Friday, June 13, 2008

Happy Birthday, Romeo!

The gorgeous black cat-ten you see in my blog opening photo is Romeo. I adopted him last September, about 6 weeks after losing my most precious Fiona (pictured here).

I met Romeo when he was an as-yet-unnamed kitten of about 3 months. He'd just been fished out of a midtown Manhattan dumpster by some kind soul. He and 4 siblings. The kind soul gave the kittens into the care of my vet. All of them but this little bit of a fuzzy black thing were adopted very quickly. I went to my vet's office to retrieve Fiona's ashes and the vet tech said, "Oh, I think we have someone here you need to meet." I was barely able to keep back the tears. I put down the tin of ashes and she handed the kitten to me. For a moment, he attached himself to my chest with tiny sharp claws. Then he pulled himself up to my left shoulder and started purring furiously in my ear. He almost won me over. Fiona was an amazing little (6.2 lb) fur person to whom I was very attached and she left this earth quite suddenly so I was really shaken and didn't feel up to adopting a kitten just then. Flash forward one month. My boyfriend's wonderful, elderly Himalayan cat, Vermie, was very close to death. His daughter was nearly inconsolable. She'd known him her whole life.

He was a very wise old cat and the day he left us is the day Romeo came home. The vet's office called me about a week earlier to see if I would reconsider. I was so surprised that in a month's time, no one had scooped up that little adorable fuzz ball. Here's a photo of him the first day.

He was a very happy cat, indeed. He made himself right at home. When I adopted him, the vet tech said he was born in June so I wanted to select an "official" birthday for him. With the help of some Ravelry friends I've decided that today (Friday the 13th) should be Romeo's official first birthday. Happy Birthday, Romeo!

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