Gotcha!

On July 6 of last year, we should have been at a wedding in Kansas.  Our beautiful sitter's wedding, a Cinderella affair.  Instead, we were at Petsmart, acquiring a cat.  I had intended to only pick up a business card before getting lunch and heading to a Despicable movie.  And I know I've told this story multiple times, too many times, but that business card turned into, "please, please, I'll do anything."  And The Redhead just kept saying it, followed by, "I love her, and she loves me."  She found a homely looking kitten and wanted to make it hers.  And that was not our intention.


Of course, we ended up paying to adopt that kitten anyway, and they agreed to let us pick her up later.  They knew they had us.  So we went for lunch, saw our movie, headed home for the pet taxi that luckily we had brought in the car with us from Kansas (for the Perpetual Toddler and not a cat), and retrieved that little kitten we had never intended to get that day.



Finding Alexandra that day was probably for the best.  Two days after we arrived as a family to California seemed a bit hurried, but for The Redhead, she had waited an eternity.  We had originally asked her to wait until after Spring Break that past March, and then the job prospect became quite serious.  And well, traveling across country with a feline seemed like a really bad idea.  Traveling with dogs seemed crazy enough.  And it was.



Although we thought it was too soon to get a cat, we think back to it now, and I know it was for the best.  The Redhead had few toys to entertain her and only a few of her stuffed friends.  That homely little kitten ended up being a welcomed playmate. Once The Redhead's easel arrived with the rest of our belongings over two weeks after we arrived, she realized she had meant to name Alexandra something else.  She had a list of boy and girl names and Audrey was on the list.  Alexandra never had been, but it's perfect nonetheless.


And Alexandra has also been perfect.  She has completed our family in a way I didn't think was possible with a cat.  So far, she still has her claws, as she's not that interested in using them in hideous ways like other felines.  And I'm going to need to knock on my desk in a second, but she hasn't had a lot of naughty habits like other cats.  She doesn't like to jump very high.  She loves being carried.  She doesn't mind when you touch her tail, paws, stomach, or any other part of her.  In fact, she loves it.  She makes the sweetest noises.  People who don't even like cats like her.  Including my Father-in-Law who I repeatedly caught playing with her and luring into his luggage.  She loves The Redhead more than I thought cats could love children.  And she's made up for how hateful our former cat Aerial was, our sick feline who lived to almost exactly thirteen years.


So Happy Gotcha Day, Alexandra.  As much as it nauseates me to use that term, a term we first heard from a lousy Disney show, "Gotcha Day" has stuck, and well, July 6, will always be her, "Gotcha Day."  Which she shares as our former sitter's Anniversary Date.  It was meant to be.  She was meant to be. And if you ever need a feline picked out, I think The Redhead might have a gift.  Something tells me that silver marbled kitten with blue eyes that Mister Man and I liked would have been a holy terror.  And that cat definitely wouldn't have been our Alexandra.

 A few pictures, because that's how I am.

 We didn't mean to put her on exhibit in front of the dogs, it just sort worked out that way.

 A gift for the Gotcha Day Girl:

And because we do not eat cat food, I made us our own cake.

And this one did manage to get even for Alexandra's special "cake" and stole the rest.  She was banished to her kennel, but she smugly and gladly went there.  She felt the crime was worth it.