So this past weekend, this happened…

Then this happened…

And next thing you know, there are two kittens living in our home! I have not been mama to a wee kitten in 20 years, but our home felt empty without Maggie (and Madison, who left us five years ago) and so I decided it was time.

I intended to get one cat, not a kitten, and tailless (both my previous cats were Manx cats). Searching online for “the one,” reminded me of internet dating. I made my list of contenders and visited several shelters over the course of a few days, trying to imagine this cat or that cat joining our family at The Urban Cabin. None of them felt like the right fit.

On a visit to PAWS Cat City to meet an older cat I’d read about online, I spied a tiny tabby out of the corner of my eye. “Tell me about her,” I asked the shelter volunteer. When I went into the room where she was, and sat down to play with her, I saw this handsome gray face staring back at me from inside a cubby.

A few hours later after consulting with Big Papa, I returned to Cat City, kitty carriers in hand. By 6:00 our family had two new furry members.

The tabby has been named Winslow (nickname Winnie) after the city on Bainbridge Island where Big Papa and I traveled by ferry on our first date. The gray kitty is Wallingford (nickname Wally), after a neighborhood where Big Papa lived for awhile. My previous cats were also named after Seattle neighborhoods: Magnolia, or Maggie, and Madison, or Maddy.

Four days in, it’s been–and will continue to be–a new chapter, getting two know these two cute-as-the-dickens feline friends. Both have been a bit under the weather (respiratory cat crud common in shelter cats) but I’m hoping they will recover soon and we’ll enjoy many, many years together.

I love cats because I enjoy my home;

and little by little, they become its visible soul.

~Jean Cocteau

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Take the road less traveled, Beth