Familiar.

It's finally happened.

Following the death of Henry the Innsmouth Familiar (RIP Henry) I figured I was done with pets, and for many a month I certainly was. At some point I figured that talking to yourself sounds slightly less insane if there's an animal present, and began to wonder if I should get one.

I then got drunk and looked at cats on the internet.

I saw one beautiful cat on the VOKRA website who was an adult with long, jet-black fur and big yellow eyes. Her name was Mushball, or Moosh. I considered, and considered... and she got adopted.

A few weeks later, I looked at the Vancouver SPCA site and found a hair-covered gremlin. "Look at this hideous cat!" I gleefully declared and made people look at the picture. The page, however, had no bio of the cat - it was blank. Two days later I checked back out of curiosity and found a write-up of the cat's personality: six years old, shy, quiet, declawed*, indoor cat for life.

Perfect.

I made my sister come down to the shelter with me on Saturday to see the cat, who was named Poochie. Voodoo misheard me and thought the name was Coochie, prompting her to wonder why someone named their pussy after their vagina. Not that Poochie is any better.

She was chillin in her box, although emerged to check us out eventually. I filled out an application and then prepared to play the waiting game. They had to make sure everything was cool with my landlord - we are in fact in a building full of cats. Today I received a phone call saying I could go and pick her up, so Voodoo and I did precisely that. I think she meowed twice the whole way home - my sister was half convinced we'd been duped and had, in fact, a box of sand.

Let out of her box she promptly got stuck behind one of my bookcases, then hid under the bed. After a few hours she emerged. ...covered in the dustbunnies that I'd missed under my bed. Naturally.

Turns out she likes being brushed though, so that was easy to fix.

So this is my cat. She took a walk through my apartment after she came out of hiding, scoping everything out. Much to my surprise she then came right for me to be pet and brushed. She hide again when Voodoo came by - the knock at the door startled her, I think - but then she came back out after a few minutes to demand love from my sister as well.

Currently she's lounging beside me on the floor, seemingly very content. She's eaten and used the litterbox, so I think that means she has a good idea of where everything is. She is just the sweetest little muppet!

I just need to rename her. I have a few names in the running, so we'll see which wins out.


* -  I do not endorse declawing - it's a horrible procedure for cats. But I'm not going to NOT adopt a cat based on it, either.