Cat Integration Update

So, my weekend was overall quiet. Much of Saturday was spent at the funeral services for my friend's mother; since it was on the south shore (which is some distance away), and involved meeting at the funeral home, going in procession to the mass, then to the cemetery, with lunch after, it was a lot of time and much sadness therein. Fortunately, I was able to ride there and back with friends, which helps one get through such things. I was home around 3:30, but was emotionally drained enough that I didn't get much done the rest of the day. I did get to watch the Bruins game, which NESN kindly reran Saturday night (they'd played a matinee, and won 4-0, so that was kind of nice to see).

I have introduced the cats, which is going about as well as can be expected. Carlos is not at all on board with the idea of there being another cat in his home, and especially one prone to bouncing enthusiastically at him. He's done a little hissing, and meowing, as well as the understandable sniff-sniff-sniffing, but this morning when Tonto was particularly enthusiastic, he fled. Tonto, naturally enough, followed, and I had to separate them. Not that I was planning to leave Tonto out; they aren't ready for unsupervised togetherness, and I don't want Carlos to be forced into sharing all the time before he's ready. I plan to bring Tonto out in the mornings and evenings, but keep him in the office during the day and overnights this week. Maybe by Friday we'll be ready for him to spend the night out, but I'm not deciding that now.

Strangely enough, it's almost a problem for me that Tonto is overall so sweet: I forget that I don't know him well yet, and don't know his body language and triggers. There have been a couple of incidents of him lashing out that I think are mostly from me taking him for granted, and not backing off when he needs me to. I mean, when I have a cat curled up on my lap purring, it's easy to think he's completely fine, but if he hears something he can't place, even if *I* know it's just a neighbor noise or passing car, I have to back off while *he* decides if it's a threat.

No consensus on the name yet, by the way. I've tried calling him Tonto, and Tigger, and Midnight, and Blackie, but none of them roll trippingly off the tongue, I find. A late possibility was introduced by my cousin, noting on a photo on Facebook that he looks like the cat our grandparents had when we were young, George. Which would be a nice memory, in addition to the Bugs Bunny reference. It certainly hopped off my tongue easily this morning when I was yelling at him for chasing Carlos! So maybe that will be it.

Considering that I won the cat lottery last week, it would be pushing my luck to also make progress on the job front, but I am slightly downcast that I didn't hear anything yet from the prospect after the phone interview. I had e-mailed the guy with a follow-up question mid-week, so I thought I would at least get an answer to that, but not so far. I'll try again this week. Keep keeping the fingers crossed, please.