And she is quite adorable. I have her fenced off from the rest of the brutes in the spare bedroom, and she has already used the litter box, jumped up on my lap and rubbed all over me. This is a very affectionate cat. Also, I did not know this because the previous photos were so blurry, but the new addition is also… DRUM ROLL PLEASE… A KITLER:
She jumped up on my lap for a solid half hour, then I went outside and I saw Tunch lying all over the living room floor, and I’m having a hard time believing these are the same breeds.
Napoleon
My God, someone is strangling that kitty!
schrodinger's cat
Did Tunch hiss? What was his reaction?
kc
Awww! What a sweet face!
Poopyman
That’s not a Hitler ‘stache, that’s a booger. Which is also an appropriate name for a West Virginia cat.
aimai
Keep us posted. Train her to blink in morse code on camera if things get dicey with Tunch.
shortstop
Godwin! Call her Godwin!
scav
Now things get interesting.
ranchandsyrup
Congrats Cole. Gotta love the magical first day. Enjoy.
Anne Laurie
@Poopyman: Tunch is gonna call her a brown-noser, what with her sucking up to The Man an’ all.
Poopyman
And can you ever take a picture in focus? Honest to Dog, do we have to send TimF for a photo shoot?
PurpleGirl
She doesn’t have a black patch under or around her nose… therefore she’s not a kitler. Besides, I think that is a horrible comparison. Oy!
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: Genius!
Oh, and awwww!
Schlemizel
hope they all get along well. We have tried introducing new kittehs & never had any luck – they always hated each other. Makes me sad.
Had a brother and sister once & the 3 of us loved to snuggle up & nap on the sofa Saturday afternoons. But those were the only 2.
khead
Lap time on day one? Very affectionate. Congrats.
Yutsano
KITTEH!!
I bet everything will work out fine. It will have to now: you have her scent all over you. Tunch will know you’re cheating on him.
Poopyman
@Yutsano: Already does. Hope his lying all over the LR is not moping.
Don’t forget to give the boy a lot of attention too over the next couple of weeks, JC.
jl
Congrats. Looks like a cute lovable cat. Good luck with the introductions later on.
Will be interesting to see Tunch’s reaction, which I guess will be either complete disregard of new cat’s existence, or feline pissiness (oh wait, unless the new one interferes with Tunch’s food, surely the former).
Or… scary thought… Tunch will mold the new kitty into his his own image, continuing the grand tradition of Saturnine TunchThought in the Cole household.
Bulworth
Happy new cat day!
Glad she’s in her forever home.
Trollhattan
@shortstop:
Yup, gotta go Godwin on this. How about Godwinnie?
Patricia Kayden
Why the old timers got to be brutes?
Cris (without an H)
I’m looking forward to the photos of Tunch and Marlena curled up together, once Tunch gets over his butthurt. I’m guessing November or so.
cbear
Jeebus Wept, Cole—get your ham-hand from around the cat’s neck so we can get a look at her.
It looks like she’s got one blue eye and one yellow/green eye. Really neat looking.
Best of luck, JC.
Trollhattan
@Trollhattan:
Also, too, Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) is freaking 38! WTF, how long have I been comatose?
Devon
Name suggestions:
Monroe- (for Marilyn and her beauty mark)
Stella (I like the beer)
McGill- in honor of Sid V.
Mata
Greta
Kalmia or Laurel (names for the the state flower of CT where she came from)
Aster
Juniper
Mnemosyne
Awww, pretty girl! She obviously knows a sucker when she sees one.
And, yes, the next thing you should do when you leave the room is go sit next to Tunch while you still stink of New Cat and make a big fuss over him so he can associate “new cat smell” and “good attention from the human.” A treat probably would not come amiss, either.
Oh, and if you want a way for them to play together (or at least at the same time), you will want one of these. Again, having them play at the same time can go a long way towards setting up good associations about each other between the two of them.
BGinCHI
I’m pretty sure that’s a wolverine.
dance around in your bones
That kitteh is adorable. I think I will sneak to W ‘byGawd!’ VA and steal her.
Everybody says my iPhone pictures are blurry, too, so don’t feel bad. I blame it on the camera.
Much luck on the cat/dog/family integration!
ETA: I also agree that’s no kitler. Booger be her name from henceforth.
Felinious Wench
Marlena Godwin Cole
Chat Noir
Happy new cat day. Look forward to the pics and stories of how the critters deal with each other.
gogol's wife
She’s so sweet. I know some people here have had a terrible time introducing new cats, but I have to say that it’s never really been a problem for me, over the course of 28 years and eight cats (with at one point five living together, all unrelated and introduced one at a time). I hope it works well for you. Cats are very social, so I hope it improves Tunch’s quality of life rather than upsetting him.
kdaug
I probably don’t want to know vat sveet nootings you were saying when you took this picture.
Poopyman
@Felinious Wench: “Booger Cole” has more of a WBG Va. ring to it.
jl
All Cole needs now is a worm farm, and his household will be animal-complete.
Anyone have Cole’s address? I volunteer to help out on that.
WereBear
She sounds every bit as delightful as advertised!
Tony Alva
Outstanding Mr. Cole! Welcome aboard New Kitteh!
jl
@gogol’s wife:
” Tunch’s quality of life ”
My impression has been that Tunch makes his own damn quality of life (thank you very much). As long as that big slightly dim cat shells out the food on time.
bemused
She just came into a new place and sat in a new human’s lap for a half hour? No trepidation about the move at all? That’s truly amazing. She is either one of the mellowest kitties ever or she is training you into submission from the get go.
JPL
How sweet! Just make sure when the cat gets loose, you feel comfortable running up and down the street yelling kitler!
seaboogie
Your new little girl has exactly the same face as my Zoe, although she is a short-hair Tux. Zoe also started with that same dot on her nose, and now – at the age of 17 – her nose is almost entirely black. Good luck to you and your menagerie!
Maude
Maybe the next Cole cat can be called Tam.
What a darling cat.
ruemara
She’s no kitler. She’s a Smudge.
JenJen
Really happy for you, Cole! Hope the introduction to your Animal Family goes smoothly and doesn’t take too long. It can be a trying experience at first!
Ash Can
KITTY!!
R-Jud
Gah, all these new pets. The Bean is agitating for a dog as a fourth birthday present, because a) her buddy’s family just adopted one, and b) she has just made the birthdays-presents connection.
We’re practicing selective hearing.
wesindc
@jl:
That was my exact thought when JC first posted about the new (adorable) Kitteh. They will collaborate and cause the apocalypse.
Yutsano
@R-Jud: You do realise the next step in this phase is, “But it followed me home! Can we keep it?” :)
Steeplejack
That’s not a kitler, that’s a melanoma!
22over7
She sat on your lap for a half-hour. Oh, this kitteh is a little lover and is in need of so much attention.
Lucky, lucky Cole. Hope the piglets get over it soon and we see lots of pics.
Also, I think you’re going to need a bigger bed (said in my best Roy Scheider voice).
Maude
@Steeplejack:
She looks like she’s part Angora.
red dog
Booger Cole, what a handle. John may take it for himself
R-Jud
@Yutsano: What she’s actually doing is pretty wild. She is setting aside portions of her meat at dinner– this child LOVES meat– “for the dog”. She tells the cats when they are charging about the house during their daily hour of wacky that “The doggy goin’ get you.”
She has never attempted to draw a picture or write a word in her tiny life until last week, when she drew a series of wobbly circles and zig-zags and explained “It’s a dog picture, see? It’s MY dog.”
Yutsano
@R-Jud: Oh yeah. Yer doomed. Might as well start scouring shelters now.
Genine
I don’t see this sweet thing as competition for Tunch. Cole and Tunch have a bromance of the ages.
Karen in GA (who really needs a better name)
Phoebe, my black and white long haired kitty did the same thing when I brought her home. I took her straight into my bedroom to keep her from my other cat, and opened the carrier door, thinking she’d come out when she was ready. She immediately walked out of the carrier and straight over to me, demanding to be petted. She happily explored the bedroom, kneaded me and everything else she could get her paws on, purred hysterically, and basically moved right in.
I left the room for a few minutes, came back, and she was gone. I found her cowering against the wall under the bed. Once she saw me, she came out, and went right back to exploring and purring.
She more or less gets along with my other cat, by the way — I kept them separate for a few days, and I moved Smudge’s food and water dishes near the bedroom door so Smudge would get used to Phoebe’s scent. After a couple of days I started letting Phoebe out — first for a few minutes, then for half an hour, then an hour, etc. Smudge never attacked her, but she hated Phoebe.
After about a week I just said fuck it and left the bedroom door open. I think that was when Smudge realized that Phoebe wasn’t going anywhere, and she calmed down. They’re not buddies, but they peacefully coexist. .
JWL
When I was 10-11 years old, a neighbor asked me to take a look around the corner to confirm her tom-cat was dead. Someone had spotted Muffin sprawled out dead as a doornail, and she couldn’t bear to ID his corpse. I readily agreed to take a look-see.
It was Muffin, but don’t let the name fool you. Muffin was a bad-ass Tom, although always friendly with the neighborhood kids. And there he was, sprawled out cold on a suburban green lawn. I felt bad.
Three or four days later, Muffin came limping home, chewed up all to hell, with claw and bite marks all over him. He didn’t last too much longer, just weeks. He had been killed, after all, but had killed first, if only to linger a while longer.
The moral being cats oftentimes play for keeps.
PurpleGirl
Has Tunch been climbing on the tower at all?
Will you be setting up a video cam to some action film of the new kitteh?
asiangrrlMN
WHY U HATE TUNCHIE, BRO?!?
I skip reading for a few days, and you adopt a new cat on me?!?
Seriously, though, Marlena is a cutie, and I hope she’s happy as a clam (why the hell are clams so happy) in Casa Cole.
Maude
@asiangrrlMN:
Clams are so happy because they missed the dig.
asiangrrlMN
@Maude: Hm. That makes sense. Your argument is valid.
::bangs gavel::
@Yutsano: YOU. Why you no tell me about new kitteh?
@R-Jud: We demand pics of your new dog as soon as you get him/her!
NCSteve
Look out. Just look out. No one really wants to admit it, but human-cat bonding if far more gender dependent than human-dog bonding. Cats are just pals with humans of the same gender. The bond is waaaaay more, um, something you don’t want to scrutinize too closely, when it goes the other way.
Which is why even a cat guy is a hell of a lot more likely to have trouble with the significant other’s pet if starts dating a girl who has a male cat. (Though god knows it’s only a generalization–my Three Weird Sisters have no trouble with women. They know a cat hater when they meet one, but, aside from that, hands are hands and the more there are in the house, the more petting can get done, that’s their motto.)
Libby
She looks like a sweetie all right. Since she doesn’t have a name yet, I’m throwing out Julie for a name. Then your cats would be Tunch and Julie.
Raenelle
I’ve always lived around dogs and cats. I have 3 of each currently. In my experience, cats differ from each other much more than do dogs. Dogs seem distinct to their owners because they each have their own slot in our affections. But try to describe them; they’re all pretty much alike. But that is not at all the case with cats. Very distinct personalities, IMO.
quannlace
Or Julia. She does have a Vanessa Redgrave look.
RoonieRoo
@NCSteve: I’ve experienced the same thing. I’m totally owned by the boys in the house and the girls worship my husband. It’s been pretty consistent through 6 cats in my life with the exception of one boy cat that loved men.
jeffreyw
Toby wants to know moar about this new kitteh.
TaMara (BHF)
I know it’s not in the running, but she looks like a Buffy to me. Or Smudge. Marlena seems to fussy for her. And Natasha…as someone named TaMara, I like the russian, but, nah.
Which of course means, you’re gonna name her Natasha.
Cassandra
Oh, she’s adorable. As long as you have enough love in your heart for them all, John, they will be fine.
Keith G
@jl:
He also makes his own gravitational field.
@Mnemosyne: Really good advice.
TaMara (BHF)
Oh, and I forgot to add: aaaawwww! She’s beautiful and she loves you!
kc
@gogol’s wife:
The more cats you have, the more likely they are to say “meh,” to a new arrival. At least that is my experience. ;)
Rosie Outlook
Good luck with the new cat! How did your dogs react?
An Ohio representative is trying to outlaw employers asking for an applicant’s Facebook password so they can pry into the applicant’s life. I have 2 questions: can employers get away with this shit in Europe, Canada, and Japan (I suspect not), and, why on earth do people still use Facebook? I can see that you would pretty well have to use it if you were running a business, but I don’t understand why people continue to use it in what we used to call their private lives.
burnspbesq
@R-Jud:
You’ll need that by the time it changes from “can we get a puppy?” to “can I get a tattoo?”
Maude
@Rosie Outlook:
I never used Facebook.
Employers are nosy critters and it’s none of their business. asking for a password is just wrong.
This gives me the creeps.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Long lost sister.
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: Toby is kyoooot!
I hadn’t realized her name wasn’t settled yet. My vote is for Lady Fluffy Pantaloons.
Garbo
Oh, she’s lovely. And seems to adore you. So you have two in the fan club (Lily and Marlena) and two in the meh club (Tunch and Rosie). Seems about the right balance for a healthy ego.
Raenelle
@TaMara (BHF): I thought she looked like a Buffy as well.
TaMara (BHF)
@Raenelle: Was it you who said it first the other night? I read it and say, “yup, she’s a Buffy”
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: JUBLEYS!!
What? :)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NCSteve:
We’ve always called our first cat a ladies man for this reason. When he developed diabetes, and he started spending more time at the vet, it became very obvious that he merely tolerated the male vets and vet techs. The women could do anything they liked to him, and he would purr through the whole procedure. Any male other than my hubby trying to do anything, even give him a shot, without me present was asking for a ripped hand.
Sasha
Call her Hydrox. Besides acknowledging her black-and-whiteness, when she suddenly turns from sweet to evil, you can nickname her Hyde.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: ALL MY JUBLEYS R BELON 2 U!
Lex
@Poopyman:
Came for this; leaving satisfied.
Lex
And, of course, the cat is rubbing all over you so that when (not if) you get lost, people will know which cat to return you to.