Monday, October 24, 2005
Cats
My cat, Narvik, is somewhat of a miracle. We adopted him from the humane society 1) because he was the friendliest cat there (that should tell you something about him!) and 2) because when I asked if they knew why he was limping and if they had checked out the cut on his leg, it became very clear that if I did not walk out with him right then and there, the poor fellow was going to be euthanized because of what appeared to be a fairly benign cut (and he'd already wormed his way into my heart). Turns out he had a broken hip. He was probably hit by a car. Anyway, I declined the thousand dollar surgery my vet strongly recommended, and he made a full recovery. I was told he'd never run. Wrong. Never jump. Wrong again. Never climb. Three strikes, you're out.
Recently, we've added another cat to our household. Silvalen. He and his brother (who was later hit by a car) just showed up at our house one day. I was afraid Narvik would run them off. Instead, he has adopted Silvalen. It started by Narvik letting Silvalen eat from his bowl, then it moved to playing together, hunting lessons, and now they curl up together, groom one another, and generally love on one another as much as possible. I was quite surprised by this, since father cats are usually run off by the mother, and don't take much roll in fathering. It's quite clear that Narvik is the dominant one of the pair, and that Silvalen would follow him around literally all the time.
In case you are wondering, yes, all our cats have names of Scandinavian towns. This is a result of our first cat, a big orange tomcat who we adopted. He was the neighborhood stray and all the kids at the busstop insisted his name was Malmo, which is, of course, a large city in Sweden. We thought that was much more interesting than Fluffy or Spot, and so all our kitties ever since have been named after northern towns: Trondheim, Torneo, Pello, Narvik and Silvalen. ¶ 10:54 AM
Recently, we've added another cat to our household. Silvalen. He and his brother (who was later hit by a car) just showed up at our house one day. I was afraid Narvik would run them off. Instead, he has adopted Silvalen. It started by Narvik letting Silvalen eat from his bowl, then it moved to playing together, hunting lessons, and now they curl up together, groom one another, and generally love on one another as much as possible. I was quite surprised by this, since father cats are usually run off by the mother, and don't take much roll in fathering. It's quite clear that Narvik is the dominant one of the pair, and that Silvalen would follow him around literally all the time.
In case you are wondering, yes, all our cats have names of Scandinavian towns. This is a result of our first cat, a big orange tomcat who we adopted. He was the neighborhood stray and all the kids at the busstop insisted his name was Malmo, which is, of course, a large city in Sweden. We thought that was much more interesting than Fluffy or Spot, and so all our kitties ever since have been named after northern towns: Trondheim, Torneo, Pello, Narvik and Silvalen. ¶ 10:54 AM
