Millie and Frank

On Saturday morning, we drove down to Kitty Harbor in West Seattle, with our cardboard cat carrier boxes in hand, to adopt a couple of kittens.

Meet Millie. Her name is Amelia, after Amelia Earhart, because she likes riding up in the air (she rode around on my shoulder most of the time we were at the shelter), and she is quite the explorer...she has made her way around to just about every corner of our house. She is 9 weeks old and was found in a parking lot in Burien. She doesn't have a timid bone in her tiny little body. She made herself right at home as soon as we opened her carrier in our house. She moves between the two of us constantly, like she is so overwhelmed with being pet, she can't decide who she

likes more. As soon as one of us gets up and walks to another room, she is up and following them. Brian will walk back and forth just to see how long she will follow, and he definitely tires of the game before she does. Her claws are out pretty much all the time- she doesn't know how to retract them yet, so she gets stuck in everything...the carpet, pillows, my skin. She knows how to use the litter box, but generally chooses to go right next to it. She takes pieces of her food out of the dish, lines a few of them up on the floor, and eats them one at a time. She likes to sit on Brian's computer, preferably while he is using it, but anytime it is open. We keep her in the bathroom while we are out and at night, and she knows how to do the guilt meow...oh, she sounds SO sad when we shut that door.

And this is Frank. The second we walked in the door, he took off and managed to find a small hole in the

wall behind the dryer to hide in. Since he went into hiding in the wall, we named him Frank. Anne Frank. He is 11 weeks old and is about twice as big as Millie. His mama is a Maine Coon, so we are guessing he is
going to be a monster sized cat. We checked on him a few times in the wall, and realized he wasn't only hiding, but was stuck...unable to get out of the wall. We tried all kinds of things, and only when Brian pulled out a saw- to make the hole in the wall a little bigger- did he jump up into a position that I was able to help him maneuver through the pipes and out. After which he immediately hid behind the couch in our extra room.

Every so often, I pull the couch out and sit back there, and pet him, and talk to him...hoping he warms up a bit, and isn't so scared. It doesn't help that every time I give him a little attention, Millie is RIGHT there. He FINALLY came out of the room on his own...slowly and cautiously, he has made his way around the room, smelling everything. And finally, FINALLY, he sat next to me on the couch for about two minutes, before tearing back into his hiding spot. He is great with his litter box, eats his food. He stays in the extra room when we are out or sleeping...and he is thrilled with that.Since he hasn't been out much, and runs with every movement we make, we don't have many pictures of him yet.

They had previously showed mild interest in each other- Millie more than Frank, obviously. There has been some hissing. And only tonight, in the last hour, have they started playing together! Yay! They will be friends. And soon sweet Frank will get comfortable and hang out with us. And maybe he will teach Millie how to retract her claws.

I promise I won't blog about them much...probably the occasional picture.