I named my cat today.
It took a while. My girlfriend adopted a stray during the winter, and two months ago it gave birth to four kittens. Ever since they could walk I’ve been taking care of them. The idea was to give someone local the chance to adopt them, rather than take them to the SPCA.
Only one had a name straight from birth, my girlfriend’s son named one of the tabbies “Lily”. Later on I gave them all names so I could archive their photos. So tabby one was Lily, then there was Tab Two, Blondie and Tuco… the latter two are from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”.
When they got too rambunctious for my girlfriend’s shed I built them a space on my balcony. Basically I stapled chicken wire to the railings. Which worked… until my girlfriend found one of the kittens walking around the lawn, which is two storeys below my balcony.
No matter what changes I made to their cage since then, at least twice a week we’d find all four kittens walking around on the wrong side.
I actually watched them escape twice, but I also watched them make attempt after attempt. They just kept climbing until one of them found a weak spot, and then it was like watching an escape movie…
Like “The Great Escape”, for example. Where Captain Hilts, “The Cooler King”, played by Steve McQueen, kept escaping, getting caught and brought back to sit in his cell and plan his next try.
So I’ve named my little kitty “Cooler”.
Some of the almost names: Tab Two; T2; Ink; Paper (she loves to chew on paper, also she’s black, white and orange… so “black, white and read all over”); Paper Tiger; Shambhala; Lithium; Elmore (Leonard)
I think it’s a pretty awesome name. I’m thinking it’s a serious possibility for the kid.
Over the years we’ve had some pretty cool pet names…
Logan the dog, and Darwin the cat were probably the best of the bunch.
So my questions for this sacred No Post Day are:
1. What was the coolest name you, or your family, gave to one of your pets?
2. Have you ever seen a kitten fight itself inside a shoe?
Bonus points if you’ve got a funny pet story worth telling… but, just so you know, there’s no way it can beat Cooler fighting herself inside a shoe. Or running into the mirror headfirst. Or climbing the bookcase and hiding behind John le Carré… OMGshe’ssofuckingcute.
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...salted lithium. 
I called a cat Booger. I had been watching WAAAAAYYYYY too much Revenge of the Nerds for a 12 year old, but hey, no one was home and Dad thought movies were a safe outlet.
Our new kitten jumped on my head waking me up the other day. She very nearly took a little leap out the second story herself.
Other cats have been named for 20th century composers ((Iannis) Xenakis, Edgar (Varese), a God in a fantasy series (Mara) and after a specific song Leroy Brown (baddest cat in the whole damn town). The current cats were already named, as much as it pains me to yell “Sweetie! Boo Boo!” out the back door…
I had a cat named Catastrophe. 🙂
bad ass!
my sister and i named a hamster Rainbow Brite. only she called it Rainedbow Brite. Which annoyed the EFF out of me.
I have a cat called Odin, my brother named him after the Norwegian god of war, and then Orinocco, after the womble!
And yes I have seen a kitten fight itself inside a shoe, it’s hilarious!
Cutest cat moment: when my eight week old kitten escaped from her cardboard box, climbed up the back of the shelf unit and hid inside a ball of wool! So amazingly adorable! And Cooler is a class name.
Awesome. So, does this mean we have a fourth? Or perhaps “a second?” As in “nin-JAH kitten!” nin-JAH kitten v.1 is still here with me!
The first cat I ever owned (i.e. as an adult, we always had them when I was young) I called “Bala.” I decided after my second hospitalization, I needed “someone to take care of me!” That is why I got her.
Bala means “strength” in Sanskrit. I sure needed a lot of it at the time so I felt it was very appropriate.
Many people think cats are stupid. Wrong!
My sister came to visit me during another hospitalization and brought me one of those Ty stuffed animals. It was a cat! I took it home as I thought it might be a good toy for both myself and Bala.
Well, she wasn’t interested in the least!
However, a few times I would find that it had “mysteriously” moved from the living room…
One place was right to the side of the bed where I would immediately put my feet down on the floor to get out of it. The other was right in the middle of the doorway to the bathroom!
Mommy’s hospital toy being brought to her when she wasn’t feeling so well, maybe?
Hugs and kisses,
Purple nin-JAH and nin-JAH kitten
I had a cat named DUC–dreadfully ugly cat. He wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box…he scared himself silly one time fighting a dead bird!
I think falling asleep in the food bowl is about the cutest ever. The silliest is a cat we named Wrong Way (gave him away) because when he climbed out of the box for the first time, he walked backwards.
Congrats and it sounds like she will be well loved and taken care of.
An iguana named Hercules and a ferret named Pokey would have been the most interesting names of past pets. As far as interesting stories… Frank (my boyfriend) moved in with his 2 cats. Their names are Daisy and Douce-Douce. Their characters lead us to believe that they are lesbian sisters. You’d have to see it to understand what I mean.
Enjoy Cooler, but make sure your girlfriend isn’t changing the litter. The amonia in cat pee can be dangerous during pregnancy.
P.S. Although I’ve never seen a kitten fight itself inside a shoe, I have seen a cat try to beat the hell out of itself in the mirror.
Currently we have four cats: Lacie, Pepper, Silver (a.k.a. Schnizzlewhitz a.k.a. The Schnizz) and Grrrr.
Dean had two cats before we married–one was Biscuit and the other was named Velcro. I thought those were pretty cool names.
Our cats are very funny–we are constantly amused by their antics. The litterboxes aren’t funny though. They are quite depressing…
Hey, it’s been almost a week. Are you okay? I hope you’re just rockin’ with the kittens, getting some good down time, and enjoying being with the GF and her son.