Recently young Lucy crawled into the laundry cart and sat there for 10 minutes for no discernable reason. A self imposed time out? When she’s not using a recently drained bathtub as an impromptu slip and slide or doing fairly advanced gymnastics off of the furniture she can often be found tearing around the house at high speed, flinging cherry tomatoes at the gassy but loveable cat and laying upside down sunning herself in front of the living room windows.

The Kittyman is really taking the new addition to the family in stride.

At first he was pretty freaked out by her presence. After all, he’s only known life with a dog and hasn’t ever spent any time amongst his own kind. He initially thought she was some kind of newfangled and novel toy. That stage lasted about 5 minutes, or until the scared kitten hissed at him, whichever came first. The first few days were mighty tense, let me tell you. Not only did she have the audacity to be in his space, but the furry monster insisted on following him everywhere he went, demanding to play. He was jealous! He was angry, and how! I suppose it’s ironic considering that the Wonderdog behaved the *exact* same way when I first brought him home.

Anyway.

Late one evening we were awakened by a ruckus — The kittyman was howling loudly. And he’d jumped to the top of the fridge to escape his nemesis only to be annoyed and dismayed that she had followed him there. Note his cheerful, jaunty expression in this blurry yet endearing photo that I took while half awake in the middle of the night:

By the end of the second week though something had started to change. I noticed that he’d wander past her while she was napping and look at her, sometimes sitting beside her. And he allowed her to share his litter pan and start eating out of his food dish. Later when he didn’t think I was looking he’d swing his tail at the kitten playfully and let her try to catch it. A few days later she was busy jumping on his back, chewing on his ears, playing tag and wrestling. It’s taken some time but my fur-enabled children have finally become good chums.

Meanwhile my new fur daughter and I are bonding, too.

Her personality simply fascinates me. Because as much as she’s a friendly, affable little gal who loves to snuggle, she can also be high strung and extremely emotional. When she’s happy everything is wonderful with the world and little pink unicorns and sunshine puppies run through her brain like Carrie on the starting sequence of Little House on the Prairie. But should you inadvertently offend her sensibilities Miss Thing will stare you down hard before huffing and puffing like a furious preschooler, turning her head and walking away until she’s composed herself.

At barely 5 pounds she’s a dainty little firecracker with a ridiculously loud purr and an inexplicable affinity for watching the toilet flush. She’s not profoundly talkative, though she does usually emit a “mrrroww!” sound to announce her presence. The few times she’s actually meowed it sounded almost like a guinea pig squeal. Lucy will gladly climb all over you and let you pet her, though she prefers not to be picked up and carried around unless of course she’s very sleepy and or purring. She has her rules, that’s for sure, but they’re not all that hard to follow. At night she always sleeps right next to me with the Kittyman by her side.

Things feel almost normal again.

Little do the fur-enabled know, but in the next few months many changes are coming. Good changes. Things that are fun, wonderful, exciting and just a little unexpected…

I am pleased to announce that this weekend a new fur-enabled companion joined the family.

Our little chum was a stray that someone was nice enough to rescue and bring to the animal shelter. She’s a mixed breed domestic shorthair with grey and black tiger markings. Clean bill of health, first round of shots and bonus, she’s already been spayed which means we don’t have to have a chat about the birds and the bees. It also means that there are no photographs of her in the infamous post-op “head cone” for me to show her prom date down the road.

So far her hobbies include chasing the middle aged kittyman around the house at high speed, chewing on my hair and using the bathroom towels as an interactive swing set.

She is estimated to be 11 to 12 weeks old.

Without further ado I would like to introduce you to Lucy!

Last night I finally put the finishing touches on the Wonderdogs urn.

The whole thing took about 9 hours to make and I really like how it came out because it’s as cheerful, sparkly and vibrant as she was. And I can put it on a shelf and it’s a quirky conversation piece with plenty of rhinestones and bling instead of a dreary reminder of her passing. Little snippets of her life are included in the urn, too. There’s an old rabies tag, a tiny teddy bear charm (since I always called her my little bear) and a small medal of St Francis, the protector of animals.

And here is a view from the top, with one of my very favorite photos of her.