So. There is a new addition to my household. Along with me and the plant, there is now Hobbes the cat.

My friend Brooke's family are part of a program called Angels for Animals, which fosters abandoned animals to families who will take care of them until a permanent home can be found for them. They have had Hobbes for about eight months now. Angels threw the poor boy out because they said he was too much trouble whenever he came to the shelter for shots and baths and to be kept for periods of time for potential visitors to come visit him. Apparently he was a troublemaker at the shelter, being loud in his carrier and mean when he got his bath. But Brooke gave him a bath last night and he was fine, and when I picked him up today he walked into the carrier by himself and turned around and actually waited for me to close the door. Didn't seem like a troublemaker to me.

So I got him home and he came out and ate first, drank some water, explored the apartment, played with me a little, and went to sleep. He heard the downstairs neighbor starting his car at one point, and actually stood on his hind legs looking out the window, not bracing his forlegs on the sill or anything, as if he were a person. I imagine he was just a sensitive intelligent creature that could not bear being in the shelter and made as much fuss as possible until he got out of the clink.

Apparently Hobbes had two friends at Brooke's place that he hung out with relentlessly, but after they were both placed in homes, he wouldn't get close to any of the other cats that came through. I said, "That cat there is for me," and so he is here now, and sleeping in the living room.

Troublemaker. Feh. Misunderstood is more like it.

Thanks Brooke!!