Kitty Time! Meet Sakura no Hana

Things have been rather eventful round the Hunter household. I’ve been interviewing all week for a job at a company one of my hardest-to-please friends utterly adores working for. Turns out they’re considering me for at least two positions, so now it’s just a matter of which department makes the better offer. It’ll be tough for a while: it’s full time, and it’s in Redmond, which is a hell of a commute from here. But B and I can move closer after we’ve both been employed for a couple of months, so that’s not a long-term problem.

Seeing as how I look to be getting back into the handsomely compensated portion of the workforce, and considering C has been so inconsiderate as to have her kitties move in with her instead of letting them stay with us,* and furthermore taking into account the fact that everyone in the household was suffering from a distinct lack of feline companionship due to the fact Misha only hangs out with me, I decided we were going to get another cat soon. So B and I headed out on Thursday to have a preliminary look at adoptable kitties.

We didn’t expect to find someone right away, and the first place we went to didn’t seem to want to actually adopt out any of their cats anyway. They actually told us they wouldn’t usually allow anyone to adopt who already had an elderly cat. They didn’t even entertain the idea that perhaps the pet owners had a living situation where the elderly felid wouldn’t have to put up with an annoying young ‘un. They didn’t ask questions about what we were looking for or why. They didn’t even want to show us any kitties. We basically had to show ourselves. But there were some sweet felines there, and also the world’s most sociable prairie dog, so that wasn’t a complete wash.

We headed over to PetSmart, where there were only a few adoptable cats. There was a Himalayan named Raja, who wasn’t at all interested in being a multiple person cat and utterly would not tolerate any household where she’s not the sole diva, so she was right out – we want to foster someday. Kale was a darling tabby who was far too energetic and probably needs a house full of kids to help her burn through her energy. David was a shy black kitty who was rumored to take lots of time to warm up to people, but he came to me the second they opened his cage, and he nearly came home with us. But then there was Cherry Blossom.

She’s a year-old Siamese mix, and she had a quiet grace to her that was utterly charming. When we poked fingers through the cage, she gave a leisurely stretch and then came over to accept all the loving she knew she deserved. She didn’t have to say a word to win us over. And her obvious love of any and all people was remarkable, considering her rough start in life. She was picked up off the streets with an embedded collar, yet still trusts every human she meets (as long as they’re not too loud).

We put in an application, but there were people ahead of us, so we figured we wouldn’t get her. But we took Merideth over to visit the kitties later that evening, and by then I was really thinking it would be awesome if we got lucky. The clerk who helped us watched us interact with the cats, and decided we were far better pet parents than the group who was first in line. Apparently, they’d come back saying they’d been approved by the Human Society when they actually hadn’t been, so she was already thinking they weren’t a good choice. She bumped us up in priority, got us in touch with the Humane Society, and set the ball rolling. Still. There was a line for this cat by then, and I didn’t think we’d get her.

We had the phone interview the next day to see if we could get approved, and passed, and my jaw dropped when they told me we could go pick up our kitty. We’d gotten her!

So I brought her home, and she spent the first few hours under the bookcase before moving on to the plants, and from there, she bonded with B while I napped. When I came out, she’d already made friends with all the quieter people in the household. Later that night, she ventured in to our room and survived seeing Misha for the first time. And by the next day, she was even enjoying time with S, despite the fact he makes more noise than most of us.

We renamed her Sakura no Hana, Japanese for Cherry Blossom, and she’s already starting to answer to it.

Misha seems remarkably chill about the whole thing. I think it’s because Sakura is terrified of her. She just sits on B’s bed and stares and growls. She’s ventured over to sniff Misha’s tail a few times when Misha’s down getting a drink, and incredibly, Misha allows this to go on until Sakura gets too close to her butt. Then all she gives a little hiss and growl until Sakura runs away. Keep in mind, this is a cat who is generally a murder machine the instant a cat gets within her line of sight. I think once Sakura gets done being terrified and starts to just hang out, Misha won’t even care she’s in there so long as her bed remains hers alone.

So we are now the happy owners of a very gregarious cat, who is now settled in to the point where she keeps up a regular stream of commentary (she definitely has that Siamese tendency to talk!). Meet Sakura no Hana, our new baby girl.

Image shows me standing with a seal-point Siamese cat in my arms. She has a white strip up her nose and is staring curiously at the camera. There is a rack of plants behind us.

 

*Yes, my tongue is jammed in my cheek right there. I’m glad she was able to find a living situation where she could bring her kiddos to be with her. But I’ll miss those two. They were great cats.

You might notice the featured image for this post is actually Misha. Photo uploads aren’t working for ETEV right now and you can’t use a link from Flickr, sooooo. Have some Misha, who is making herself a bed on some LED orchids.

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Kitty Time! Meet Sakura no Hana
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