From commentor William S:
We adopted Gypsy [top] in January of 2009. I was living in Las Vegas, cross country from my girlfriend, at the time and needed someone to keep me company. I was told Gypsy was about 8 months old, but given how much she grew after I brought her home I think they overshot her age by a couple months. She was found in the desert around St. George, Utah living wild, and had been caught and released at least once before the group I adopted her from took her in (she was already spayed and had her ear docked to indicate she had received shots, which is apparently common in the area). She got attached to me pretty quickly, and when my girlfriend came to visit Gypsy would sit possessively on my lap and shoot angry looks at her for the first few hours. Since we moved back east (and as anyone who has done it can attest, moving cross country with a cat is all kinds of fun), they have gotten along much better. She’s a very smart cat (opens doors, drawers, etc.), and has a little bit of a chewing problem (blind cords, my glasses, watch bands, you name it).
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We adopted Shallot [bottom] in early July. Shallot is about 2 years old, and had been living in the shelter for a year. She was found dumped and pregnant in West Virginia. After she had her kittens and they were adopted out, Shallot was put up for adoption as well. She’s a real sweetheart, but a bit of an idiot. I know kittens chase their tails sometimes, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a two year old cat that does it with such gusto and conviction. She’s a little bit on the clingy/needy side (not surprisingly, given her back story), but is extremely affectionate, and gets along very well with Gypsy.
JWL
There will come a dawn… when the Cat Ship will return to Earth.
My feral cat will vouch for me.
SiubhanDuinne
Awwww! Lovely kittehs, with great stories to go with. Their names are great, too. I’m wondering which syllable you stress in Shallot’s name. Is it *shal*lot as in onion, or shal*lot* as in The Lady of?
I am just having the world’s worst time falling asleep. None of the usual remedies or tricks are working. But I’m dead tired. I just hate that feeling.
But lovely cats!!
wasabi gasp
Carpeting the walls is a bold interior design statement.
SiubhanDuinne
And I’m *still* perplexed about when asterisks bold a word or piece of a word or phrase, and when they just show up as asterisks. I really like it as a shortcut for bolding as none of the formatting tags work on the BlackBerry, but obvs the asterisks don’t always do what I want them to. So, on general principle, and because it can never be said enough, FYWP!
SiubhanDuinne
@wasabi gasp: LOL
Moses2317
Why President Obama is right to work to restore the estate tax.
tesslibrarian
@SiubhanDuinne: for reasons I couldn’t tell you after a mere 4.5 hours of sleep, I think it’s a left-over standard from the early web when everything was plain text, so making a word actually bold wasn’t an option. It was one of the early conventions I was taught by my CS grad student now-husband back in 1994 before I owned a computer and could login to his Sun so we could chat as a cheap alternative to expensive long-distance telephone calls, which were bankrupting us both at the time.
ETA: such lovely kitties! not sure Shallot is actually not-bright. Some cats don’t lose their kitteny behavior, especially if they didn’t have a chance to be playful in their youth.
Jamey
Re: the top pic: “Invisible jump-shot! Nothing but net.”
stuckinred
@Jamey: Good call!
WereBear (itouch)
“Not bright” is a tough cat call, I agree. Tough backstories, and now so much happiness!
Cats can grow until they are three; especially if times demanded that they shut down for a while. It can start up again when they are happy and secure. Over and over, a vet would say confidently that they are “done growing” and the cat would continue on to double in size.
You’d think they’d notice, as I did.
Lovely girls!
djork
Is that a very sly Big Star reference in the title?
Annie
Love the kitties and the stories. Particularly the part of about Gypsy’s reaction to your girlfriend’s visit!
Kristine
Pretty kitties!
As a response to the next post, I believe many BJ’ers hold to the Truth that their pets are the center of the Universe. Canio- or feliocentric, take your pick.**
**I do not mean to discriminate against bunnies, fishies, ferrets, alpacas, and all the other cool pets out there. But I’ve only had half a cup of coffee and lack the wattage to look up the other appropriate prefixes.
wmsheppa
Thanks all…. I forgot to sign off in the e-mail with my tag on here.
@SiubhanDuinne: We stress the first syllable, as in onion.
Shallot is hard to get a read on, I think not bright probably isn’t the best description of her, but maybe takes joy in the simple pleasures is. Let’s go with that.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Am I the only one who, as she began the scroll down, thought the top picture, of Gypsy, was of a cat artfully leaping up toward something off to her right?
Just me?
Ok then.
Lovely kittehs, and thank you for giving them the love they deserved all along!
Bill H
We have a eight-year-old Calico, Molly, who not only chases her tail with gusto, but occasionally attacks it. She will be lying on the floor waving her tail and, upon waving it into her line of sight, freak out and attack it as if it were some sort of wild animal needing killing.
She also growls at and attacks the cat in the mirror. One time she took a running leap at it, and then collected herself and looked around to see if she had been observed in that little piece of stupidity.
She is as affectionate as she is dimwitted, though, so it’s all good.
asiangrrlMN
Both Gypsy and Shallot are gorgeous girls and sound like much fun. I love how Gypsy was so possessive of her human. Nice! Thanks, AL, for continuing to post these stories.