On Thursday, I'll be bringing Henry to his "foster parents".

We cuddled for a half hour on the couch tonight, and he got an
extra-long session in our bedroom/quarantine with my wife and myself.

As if to piss me off, as I was bringing Henry downstairs to do his
time in our basement with a treat, I did my customary "holding him to
sniff our other cats" (a tradition instituted only when I realized he
wouldn't be staying with us). Louis of course cringed away, but when I
held him up to Tiger, Tiger licked his ears and groomed his head.
Little booger.

Ya ya, I'm still ambivalent. But because I know Henry's such a great
cat, I have high hopes that his new parents will recognize the same,
and take him in whole-heartedly. I think Tiger must know on some deep
level that Henry'll pose no threat very soon.

Oh, and another poignant episode happened today. The three little
girls who'd fostered Henry when he was a kitten (while their parents
rejected having another cat indoors) stopped by this afternoon. When
we first adopted Henry, they'd heard the scuttlebut that a cat
matching the description of their friend had gone wild and was
receiving refuge from various folks in our neighborhood. They showed
up at my door and were delighted to discover we'd rescued "their"
kitty. Afterward, I told them they could stop by any time to visit
with him.

I told them that Henry and our other kitties just couldn't get along,
but that we'd found a family that was happy to adopt him. They
realized this would probably be the last time they saw him (or her -
they thought he was a girl and named him "Puss", they still called him
by that name). They took turns hugging him, no small feat given that
they were prolly 5-10 years old and Henry weighs about 17 pounds.
They'd brought a favorite kitten-hood blanket and wrapped him in it
while they hugged him.

One of the littlest girls started crying, and we had a great talk
about how some of the other kitties wandering the neighborhood would
never know a warm home, but "Puss" had been saved and would be a
loving family member to someone. I'm so glad they could have a final
cuddle with him/her. They waved goodbye and asked if they could at
least get updates on Puss's progress. I hope the new owner can send me
pictures..

I'm looking forward to Henry experiencing life upstairs all the time.
I'm looking forward to Louis stalking the house with no fear that
Henry lurks behind every closed door. And I'm looking forward to Tiger
lounging on the couch in the sunlight downstairs all afternoon.

Henry's already begun to be socialized to humans. It's so funny to
contrast him wih Tiger, similar genetically, but with quite different
histories. Tiger has really been through a variety of stimuli - four
differet co-cats with widely different pedigrees, and a youth
including being a farm cat as well as travelling to the Boundary
Waters area in Minnesota and meeting Paul Bunyon in Brainerd (Paul
boomed out to our 3-yr-old son "I see you've brought your kitty with
you!!") - Ben selected Tiger as a kitten from a feral colony on my
father-in-law's property, somewhat to our surprise. We adopted Tiger,
and learned later that the colony had been wiped out by disease and
coyotes - so Tiger's a truly lucky refugee). Our resident cat Abbey,
otherwise irritated by other cats, used to tackle kitten Tiger and
subject him to an enforced grooming session.

gah. I need to sleep occasionally... cats and concern for my
livelihood contribute to my insomnia -- <begin advertisement> If
anyone could use some Windows programming for a Professional practice
I'd love to help you out. Otherwise, the fear of being unemployed will
keep me awake for days, inflicting arbitrary rages on this newsgroup..
hehe </end advertisement>

gah again. Back to the topic at hand...

20,000 cats euthanized in our area every year. This year it will be
19,999. Sad? Yes. A reason for hope? Also, yes.

BLink