Seeing as I mentioned the cats and the upcoming changes, I might as well take a deep breath and talk about how things have been going since Eclipse passed on.

A brief backhistory: In 1999, in Wales, Eostre (pure white, with one blue and one gold eye) showed up on a rainy Easter Sunday night (hence her name), starving and filthy. To keep the story short, she had a broken leg that someone had previously tried to fix and botched up. The vet tried to save it, but in the end it was amputated. Throughout all this, nobody noticed another issue. When we arrived back home after a week’s vacation, our cat sitter had left us a note that said “Watch where you step.” The result was Grimoire (male, orange, six toes on each foot, health issues: small penis and stress issues), Eclipse (female, black and white, health issues: heart murmur [which Eostre also has, only less severe] and eventual kidney failure; now deceased), and Snowdon (male, pure white, adopted out, now deceased).

Eostre was slowly learning to trust us when the kittens surprised us all, including her (she was barely more than a kitten herself). When people came to visit, she would hide, and peer around the corner to see if they were of the friendly sort. But they saw only kittens, over whom they would lavish all their attention. We made a point of playing with Eostre without the kittens, and she continued to grow more loving and trusting of us. In the end, she seemed to get along fine with Eclipse, but she and Grimoire had all sorts of issues. Grimoire was pushy; Eostre was defensive. Fur flew frequently. We feared it would be worse when Eclipse died.

The result has been 180 degrees of what we expected. The two cats, who could barely stay in the same room together, now both sleep on the bed. Grimoire may start out next to me, but when Eostre comes in, he scoots down to my feet before she even jumps up (she sleeps at my side). More than once we’ve witnessed Eostre nudge Grimoire away from the food bowl he’s chosen. For those of you who’ve witnessed the previous animosity, you’d be amazed at this change. Eostre is alpha cat now, and Grimoire accepts it, and they get along better than they ever have.

So, our hope is that we can indeed add another cat to the household. We planned to wait until we were financially solvent again, but we were unable to allow someone’s pet to go to the pound (Charlie is 7, I believe, which makes her harder to adopt out—most people want kittens). At best, Charlie will accept Eostre’s status as Mistress and Grimoire won’t be a pain in anyone’s butt; the worst we can live with is Charlie living independently from the other two. We hope we won’t have to pass her on to someone else.

Ah, cats. What a soap opera!