The naming of cats

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
(-- T.S. Eliot, The Naming of Cats, from "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats")

Tolly is the name our new guy will wear on a daily basis. But in deference to T.S. Eliot, I wanted him to have a more formal name as well, a moniker that was chosen not just because it sounded like his former appellation but because it had some reference to who he is.

Before kitty ever came home, I had spun up four potential names that could plausibly be a formal form of Tolly. (Keeping in mind that the name Margaret can yield such disparate nicknames as Peggy and Daisy, you will understand that some of the ties to "Tolly" were rather vague.)

After I got to know kitty, one option stood out as being especially appropriate. Tolly has what his first foster mother describes as a "singing purr." He also shows a remarkable appreciation of music: when he heard Stan playing the piano for the first time, he was completely mesmerized. He hopped up on the kitty hammock, and curled up to listen happily like it was a personal concert just for him.

Clearly he is a musical fellow, and so his formal name would have to have something to do with music. The obvious choice among the four options, then, was Taliesin (tah-li-ESS-in).

The historic Taliesin was an ancient Welsh bard "who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three Celtic British kings." Some rather fantastical legends sprang up around his life, putting him in the company of King Arthur and other famous figures; and drawing parallels, through resemblance of story, to the early life of Finn MacCool.

Rather grand, but how could I resist?   Taliesin it was! 

(The grandeur of Taliesin also nicely balances the immense goofiness of one of his nicknames - "Hinge," bestowed because some people, ahem, feel his musical purr more closely resembles the sound of a squeaky door than it does a song! ;))

Tolly's story (as much as I know of it)

Floating like a boat in its waters,
I was thrown into a dark bag,
and on an endless sea, I was set adrift.
Just as I was suffocating, I had a happy omen,
and the master of the heavens brought me to liberty.

    (-- from the legend of Taliesin)

 
Once upon a time there was a couple who loved animals. Whenever they found a stray, or heard of an unwanted kitty, they took it into their home.

They fed the cats, spayed them, and gave them attention... so you would think that this was a happy story, wouldn't you? But 58 cats and two or three dogs is a lot, especially for a two bedroom place.

So one day the woman got fed up and moved out, leaving the man alone with the 58 cats and two or three dogs. And soon he couldn't take it any more, and tried to kill himself.

The man was brought to the hospital.

The city planned to "take care of" all the animals.  :(

But people at some local animal rescue organizations caught wind of the situation. They sent out frantic messages to a network of other rescue groups.  Each organization promised to make room for one or two, or as many as they could. And gradually all the little offers added up, until every one of those 58 cats had found a place with a rescue group!

One of these was Calliope, an itty bitty foster-based group founded by the women who facilitated Truffle's adoption.

When the Calliope rescuers went to pick out their cat, out of the whole kit and caboodle, one individual stood out: a skinny, scruffy looking black male. He wasn't the prettiest cat there, but there was just something about him.  He came up to them, made eye contact, begged for attention...   As Claudia wrote, "He was crying out to me to be picked, out of so many."

That was our Tolly.

So we don't know how old he is; we don't really know anything about his life "before." But we do know he will have his "happily ever after" here with us.

Fuzzy

A sweet moment, fuzzily captured on my crummy camera phone (in real life the blanket is green!!!).  It's Truffle curled up on the left and Tolly (who initiated contact) stretched out on the right.

Friends in a day?

Someone else has put in an adoption application for Tolly.

I didn't even know that this was really an option. On some level I thought that if we were "fostering with the intent to adopt" that he wouldn't even really be available to anyone else during this period.

Thinking I had the time to do it this way, I'd been taking things very slowly, in deference to Truffle. It was clear from their first interaction that Tolly would come out as the alpha cat, and I haven't felt like Truffle was at peace with that prospect. (Echo's wishes are much simpler: she just wants not to be messed with. She doesn't care about any silly pecking order; as long as Tolly lets her be, she's good.)

Now I have to fast-forward the process, because we are supposed to decide by tomorrow morning if we are okay with having someone else come in and meet Tolly this weekend or if he is to be our cat forever and ever.

I wish we had another few weeks to figure this out. I really, really do. It's a little much to expect these guys to suddenly become friends in a day.

Leapin' lizards!

I have a wall display unit that consists of three shelves that are 16.5" long and 5" wide, with 10" clearance between the shelves. I had seen Tolly eyeing that thing, and thought perhaps he wanted to reach up and play with the nesting dolls on the bottom shelf like Truffle does.

Oh no, Mr. Tolly had higher ambitions. I left him alone in the bedroom when I went out to take a phone call. When I came back, what should I see but Tolly perched on the middle shelf of that wall unit looking very pleased with himself. The silly guy had leapt up there from the trunk and had managed to land on the middle shelf, incredibly, without knocking over a single one of the items on that shelf (or knocking the shelf off the wall, for that matter).

I noticed he'd also leapt up to the top of the armoire to retrieve a cat toy too. But that's old hat for him, he's been doing it on a daily basis for the last couple of days.

When we took Tolly to the animal hospital last week, the vet said he had a 'click' in one of his hind legs. She said this made him more likely to develop early arthritis, and asked me if he seemed hesitant to jump.

Um, no. Mr. Tollypants is about the least hesitant jumper I've ever met.