Meet the newest additions to the family

No, no, no, I didn't suddenly and secretly give birth to twins.

Please give a warm welcome to Tobey and Gus! (And Shallow Man's leg and laptop, but they're not really the important part of the picture.)

Partly as a birthday thing for the Shallow Man, partly because of odd websites, and partly just because I felt like it, we decided to get a cat. So we wandered on over to the Humane Society and ended up coming home with two. (It was a two-for-one special on cats anyway.)

We actually ended up going to the shelter twice, because when we went the first time on that Friday night it closed before we had a chance to find a cat we really liked. This turned out to be lucky for us, because we had barely stepped in the door on Saturday morning before these two jumped out at us -- almost literally.

They hadn't been out the day before (still recovering from certain medical procedures), so we hadn't seen them. Once we saw both of them we knew we couldn't split them up, since they're from the same litter and, as you can see, simply too cute together.

They were nine weeks old when we got them three weeks ago and are just absolutely adorable. They're joined at the hip and very sweet with each other when they're not trying to lick, bite or pounce each other's ears off.



They are both white with black spots -- the same number of spots but differently dispersed. Tobey has a smudge on his nose, too.

He's the more cuddly of the two. He likes to snuggle up on my lap whenever I sit down and tends to sit by my feet meowing to be picked up and loved if I spend too much time paying attention to things other than him. He has figured out how to jump into the sink and his favorite wrestling move is the kangaroo kick.



Gus is a lot more independent but can be snuggly when he's in the mood. He loves to explore and has to be spritzed with the "discipline water" a lot more often than Tobey.

He, thank goodness, has not figured out how to jump up onto the counters, although he does very well at climbing up people. He thinks his tail is possessed by demons and likes to exorcise them while sitting on my shins as I'm typing on my laptop with my feet on the coffee table. This, of course, means that I can't wear knee-length skirts until he figures out clawless exorcism, because my lower legs are covered in beautiful bright red scratches that are set off very well by my pasty white skin. He is also a technocat who has figured out that he can change things on the laptop screen by pouncing on the keyboard, and manages not to do anything horribly wrong. (Tobey is not so adept; he also loves the keyboard, mostly for the warmth, but also accidentally deleted the "Finder" on Shallow Man's Mac...) Gus' favorite wrestling move is the Matrix pounce. I swear he defies gravity more than half the time. He also could probably make it in the wild since he's got a fairly good grasp on the hunter mentality.

Tobey, on the other hand, acts tough but would probably die in the first ten minutes because he's pining away for snuggles.



I'm really enjoying this whole pets thing. I never really had pets growing up because my mom was allergic, although we did have fish for awhile. I'm not quite sure why that ended... Shallow Man grew up with cats so he's been extremely helpful in showing me the ropes and all that. He also has kindly agreed to do all the litter box-related duties if I monitor the food and water bowls.

The best part about having the kittens, though, is that they are very therapeutic for me to come home to after a long day of listening to my boss enjoying the sound of his own voice. They're keeping my rage way down and helping me to control the Fist of Death.

Plus, they're just so dang cute.

Watch out, you other kittens out there, 'cause you are totally going DOWN!