Last Wednesday, the shelter manager called and asked if I could take five 3 month-old kittens. I hesitated because my parents were coming, and so the guest bedroom was going to be occupied, but then I decided that I could either put Steely Dan and Fagen in my room, or the upstairs bathroom. But then I let Fagen out into Gen Pop (and yes, referring to it as Gen Pop always makes me laugh too!) for the day, and he did pretty well, so I decided to leave Fagen and Steely Dan out for the night, and see how it went.
It went just fine, except for 2:30 in the morning when I woke up to find them fighting on my feet. I sprayed a blast of compressed air at them, and they scattered and didn’t wake me up again.
Thursday, I went to pick up the new kittens. The story on these guys is that they were all five crammed into one carrier and left outside a local business. Obviously, I don’t know what their story was before they were abandoned, but the shelter manager reported that they were gorgeous and friendly, and told me I could pick them up at the vet (where they were being spayed and neutered) that evening.
When I got the five of them home, I let them out into the foster room, and they came slowly out of the carriers, and proceeded to growl and hiss at each other like they’d never seen each other before in their entire lives. They wanted nothing to do with me, they wanted nothing to do with each other, and they all scattered to various parts of the room to hide.
We wrote the hissing and growling off to the spaying and neutering (and also I’m sure the whole experience was freaking them out). They continued with the hissing and growling until Sunday. I was starting to wonder if they were going to hiss and growl at each other FOREVER, but it finally stopped.
When I first found out that we were getting four girls and a boy, I immediately decided to name them after Charlie’s Angels (totally stealing the idea from Elephants Upstairs), but when I got the name list, I found that all the names had been used in the past. We bounced some name ideas around, and half decided to name them after the characters from Glee.
(“Sue Sylvester”? Possibly the BEST cat name ever!)
Then I was sitting in the living room with my parents, reading a magazine, when a better naming scheme came to me. I immediately got up and checked the name list, and found that none of them had been used.
I named the gray and white kitten Ouiser because she was the hissingest and growlingest of the bunch (since Sunday, I have heard neither a hiss nor a growl from her, though), Drum was the only boy, and Truvy is the super-friendliest girl. M’Lynn and Clairee got their names by default, really.
For those of you who don’t know, the kittens are named after characters from the movie Steel Magnolias, and they’ll be collectively known as The Magnolias, of course. (I can’t speak for everyone else, but Shirley Maclaine as Ouiser (correctly pronounced “Weeza” in the South) is far and away my favorite character, and Olympia Dukakis as Clairee is close behind. Though honestly, I love all the characters in this movie. But I think Ouiser gets the best lines, my favorite being I’m pleasant. Damn it! I saw Drum Eatenton this morning at the Piggly Wiggly, and I smiled at the son of a bitch ‘fore I couldn’t help myself. Everyone loves a cranky old Southern woman.)
After their first few unfriendly days, the Magnolias have come around with a vengeance. Drum and Truvy are very friendly and will sit in your lap the instant you sit down. Drum’s a talker (I’m sure I’ll get LOTS of “I HAZ A COMPLAINT” pictures of him!) and Truvy will lay in your lap on her back and insist that you rub her belly while she squirms around happily. Something about her sweet, open expression reminds me of Orange (from the Cookies litter). Clairee and Ouiser will climb in your lap briefly to let you pet them before they go racing off. M’Lynn is the hard case – she’s a bit skittish and doesn’t want to be approached or picked up. At least she’s not hiding under the chair anymore, thankfully, and I suspect she’ll be climbing into my lap before the end of the week.
M’Lynn the skittish.
Ouiser. (I’m calling her gray and white, but honestly I don’t know what to call that color. It’s more gray than brown, but it’s almost a grayish-brown. Whatever color she is, she’s gorgeous!)
Clairee in the carrier. They like to hang out in the carrier. They also love to smack at each other through the carrier “windows.”
Drum. He’s a great big baby.
“Stupid kittens. They hiss at me under the door! I just wanna be their friend!”
“I do not approve of kittens.”
Steely Dan and Fagen are out in the house all day every day, and it’s going just fine. Dan will let you approach him and pick him up, and he’ll lay in your arms like a big baby and purr. Fagen doesn’t like it if you walk toward him when he’s sitting on the floor, but if he’s a little higher (say, on the back of a couch or on my bed), he’ll let you approach him and pet him as much as you’d like.
Neither of them spent much time downstairs while my parents are here, but one night Dan came into the living room to sniff at Benjie, and he actually reached out and grabbed Benjie’s tail. So I think it’s safe to say that he’s not scared of dogs!
Stinkerbelle, in the porthole window of the dining room. I have to guess that she gets into the window by coming off the mantel (to the left). I’ve never actually seen her move from the mantel to the window, but she’s spending a lot of time there lately. (That blue box on the wall to the right is our medicine cabinet.)
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Previously
2009: It wasn’t until after she put her glasses on that Samba realized she’d been whispering sweet nothings to a water bottle all evening long.
2008: No entry.
2007: Possibly if I stopped buying toys for the cats there wouldn’t be such an issue with them scattered everywhere, but I guess cat toys is my other illness.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
i KNEW drum was a talker from yesterday’s pictures. 😀
i’m curious to see if ouiser’s (thank you for giving us the pronunciation – maybe i should actually see steel magnolias…) color develops as she grows like stinkerbelle’s.
Oh they are all cuties – M’Lynn looks like she could be my baby Barney’s little sister! She has more white but the colors are the same. How long will they be with you?
And of course everyone else is cute as well!
I was going to pick a favourite from a first impression, but I can’t. So I’ll take them all for now. Thank yew.
Claireeee looks like she might have a bit of bengal in that nose too… Does she have black feet?
Ahhhhhh, they are all so cute!!!
All those kittens are cuties!!!!!! I am glad they are coming around.
And it is also very nice that Steely Dan and Fagen are warming up! What a great job you have done!
I am kind of envious of that window that Stinkerbelle is in. I would love to have one of those big enough for me and my two boys!
What cuties and cute names! And I love that cathole (er, um, porthole) window!
Gosh ~ that’s a whole lot of cuteness in one post! Every single one of them ~ cute cute cute!
Ohh, I knew how to pronounce Ouiser right away! We had a cat when I was little named Weezer (because she had a weird wheezy voice). We also had a cat named Neeter because she liked to knead on your belly. Also a cat named Retread. I don’t know what they were thinking with that one.
Sorry, I get chatty about my kitties.
Ouiser is taupe and white, Robyn… a very sophisticated color scheme, actually! 😉 And Ouiser is my fav charater from SM (as well as a zillion other people’s), too!
Snorgle them all throughly for us! I’ll be keeping fingers crossed that M’Lynn’s confidence will start to blossom under your able care!