Saturday: Take Me Home Mommy

Dawn reported to me that Max cried (meowed) once or twice during the night, but nothing constant or fretful. They said he was not very bold or brave Saturday morning.

Max investigating while Nixie Cat looks on
from the other side of the door.  

Until I got there around 11 am. I went into the sunroom, and Max rushed up to me, put his paws up on my leg, and was almost pressing himself into me. Max doesn't usually like being picked up (we're trying to get him used to it) but I picked him up and he leaned his head into mine, purring loudly and happily. (Read "Mommy, mommy, take me home!" into this behavior.)

I was quite astonished, actually. I didn't realize he liked me quite so much. I asked him, baffled but irrationally pleased at his reaction, "why can't you be nice kitty when we were at my house?" In answer he turned his head and bit at my hand.

Seriously? Sigh. So I put him down (if he bites me while I'm holding him, I put him down and ignore him for a little while).

I stayed for the next four hours. I had, for the first time in over a decade, gotten a new laptop. I am writing these latest blog posts on my new laptop. It's all zippy and fast and I really quite like it. It's Windows 7, which my old laptop was a slow, boggy XP (it was zippy and fast when I got it, too, but like I said, that was over ten years ago. Maybe even fifteen, judging by the purchase dates on some of the games I loaded up onto this new laptop--and they worked!)) And by the way, I hate change, and new things are automatically bad, so the fact that I like Windows 7 better than XP after two days of using it ought to tell you something.

Anyway, I had a lot to do setting up the laptop, so I did that while sitting in the sunroom with Max. Fat Mama seemed relatively calm around him. The cats can see each other through the door into the kitchen which has glass almost down to the floor. And so later in the afternoon we let Mama in to investigate Max. As long as Max kept his distance (which he did once hissed at), Mama was fine being in the same room as Max. She didn't charge him or try to smack him or in any way offer violence, and Max was being a very good obedient kitten to Mama.

This was very promising.

If you've ever migrated files to Win7 from an old computer, you know it takes ages. And I had to do it twice, as it wouldn't use the secondary hard drive on the new computer for the migrated files, so I had to migrate some of them, move them to the second drive, and then migrate the rest. I was bored, and so I went in and out of the sunroom, getting Max used to the idea that I would come and go.

I got to watch Chuck do some welding. That was most interesting. Fireworks and sparks and melting metal, oh my! Made my chemist's pyrotechnic heart go pitter patter.

Max was playing with toys, and responding to his trick commands for treats, and all in all, when I left Saturday night he seemed to be adjusting well.

Even so, I came back Sunday to help with the transition some more. I don't want him to think I've abandoned him like his old owner did. I'm just the favored "aunt" rather than "mommy."