Solo

Meet Solo.




It was not my intention to get another cat after we lost Pie.  Our pet losses have been high this past year: Hope adopted abruptly just before we left Texas, Emma left behind, Elliott and Lili succumbing to a hereditary heart defect, and then Pie giving in to his age.  I kind of thought we'd give Chin a go at being a single kitty, keep our hearts open and if the universe decided that we needed another cat, we'd take it in.

Enter the three year old.

Not long (at all) after Pie passed away, Bug floored me.  We were playing with a very affectionate Chin when Bug told me "Miso needs a friend who isn't dead".

...ouch.

I put in a call about a cat I'd seen on craigslist that spoke to me, and the kids and I took off to meet him.  Solo.  So named because he was all alone in the world when the family we adopted him from found him.  Though lots of people prefer to think it's a Star Wars reference. ;)

He was a pathetic little baby kitten when he was discovered.  The family he'd been living with already had a cat and a dog and had no intention of keeping him, but took Solo in, fed him, cleaned him up, got him to the vet, etc.  He was ten months old when we met him (and there goes my "no more kittens!" rule, right out the window) and the three boys in the family had gotten quite attached.

The woman we adopted him from felt that we were a good match for Solo (Bug took to him instantly and was very gentle - yay!), but I wanted to talk to Richard about it, and I hated the idea of taking the cat while her oldest son was at school.  Not getting to say goodbye is hard.  I wasn't going to do that to someone else's kid.  We went home, I talked to Richard, she talked to her son, and we went back that evening.

Solo has been a real sweetie, and fit into our house very quickly.  I expected it to take a few weeks before Chin and Solo were okay with each other, but they'd stopped hissing at one another by the end of the second day, and were tentative buddies the day after that.  Now they're inseparable.

Solo is still very much a kitten - very active and playful - but also quite mature and thoughtful.  He'll attack anything that moves (so he's not a good bedroom kitty at night), but if he knows that there's a person beneath the movement, he will NOT put out his claws.  Bug can use him as a pillow, and Solo's okay with it.


(That's an early morning sleepy-face, not sad.)

I'm glad he's here.