Lori and I bought ourselves a cat over the holiday weekend. Using the word "bought" for a living being seems dismissive at best, but I'll stick with it ... I am not a cat person, I grew up with a mother who actively disliked cats (she has loved a series of cat-sized lapdogs in her life, but her antipathy for felines is no secret), plus I'm allergic to boot, however, I have lived in houses with cats over the course of my long tenure of rental residences and found that unpleasant symptoms generally subside within a few months (as long as my sleeping quarters remain hair-free), plus as I age it seems that all of my human senses are prone to dimming, and susceptibility to allergens is, thankfully, on that list ... my old lady loves cats, has been deprived of them for too long, and our collective lifestyle is far more conducive to the inherent independence of the feline than the childlike need of the canine, so once I felt my own instinct for a dependent start kicking, it only made sense to brave the physical symptoms of cat ownership rather than the alternative.

Lori and I spent the long weekend tending to the curious wiles of what we are currently calling Gomez, a fairly ordinary Humane Society specimen aged 11 months ... he's pure black save for a wisp of white along his throat, has an unusual interest in dripping faucets and as yet has not suggested he'll be any more or less behaved than any cat. I spent a couple days on Benadryl, but even though I definitely feel a change in the air with the addition of Gomez's dander, I'm already acclimating and beginning our slow bonding process. He doesn't have much interest in catnip, but does seem to enjoy sitting on the couch and watching movies with us, so maybe that's something we can have in common.