B is for Bug {Another Alphabet style update!}

I'm back again with another update!  Did you see the A update?  A is for Academics.

I'm wanting to get caught up to fully participate in the newest round of Blogging Through The Alphabet which is now hosted by the lovely Amanda at Hopkins Homeschool and Kirsten from Doodlemom.

This part of my "Update Alphabet Style"  series of posts since I did not have a blog posts for a very long time!

B is for Bug!

No not an insect.  Bug is a young, adorable, black, domestic short hair cat that we adopted Mother's Day weekend.  She was Honeybear's gift to me for Mother's Day.


During Holy Week, our beloved George the Cat got very sick.  His bladder was blocked and he spent the night in the vet hospital.  We brought him home on Tuesday evening and the vet was hopeful that he would recover, but over the next few days he began to decline.  On Holy Friday we made the difficult decision that it was time to say good bye.

His bladder was blocked again for the  second time in 5 days.  It was absolutely horrible to have to tell the techs that we needed to talk about our options.  I knew what our options were:  1)put him through a painful procedure to empty his bladder and have to keep doing this to him  or 2) let him go.   When we talked to the vet and as soon as we said "this is the second time he has been blocked in 5 days and his lab came back and he has no crystals in his urine" it became very clear that option 2 was the best choice. 

I cried more than I thought possible.  I missed him more than I thought a person could ever miss a cat.  He was part of our family.  We'd adopted him (and his littermate Lacey who we had to let go of two years ago) when he was a kitten.  He was 16 when said goodbye.

Most of my family wanted to adopt another cat right away.  I wasn't ready though. I needed more time.  He was my baby.  For weeks I would walk past a room and think I saw him and then I'd miss him all over again.           

Honeybear mentioned going to the shelter to look at cats for Mother's Day.  He brought this up about 10 days before and I wasn't sure if I was ready.  I kept telling the family that I wasn't sure we would come home with a cat.  I wanted to make sure it was the right cat.  We filled printed out the application form and we had to go on Saturday since the shelter is closed on Sundays.

We walked in and looked around. I wanted a younger cat.  Not necessarily a kitten but under 2 years old.

 One of the volunteers pointed out Bug.  She was hiding under her blanket but when my husband started talking to her she came out.  She stretched and she  responded by "making biscuits."  She also growled but we were told that she would growl instead of purr.  When asked if would like to visit with her we said yes.

 I wasn't sure she was the right cat.  She was black!  I didn't necessarily want another tabby but I wasn't sure I wanted a black cat.  And she was skittish.  And shy.

In the visitation room she didn't want to come out of the carrier.  She huddled in the back as far from the door as she could get.  BUT, she let us put our hand in and pet her.  And eventually she moved closer to the door.

We spent a good chunk of time talking to her and petting her even though she never came out of the carrier.  When she purred for me as I pet her, I knew.

We wanted to be absolutely sure that we were not just bringing home a cat to bring home a cat.  So we told them that we thought we wanted her but we wanted to look a bit more just to be sure.  They kept her in a carrier rather than put her back in the kennel.  Less traumatic for her.

We looked at the kennels of a few others.  There was another black kitty, male who was a couple of months younger than Bug but he wouldn't come out of hiding for us the way Bug did.  NONE of the other cats connected with us the way Bug did.  Yep she was the one.

We think she may be part Siamese.  Her meow sounds very loud and Bug is very talkative.  She's also very smart and plays "fetch" or reverse fetch as we call it.  I am told these are Siamese traits.

She's also polydactyl.  Not just her front paws either but her back ones too!  Typically cats have 18 toes.  They have 5 on each of the front paws and 4 on each of the back paws.  Bug has at least 22 toes but we suspect that she may actually have 23 or 24!  She is so adorable with her mittens.

She's certainly made herself at home and we all have fallen madly in love with her.  She's been part of our family now for 2 months and 10 days.  We're still getting to know her and she's still getting to know us.

We know she likes to climb so we got her a three tier "tree" and we got her a short one too.  She likes to hang out with us in the family room and often uses the 'tree' as a base for her favorite game of "make the human fetch the toy."  The shorter one is in front of my bedroom window and she loves to curl up there and take a nap.

She has worked her way into our hearts and I think we've worked our way into hers!