Ozzie

I have a kitten! He's fantabulous. His name is Ozzie. His middle name is Noser, since that's what his foster parents called him. He's so cute. He's mostly grey, with some lighter stripes. He has gorgeous white markings lining his eyes, with a couple cute white stripes up his forehead that look like big eyelashes. His tummy is light, with leopard spots. So cute!

At first I was afraid he wouldn't like me. The poor little guy has been through a lot. Yesterday his brother was taken away, adopted. And today the same fate befell him. That's a huge change. He lost everything familiar, everything loved. People, other pets, and places. He wasn't a huge fan of the drive home. He's a very quiet cat, but even the quietest of cats are vocal on car rides. He has a cute squeaky little meow, and he exercised it quite frequently until we got home. He was much happier riding in my lap than in his carrier =). For a while he pretended to be a parrot even, and rode on my shoulder!

When we got home Chester greeted him very enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. Poor Ozzie. He was afraid to get out of his carrier! Eventually we got him out, only to lose him to the nether regions of my bed. Scaredy-cat. He huddled under my bed for most of the afternoon. Occasionally I was able to fish him out with a piece of yarn.

He warmed up considerably to us around dinner time. I managed to lure him out from under the bed, and to make up for it, I introduced him to my fishies. That decided him. This place isn't so bad after all! After that it was pretty easy to get him out from under the bed. He comes pretty well when called!

So we played for a bit. He's so cute! And such a gymnast. He was dashing and leaping and twisting all over the place after the yarn I dangled for him. Now he's quite brave. Well, sort of. He's fine as long as Chester isn't around, and he doesn't really like to leave my room yet. Hey, I'm more than ok with that! =D

Ironically, Chester is now afraid of him too. Chester is somewhat mentally disturbed. It's well known that he doesn't like boys, but apparently he's also afraid of cats. I guess he didn't realize that Felix was a cat, and that's why they got along so well. All it takes to revive this fear is for the cat to hiss at him. Of course, teensy Ozzie feels threatened by big, hyper Chester, and quite understandably hisses at him. So now Chester tries to stay at least several feet from Ozzie, and refuses to make eye contact with him. Silly dog! Have you ever heard of anything being afraid of a kitten? Especially a mid-sized dog being afraid of an 11-week old kitten (he only weighs about 2 pounds yet). I guess Ozzie will be the alpha male in our household. Now he just needs to realize his advantage and milk it for all it's worth!

Ok, one last cute story =). A little while ago, Ozzie was getting pretty sleepy, but was trying to stay alert because Chester was in the room. So Ozzie insisted on sitting upright. Unfortunately, he couldn't keep his eyes open, and once they closed, couldn't prevent drifting off. So he'd start to sway around, until the test of his balance jerked him awake. Of course, the process repeated itself until he didn't catch himself in time, and actually fell over. awwwww.

I love my kitten!

ps, look what I just learned how to do:

No, I didn't learn Transmission Electron Microscopy. That's my ultra-cool sister's micrograph, which she's very proud of. I just learned how to insert images in my posts! (Only a little over a year since I started this weblog...) I'm testing and showing off this skill with her crystals because I don't really have any pictures of my own online right now. Just wait until I develop all of my Ozzie pictures!!!

pps, Ozzie just joined me at my desk. He's very interested in the computer. Right now he's entranced by the growing stream of text that I'm typing. He's also fixated on the mouse arrow. He's trying to catch it on the monitor. It's kind of hard to type with a kitten stepping on the keyboard, so I think it's time for us to go play some more and wear him out a little bit. So excited about my kitten!