Well Jazz and Jack continue to get to know one another. Jazz positively
adores Jack and won't leave him alone. He wasn't happy about it at
first, but he's getting used to her and tolerates it. Sometimes, he
even likes it. She's obsessed with his tail.

She's even given him a few head butts.

I'm still putting her in her room, on and off through the day, and at
night. I tried to let her sleep out in the house last night, but she
wouldn't settle down, so I had to put her back. She gets mad and
screams for a few minutes, then falls asleep. I also put her in there
for feeding, as she doesn't seem to realize Jack needs his space for
his own meals. He and Dmitri shared plates, but I don't think he's
ready for her to nose into his food yet. (Plus, she has kitten food,
not big boy food.)

She does some things that Dmitri did, things that were unique to him.
First, she finds a toy on a stick and hauls it around in her mouth,
dragging the stick part between her back legs. One thing Dmitri did
that used to drive me nuts was to get to a window and pry the blinds
apart with his paws, then stick his head through to see what was going
on outside in the night. He ruined more than one window blind that way.
I used to try and break him of it, but one day I realized it made me
laugh and the laughs were worth the cost of a new blind.

I missed that, and was looking at the blind one day realizing how I
missed him doing that, even though it used to annoy me. Next day, Jazz
was out, ran to the cat tower and did it. Exactly the way Dmitri did.
And it made me laugh.

So I was thinking, okay those could be coincidence, because other cats
probably do those things.

And then last night she found my iced tea. Iced tea (unsweetened) was
Dmitri's obsession. He LOVED IT and if I left a glass sitting
somewhere, within minutes he would find it and start lapping it out of
the glass. He LOVED iced tea. I looked over, and she had jumped up on
my computer desk and was lapping the iced tea out of the glass, just
like Dmitri used to. (They always have fresh water, I don't know what
it is about tea. Dmitri was so addicted to it I once asked the vet if
it was some kind of mineral deficiency.)

I'm starting to think Dmitri is somewhere whispering to Jazz, "These
are the things that make her laugh. Do this, and this and this."

I continue to see the monarchs in the weirdest places...and they make
me smile.

The best news of all is Jack...his depression is lifting! Even though
his little sister annoys the dickens out of him at times, he's starting
to be amused by her.

Last night, she was playing in a grocery sack, and I grabbed the sack,
closed the top and told Jack, "Here, have a sack o' kitten." She was
wiggling around in the sack, and he actually jumped off the couch and
pawed at it. It cracked him up.

So it's all going well, though I'd forgotten that kittens are on speed.
Geesh. (It had been 16 years since I'd had a kitten, and that was
Dmitri, and I had a big dog to help entertain him!)

She's a riot, and Jack is really starting to enjoy her antics. He did
not enjoy her using his litter box last night, but again, that was
Dmitri's first hello to Jack, taking a dump in Jack's box. Jack is
starting to be happy again. :)

Juls

p.s. More pictures soon, but she's so fast I'm having trouble getting
any of her.