yes," Daisy said. "Dolly."

"Dolly, okay," I mumbled as I stumbled to the bathroom. The cat in the box cried hysterically.

Dolly, I said in my head. Dolly. Dolly. Furniture Dolly. Girl. She got a girl cat. I didn't think she'd get a girl cat. Maybe it's a boy, maybe she spelled it "Dali" like Salvador Dali. Why would she name it Dolly, of all things? Dolly. Dolly. Babydoll. Baby Dolly. Dolly Pocket. Dolly Parton. Dolly. Trolley. Charlie. Cholley. Cholley and Dolly. Cholley and Dolly on a Trolley. 

These are the thoughts of a man with a slight dusting of autism while peeing, after a few very short hours of sleep. 

When I came out of the bathroom, she was holding a little, tiny fluffball of a black kitten with tiny wide eyes. 

"Can we go in your office?" she asked. "Charlie and Gary are under the bed and I can't let her down."

"So you got the girl," I said as I put on my bathrobe in the harsh sunlight of my office. "There were all the boys and you wanted the girl?"

Daisy explained that she was the one who told her she needed to come home with her, even though the boys were there. Even though the worm kittens were there (which I didn't expect her to adopt either of anyway). She went into detail about meeting all of the kittens in Dolly's litter, but the boys were still spicy and this little fuzzy girl warmed up to her quickly and kept trying to get her attention and love, as if to tell her "hey, I want to go home with you, I like you."

She was Daisy's Gary, I thought.

"So she was your Gary," I said. 

From the moment I picked up Gary and he melted into my arms and purred, he looked up at me and told me psychically that I was going to be his dad, and from that moment forward there was no way I was leaving him at the shelter. I'd wanted him before that, and according to Daisy we'd already put the hold on him at that point (a fact that I sometimes dispute as I don't really remember that), but it was that moment where I knew, where I knew for certain I couldn't live without him. 

That moment is special. It is a moment that I hope every cat parent experiences upon meeting their baby, the one for them. 

"She was spicy but turned very quickly into a sweet girl that wanted to be held and loved," Daisy said. 

And I looked at this little girl Daisy was holding and my heart melted. She looked a lot like Mable -- tiny, with little wide eyes and a little fear from being in a new place, but absolutely adorable and precious, and so tiny. She handed her to me and I couldn't believe how light she was.

Not the best picture, of course, but at least it shows her off and shows how much weight I've lost, so there's that. 

She purred hard and relaxed in my arms. What a little cutie.

"Why Dolly?" I asked.

"...it was on your list of approved names," Daisy said.

Ah. The list.

I told Daisy that she could name her new cat, if she got one, whatever she wanted -- within reason. I say that because we have cats named Gary (after her father) and Mable (a generic grandma's name from the early 1900s, or something you would name a cow and not a cat) and while I am fine with those names now, those were absolutely Daisy choices that I never would have picked for cats.

This is my side of the conversation, of course. She wanted names like Ursa and Yogi. 

Like...seriously? She said the black cats looked like bears, so she wanted something bearlike.

I mean, I get it, but I don't want to call a cat Yogi or Ursa for the next fifteen years. And, at the time, she was (and I was) expecting her to bring home another boy. Not a girl.

I mean, I wanted to name Hank "Waffles" or "Poutine" so...I can't say a lot.

But, Dolly was on the list for female names.

"You chose Dolly over Polly or Molly?" I asked. "Or Holly?"

"You have a cousin named Molly," Daisy said. "And I don't like Polly."

"Polly is a bird's name," Mama would tell me later in the evening.

I do have a cousin named Molly. 

I don't know anyone named Dolly.

I used to know a couple of Hollys back in the day, but it's been many years.

"People are going to ask if we're Dolly Parton fans," Daisy said.

"Tell them we're fans of cloned sheep," I replied.

Anyway.

Meet Dolly Anne, our youngest fluffball, born on Halloween. Confirmed born on Halloween, per her paperwork. 

She is the sweetest little girl and so far the cuddliest, most lovey little kitten we've brought into the house. I thought Gary and Charlie were cuddly -- oh no, not in comparison to this little smokey gray-and-black fluffball who sleeps in the crooks of our necks, on top of our heads, or nuzzled deep into our chest/underarms/shoulders. 

She is loud and very vocal -- much like Mable was -- she does not like to be left alone and howls/screams. 

"Did you know she did that?" I asked with a smirk. I asked the same question when Daisy brought home Mable. 

We are, of course, keeping her sequestered in the bedroom until her first vet appointment for a clean bill of health, per normal protocols. We have cat-proofed the room as much as possible, but she's so small and not exactly exploratory that we didn't have to do much to prep it. 

She really resembles Mable, a lot, but far fluffier and with far more gray and brown in her fur. I think when grown, she is going to look a lot like Mable and it may be difficult to tell them apart.

"So," I told Daisy, "I have now learned that when you go adopt a cat by yourself, you bring home little screamy black ones with fluffy fur. And girls."

She loves attention but has no real interest in toys. She is so small and doesn't know how to get up and down on and off the bed by herself yet. She has not tried to climb the bedroom cat tree, though she has shown interest in the scratcher attached to it, the play tunnel, and the cardboard house we got the other cats for Christmas a few weeks ago. She does know how to climb and climb over the baby gate, though, so we have to keep an eye on her.

After she got settled in, as yesterday was the last day of the year, Daisy had to use the last of our FSA funds or they would expire. Well, for months she has said how she wanted the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and had been on a quest -- a hunt, really -- for a place where she could use her insurance and the rest of the FSA left before it expired to get a pair of them. She was willing to get either the series one or the newer, longer-battery-life series two (or whatever they're called) simply because they'll be used to record cat videos and cat content, and perhaps maybe if Daisy can record enough of that and get enough followers and sponsorships, maybe -- just maybe -- we can quit our jobs and live off these cats. 

A married couple that no longer wants to work can dream, right?

Anyway, Daisy left the house in the early afternoon to go to Walmart, who had confirmed they'd take her insurance as well as the FSA for the glasses. Our normal vision providers, Pearle Vision, would not take the insurance for it -- citing that to get the lenses in they have to heat up the frames which would destroy the electronics inside.

Uh...okay. None of that makes sense (otherwise the glasses wouldn't exist), but whatever, if you don't cover it for insurance and FSA purposes we're not going to fight it. Life's too short. Walmart covers it and has no problem taking our money instead. So, kindly piss off until we have to renew our prescriptions again next year.

While she was gone, I got up for the day and took a shower. Dolly cried for about ten minutes, consistently, until she finally settled. I got out of the shower to find three very concerned cats staring at the closed bedroom door -- Charlie, Gary, and Mable. 

When I went in there, she came running to me and was like "you love me! you came back!" and I spent a lot of quality bonding time with her on the bed, where I found that her favorite game is to kamikaze leap off the side of the bed to the floor and then cry at me so I reach down, pick her up and put her back on the bed, only to be hyper and make the run and jump off again....over and over and over. 

This cat definitely has personality, that's for sure. 

Tomorrow, Daisy returns to work -- however, as soon as our vet's office opens in the morning she's going to call over there to see if we can get an appointment for Dolly before noon for the normal checkup/checkout first appointment (which is free, by the way). If we can get her a clean bill of health with a stool sample checked and processed, etc, we may be able to let her join the household this weekend instead of sometime next week. All of that remains up in the air, though.

So, there's our story. The first post of the new year and it's about...a cat. Who would've guessed, right?