Obie the Kitten

I know there are factions in the world: classic Star Trek versus the Next Generation, fluffers versus the nutters, cat people and dog people. I suppose we fall into the warm-animal-on-lap-during-winter category.

Thus comes Obie the Kitten into our lives. The girls had spent the past couple of month bugging us for a kitten, and we finally relented (after diligently assigning all pet clean up and feeding responsibilities to the kids and giving the mandatory "the cat isn't a toy" lecture). We headed to the animal shelter to see if any of the kittens there would be receptive to a mess of kid-powered over-attention.

The first time we looked around the shelter, we weren't sure which kitten to adopt. That's until we came across Obie, who purred and curled and did all the cute kitten things that make for great, shlocky calendars. Obie had been scheduled for . . . well, a long nap, but someone had lost the papers, so we snatched him for ourselves.

(The shelter was a pleasant enough place, but when we were leaving the shelter, Alex decided to look at some dogs and followed the sidewalk between two rows of outdoor cages. After an eruption of barking and growling, Alex rushed back, his face pale. I looked at the sign hanging by the first row of dogs: Pit Bull Bite Evaluation. Yikes! Amarillo's had a rash of pit bull attacks recently; I guess this is where all those mean, nasty, and vicious dogs go.)

After the adoption Process, which demands shots and a certain type of surgery, we brought the kitten home and then sat around the table concocting names. Colleen wanted to call him Duma (which, unfortunately, was the name of a cheetah in a Disney movie and was too uncomfortably close to the name Dumas, a town north of here that I have visited once and accidentally had calf fries for lunch. Here is the article at Wikipedia about calf fries. Read at your own risk). Alex wanted to call him Jungle Cat. Megan voted for Kipper, and Suzanne wanted to the The Edge, but I think she was trying to squeeze a reaction out of me. Either that or she wanted to ask the kids one day, "Has anyone cleaned out The Edge's litterbox?"

I suggested Obie, and, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't because of Obi Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. Our new kitten has three white little booty feet and one one long white splotch on this rear leg. I pointed out that he looked like he had a boot on his leg, so we should call O.B. for One Boot.

And that's what we ended up with, although the most of the time the kids prefer the variant "Obers." (One time Alex actually called the kitten "Obi Wan," which, contradicting my earlier claims of Star Wars-free influence, made me secretly cheer him on.)

Obie Fact of the Day: he has a deep distrust of the white king's rook and its pawn on our chessboard. For some reason, possibly only understood by felines, he jumps up on the game table, somehow grabs the rook and pawn, and hides them behind a flower pot. I fear that if I accidentally try to castle on the king's side during a game of chess, Obie might inexplicably fall into a catatonic state.

Comments

[Suzanne]

This kitten is amazing in how much he loves kids. He lets them carry him everywhere. He sleeps with them. And his favorite part of the day is when they're home from school. In fact, we had several of Alex's school friends over last Friday, and one brought along their one year old sister. That toddler followed Obie everywhere shrieking Kiddee Kah and patting him non-too-gently. Obie gamely put up with it, until I couldn't take it anymore and put him away. And the next day when more kids came over, he wanted to be in the middle of the action.

There's something about animal shelter cats!

[Karen (sister-in-law)]

Oops, this is where I should have made my comment ... They are called fluffer-nutter sandwiches.

[PMC]

No picture of the new addition?