It's only fitting that just as I was about to write her very first blog entry, Isabella decided to walk across the keyboard and entered the title above.
This is our new kitty, Isabella. She joined our family on Saturday, July 23, 2005; we had to drive to a place called Woodstock, Va., to get her. We wanted a siamese-looking kitten and didn't want to pay a breeder when there are so many rescued stray cats who need homes, and as luck would have it, a
woman who takes in cats and kittens way out in Virginia (roughly two hours' drive each way) posted to craigslist about the kittens she had available. One was a siamese girl, so we contacted her and soon enough were making arrangements to pick up the kitten. She cost us a whopping $25. My experience with cats who carry similarly low price tags has been very, very good.
We have been at a loss as to what to name her; we were going with a Roosevelt family theme for our pets since we had a cat named Eleanor, who everyone thought was named after Eleanor Roosevelt. So when we got a second cat, we named him Frankie. And when we got a dog, we named her Edie, short for Edith, the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt.
As it turns out, there are no other female Roosevelt family names that even remotely appeal to us for a kitten. So we had to break the habit -- which is sort of fitting, since Eleanor passed away last month, and it's as fine a time as any to break the tradition.
We didn't know what to do, and went through a thousand ideas, and nothing felt just right until we stumbled upon Isabella. So here we are. And (see above) here she is, in a picture taken last night while she was playing with her current favorite toy, a ribbon that was wrapped around a baby blanket we bought for her.
When we first met Isabella, she was pretty sedate and very quiet. I was a little worried that she didn't have much personality, in part because there was another little kitten available who was oozing personality and character and Isabella looked so quiet and shy in comparison. She stayed quiet through the whole drive back, sitting on my lap, mostly sleeping, not purring and not meowing. (Everyone knows siamese cats meow a lot, so this seemed a little weird.) When we put her in her crate at one point, she cried a bit. And just as we pulled up to our house, she was lying on my lap and suddenly started purring loudly.
She seemed at home right away, and her personality immediately came out. She alternates between sweet/docile and spunky/mischievous. She loves playing with the ribbon in the picture above, with the little green mousie the rescue lady sent with us, with the shredded paper that came in a box with some birthday presents I got today (thanks, Lyn!), and with anything else that catches her attention at the right second.
She likes to walk across or sit on the laptop keyboard when I'm using the computer, as seen in this entry's title. She likes to cuddle at night and slept with my arm wrapped around her for her first night here. She isn't sure how she feels about our 7-year-old cat Frankie or our cocker spaniel Edie yet, but I have high hopes for everyone getting along just great. Frankie is unsure of what he thinks but he'll be fine; Edie keeps wagging her tail when she sees Isabella and really wants to spend more time with her. For the next few days, we have to keep the kitten quarantined until we make sure she's not carrying any viruses that could hurt Frankie, but she seems to appreciate not being thrown into the larger household right away -- as long as we're hanging out in her room with her.
She is amazingly tiny. She reminds me of Eleanor as a baby sometimes, and other times she does not. She makes us laugh and makes me cry (just once so far -- I was dumb enough to be holding her near my face when Edie was nearby, and now I have scratches on my nose and face to show for it). And she keeps us on our toes, even though she's confined to one room. A little bit ago I heard her crying under the bed and when I went to look for her, I couldn't find her. I realized she had crawled up into the box spring through a tear in the fabric on the bottom of it, and was walking around inside there and didn't know how to get out. That was a little bit harrowing for both of us for a few minutes, but I also laughed (nervously) through it.
She is definitely a character, and we're already so happy to have her in our lives.
