Week 3--The Whole Story...

Just in case you found your way here in search of, shall we say, "grown-ups only" material, let me be the first to tell you that the only thing you'll find is, at best, a random sort of mommy-blog with (I hope) some good stories about my crazy life.

Now, onward with what should clear up some delightful ambiguities regarding my Facebook posts referencing "Nipples."
Which is actually kind of funny, because the story begins on Facebook. Sort of. The story really began in late 1995 (my freshman year of college), but for purposes of brevity let us start with about three weeks ago, when an old college friend posted on Facebook that she was looking for a home for her two Bengal cats, as they'd just found out about asthma & allergies with her youngest kiddo.

You may recall my posting about Pim and his unfortunate demise a while back. At the time we decided, instead of enabling Zoe's constant and annoying habit of chasing down kitties, we would get a second dog to keep her company. This is how we got Max.

The only problem was that the Cat Daddy really is more of a cat person than a dog person, and he really does enjoy being a cat daddy. I like cats, but not as much as dogs, and I detest dealing with litter boxes, so I kept fending off his hints and outright suggestions (he even got His Highness to bat his eyelashes and tell me we needed at kitty). But I knew that the Cat Daddy really, really wanted a cat.

And as we swing back around to my friend and her Bengal cats, three things should also be known: the Cat Daddy has long-dreamed of someday owning a Bengal cat, and since I named Pim it had been more or less agreed upon that he would get to name the next cat, and his name of choice was Nipples.

Which brings us full-circle to my friend's post, hopefully demonstrating that, clearly, there was little I could do to thwart the kitty gods on this one. We couldn't take both cats, but as it turned out another friend had popped up who could also take only one cat. Badda boom, badda bing--homes for both kitties.

The only remaining hurdle was the fact that my friend is in Phoenix and we are in Wyoming, complicated slightly by the frigid winter temperatures that were cold enough to result in a ban on shipping animals, even in the heated cargo comparents.

So, of course, the answer was to hop a plane to Phoenix, pick up the kitty--lovingly chauffeured to the airport by my friend, his previous owner--and fly back home again. All within the same day, so as to minimize the chance of conflicting with the Cat Daddy's work commitments.

Kind of silly, but in fact comparable in cost to shipping him, and for this busy mom, not a bad way to take a little break for a day. As a bonus, my folks and grandma met me at the airport and treated me to lunch...and Phoenix Sky Harbor airport is big enough that lunch included real food instead of, like, hot tamales candy and half-warm soda from one of those old school machines that spit it out in a cup. So it was nice. They stayed long enough to meet their new grand-kitty (Mom's word) before heading out to a weekend shindig and sending me thru security to catch the flight home.

As for the name. My friend named him Aldo, which I think is a spectacular cat (or dog) name to begin with, but it is also a family name for my friend. The Cat Daddy is of course bent on changing it to Nipples, and while I'd previously been afraid that people wouldn't let their kids to come over & play at a house with a cat named Nipples, I have to say the response has been primarily one of amusement, rather than horror. So in the spirit of compromise I suggested we make his official name Aldo Nipples, and agree that people can call him either name.

At least for time being. I'm still on the flight home, and the Cat Daddy has already had a nametag emblazoned with "Nipples," so we can all think forward to a year from now and guess what everyone, myself included, will be calling him...