The ongoing saga of cats

So for all my worry that my mother would adopt a dog, it turns out we’ve adopted two cats instead. The strategy with my existing cat, Admiral Janeway, will simply be to keep them apart.

We haven’t picked names for them yet. “Blackie” and “Greece” are the names they went by at Countryside Rescue (in the western outskirts of Santa Rosa), but we’ll almost certainly rename them.

They are adorable, affectionate cats. The black one is more inquisitive. The grey one is more shy. They are brothers that have managed to stay together since birth. The truth is, it didn’t even occur to either of us that they should now be separated.

Meanwhile, Admiral Janeway has been ill. Her food allergies have reappeared even though I was feeding her the organic stuff. It seems that feeding one food tends to aggravate an allergy over time. I’m also hoping that grain is the problem: it seems a whole bunch of grain-free foods have appeared since I last visited this issue, and they seem intended to address the problems that Admiral Janeway has been having. Fleas have compounded her misery—this is where a veterinarian may be misled; they will see fleas and they will see a rash, and put the two together, but in fact, the rash stems from the food allergy, and makes her more attractive to fleas. She is now recovering, but still doesn’t like to be petted much.

Apparently, the Captain came by, and just wanted to sleep on the cat furniture. My mother was offended when he didn’t want to be petted—she hadn’t seen him in probably a week—and promptly threw him out. The back cat door is now closed. Unfortunately, this also blocks out Gypsy, the neighbor cat who has been coming in for company and food when his humans, who live next door to us, aren’t home.