We have a kitten!

We got it because the other cat, Neo, is the stupidest, fattest cat you've ever seen and Silvia wanted another animal so he'd have someone to play with during the day. Ever since I came home from Ireland in mid-May he took over my suitcase as a bed and hardly gets up all day long. Really, it's kind of strange how attached to the thing he is.

Silvia, who would live out the rest of her life collecting unimployment, watching daytime gossip shows, and never leaving an apartment filled with cats and junk food if she could, absolutely loves animals. Loves 'em. I have seen her pick up a stray cat on the street and hug it and tell it how much she loves it while the beast wriggles and squrms to get away from her and she's got the biggist childish grin on her face that you've ever seen on a 30-year-old woman.

So weeks ago Silvia started saying that she wanted another cat. Neo was lazy and never got up from the suitcase. He's fat and is only getting fatter. She loves animals, she wanted a kitten. I argued, but then finally conceded to letting her volunteer our house as a foster home for ferril kittens until someone wanted to adopt them. When they didn't call her right away with an orphan, she was frustrated. Then she started talking about getting a kitten of her own. Friday was her birthday, so a long time before I decided to give her a kitten for her birthday. But I couldn't hide a kitten in the house, so I bought a can of baby cat food to give to her.

Then comes Thursday, the day before her birthday and I get a call from Silvia: "I was looking lon loquo.com (like the craigslist for Barcelona) and I found a girl who's giving a cat up for adoption and we're getting together this afternoon and I've already taken the whole day off tomorrow to be with the kitten!" Shit! There goes my whole surprise, I thought. I wanted to see the look on her face when I gave her a kitten. "You can't have a kitten!" I said. "I don't want a kitten. Neo will shit a brick. This isn't the sort of thing that you just decide and then do it one day! We're going away this weekend, wait till Monday." "Oh, but I want one!" she said. "No," I said, and hung up because I didn't know what else to say. Then I sent her a message, "If I come home today and you've got a big smile on your face and a ball of fur in your hand I'm going to kill you". She called me again, "Come on, I get so excited about so few things, and I'm excited about this." No. "You're just like my mother." No, you can't just make a decision like this! "You're fucking up my excitement!"

Finally, when I got home at 6:30 I went into the bathroom where I'd hidden the cat food. It wasn't wrapped yet, so I draped it in a towel. "This should teach you to get yourself what you've been asking for for moths the day before your birthday," I said, handing her the towel. Her face lit up and she gingerly took the towel. She carefully pulled away the towel and found a can of cat food, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" But then she got it, we went across town, got the cat from the shelter and brought her home. The other cat was pissed and the rest is history.

Anyway, we have a new cat and this time it was up to me to pick the name. I took one look and decided her name was Natasha. Not so much AFTER Natascha Badmann, but because Natascha reminds me how much I like that name. We're going away for a day this weekend and I told Silvia that if we come home and find a cat missing an eye, it's her job to clean the eye up off the floor.


Speaking of going away for the weekend, my next post will be more relevant. BIG biking weekend was had today.