New Additions

Okay, so their not entire new, but we are please to announce an expansion to the Soulliere Clan: Link & Flash (who should really be named Thor and Loki, but I was over ruled by Dafyd and Jace – but I’m not bitter… honest… well a little).

Michelle and I have a good sized home, but it always feels empty with just the two of us. For the past two years I’ve debated back and forth on the issue of pets. I had considered a HUGE fish tank, but those are a pain to maintain (though I still have hopes of getting the fish tank coffee table), I’ve discussed dogs (even adopting the stray that we found in the yard last year). We’ve even gone over the issue of cats.

Michelle of course wants this cool looking domesticated Bengal tiger/leopard looking cats, but they would have broken the budget to get even just one. To make matters worse, many of our guests are allergic to pets (Nathan and Jon). So we’ve done nothing about it.

Sometime in May we caught an episode of Monster House (on the Discovery Channel) where they decided to “monsterize” an animal shelter. As you can imagine I’m a softy a heart; it was difficult for me to see animals living in the kind of conditions that they do in shelters.

I understand that it’s not the shelters fault, they do the best they can with the resources allowed to them and I believe that they genuinely care about all animals and are doing their best to help them in the ways that they can.

But that doesn’t change the fact that life inside a shelter can be pretty crummy.

I’m not sure when the idea popped into my head, but sometime after that I started seriously considering getting a cat.

Back in June I was still driving Michelle around because of the seizure. One night after picking her up from work we decided to head down the back way towards home. There in front of the Animal Care and Control building was this huge sign that read, “Adopt a Cat Month”. So we thought, what the heck lets swing.

I kinda figured that they would be closed because after all it was after 5:00.

Turns out I was wrong. On Wednesdays (which this just happened to be), they were open until 7:00.

Doh!

Within 20 minutes we had fell in love with two little cats/kittens as we watched them race inside this large containment area (that sounds kind of toxic). One guy who was older was obviously very smart. He was the one sitting on top the high walls and trying to figure out how the door knob worked. You could see the wheels of his mind turning, looking for a solution as to how he could escape, if only he had thumbs!

The other little guy was like a wacky fun ball with fur. He bounced from one end of that room to the other and took on everything in his way. We had gone in looking for “a” cat, and ended up with cats.

Zeb and Chico (formerly known as), were soon on the adoption list. Wholly freakin’ expensive batman. I mean come on, I’m take cats off your hands, offering to take them into a good home, love them, feed them and you’re charging me through the nose to get them. Not only that I have to take them to the vet and promise to get their nads nipped?

They were lucky they were so cute.

The boys instantly fell in love with them and made them their own. This of course caused problems.

You see I had my heart set on naming the cats Thor and Loki, but two other little guys decided they had plans of their own. So this is what we ended up with:

The big cat (formerly Chico) is now known as Link (or Lincoln Log, the Linkster – though I still call him Loki sometimes). The little guy (formerly Zeb) is now known as Flash (or Sir Stripes, Flashy, Flashy Pants, and No – sometimes I call him Thor).

It is amazing how they have just warmed up the house and home. Only a few items were destroyed (the cloth blinds – Tom can tell you the story as he was there for that) and a glass vase (again, Tom was on had to witness that – you know come to think of it, the only time the cats destroyed things is when Tom was in the house… mmm… coincidence? I think not!) before we got them declawed.

They are recovering nicely and they don’t seem to hate us too much for it.

So there you have, who would have thunk, the Soulliere’s have cats.