Furry, Clumsy, Delicious

After a year of mourning the loss of Ernest and before him our old Siamese cat Ricker, we finally gave in to Ella's demands for a kitten. About a month ago, Ella and I had a special date; just the two of us out for Chinese food and a visit to the pet store while Matt was off doing this or that. As we slowly explored all the tiny cages in the store and I explained my feelings about birds in cages and fish in tanks (not a fan), Ella grew more and more restless. When we came to the kitty cages, where three little rolly-polly kittens were snuggling together in a hammock of sorts, Ella just lost it. "Oh please, oh please, oh please Mama." I explained that our landlords don't want us to have a cat in their house, and she was absolutely devastated. She cried for almost an hour that night, not because she thought she could get her way with a few tears. She was just genuinely sad that it wasn't going to happen.

Fast forward a few days and a few more tears, and Matt started to get an itch too. The three of us began daydreaming on Craigslist and even among the online photos from a rescue shelter specifically for Siamese, and before I knew it Matt was on the phone convincing our landlord to let us have a cat. Horray!

After starting down the road with the shelter (that insists on letters of recommendation, a letter from your landlord, an application, a questionnaire and an interview!), an ad popped up on Craigslist Monday for a few 8-week old kittens, one of them with Siamese markings. When I called to tell Matt, he was just leaving Canada, where he had been on business for the past week, and was driving back to Seattle in the hopes of catching a flight back into San Francisco that night. Such was our enthusiasm, he agreed to stop on the way home (at 10pm no less) to check out the kitten, and a few hours later he arrived with this cute, docile, lovable little girl.

She has taken to her new home amazingly quickly: no crying, no long bouts of hiding, no litterbox issues. She's smart as all get-out and so, so sweet. After this picture was taken, she rested her head on my arm and fell dead-asleep for almost an hour.

Ella is beside herself. She can barely function. It's wonderful. I had forgotten how important it is to have little creatures in my house.

We named her Tozai, after the sushi restaurant across from our house. Shortly after we moved here, we started eating there regularly, and one night we fortuitously met our (now) closest friends in town who happened to be seated at the table next to us. Now when people ask us how we met, we tell them that they picked us up at Sushi Tozai. It's a special place for us, and it's the perfect name for this little kitty.