Taking it to the Next Level

My honey and I have decided that it's time to take our relationship to the next level. Kids. Specifically the four-legged kind.

We've been living with one of each (a dog and a cat), both of which I brought into the relationship. So they're both more attached to me. True, my honey can walk the dog and give the cat her medication (she's old, it happens). But they're still my dog and my cat. Apparently. So we wanted something that would be ours. We tried to get another dog, but didn't find anything that quite fit the bill. We traipsed back to the shelter again (I'm surprised the people that work there haven't started to recognize us) and looked at felines. He's partial to tabbies, I'm partial to black cats (the dog is tan, the old kitty is white; why not round out the color palette?), but we agreed that personality is most important.

We walked through the shelter, looking in the little windows, trying to decide who seemed like a cool cat. We wrote down a couple tag numbers, did a couple of meet and greets, and decided we needed more time to think. And not under the (somewhat depressing) industrial lights of the shelter. Lunch and a cocktail? Perfect. With soccer and lacrosse in the background (what kind of eatery was this? I should have been wary of the sign outside that said 'bar and kitchen'), we discussed our favorite cat that we'd met.

He was a young male, affectionate, curious, wanted to play with his neighbor, and all around seemed like a good guy. The drawback: he was deep brown, almost black.

"Would you want to take him home if he was a tabby?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then..."

We decided to go back and sign the paperwork to take him home. We were already thinking about names. The shelter was calling him Cole. Boring. 

The New Guy couldn't come home immediately (he was too much man, if you know what I mean), but we could get him two days later after his surgery. I knew I would be at work late, so my honey got to pick him up and bring him home (in a cardboard box that got shredded during the drive) and settle him in. It will take a while to fully integrate the New Guy into our household, but I think we made a good choice. Based on his attitude, we've agreed to call him Ninja.