Princess and Her Sister

Princess Sophie

Sister Emily

I went to the dentist for a cleaning today, and my hygenist asked me how my cats were. You know we talk about them a lot when the dental staff asks about them when we come in! It reminded me that we do indeed have the two cutest, funniest and most entertaining kittens on the planet. Sure, they might be 3 years old (as of September 9th -Happy Birthday Girls!), but they will always be our kittens. Sophie and Emily have been ours since they were about 11 weeks old, and we are so lucky that we get to be their parents! We adopted them in December 2005 from the East Bay SPCA in Oakland, and it was the best thing we've ever done. Talk about a great adoption experience - this no-kill shelter is the cream of the crop as far as we're concerned. We met our girls and were able to spend about an hour and a half in a "bonding room" playing with them and getting to see how they would behave socially. I had a fringey scarf and untied shoes for them to play with, which Sophie went for and Emily at first cowered from. If we hadn't spent all that time bonding with them, we might'nt have taken them home - we wanted 2 female siblings and didn't want to split them up. Emily was skittish from the get go, but after the time spent with her in that glorious little room, she came out of her shell. She's been my girl ever since! The shelter had them named Ariel (Sophie) and Jezebel (Emily); on the ride home I named Sophie thinking she was going to be "my" girl, and Rob was discharged with naming Emily and at first said (questioningly knowing I would reject the name, ha ha) ZuZu (maybe after ZuZu's in "It's a Wonderful Life") then immediately correcting it to Emily.

Sophie (Sophie Marie, Sophelina, Tubby Wumbles, Thug...how do these nicknames come about?) is Little Miss Princess- an orange tabby female, which are fairly uncommon from what I understand - approximately 80% of the breed are male. She never lets us forget her specialness, demanding attention, only performing little cutenesses after she makes sure you're paying attention to them. She uses the scratching post, but she has to make sure she looks at you first to show you what a good girl she's being. Sophie is also a water-loving cat! I'm not talking about drinking it - she loves to play in the water! When we lived at the old place in Milpitas, we had a leaky kitchen faucet that she liked to drink from. Stemming from this former sink disrepair, Soph thinks that all faucets are supposed to drip, and drip especially for her at her command. Whenever we are headed near the bath, she RUNS ahead, looks at us and jumps on the sink waiting for the water to be on. Then of course, the ultimate -she likes to shower with Rob! She figured how to open the shower door; she slides her claws in the little closed crevice, jiggles it until she can stick a paw in and slide it open. She gets in the shower and jumps up onto the little built-in shower seat. It's about thigh-high for us and perfect for her to sit on and have Dad get her good and soaked. She usually comes in and out of the shower three times when he's in there. Why three, you've got me. We had to hang her own towel for her! Sophie is a little thug, but so cute you can't get too mad at her antics. According to Rob, she can do no wrong. She does melt me with her cute marshmallowy belly and happy eyes.

Emmy (one of her nicknames, along with her full name Emily Louise, B, and a few other names) as you can see above is a brownish calico tortoiseshell, and the breed is naturally skittish so we knew she would be no lapcat. She is nonetheless very loving, fun to play with and a delightful girl. She LOVES her hot pink plastic golf ball with the feather sticking out of it, often toting it around the house with her tail up and dropping it at our feet so we can play fetch with her. She loves Sobe caps, and generally anything teeny she can put in front of the couch and drop so she can push it underneath. When we first realized Emily was stashing things consistently, we did a sweep under the couch and found about 30 items including Sobe caps, Mountain Dew bottlecaps, a pretzel, a Sharpie and a renegade Jelly Belly. Oh and we have to hide rubber bands because she is kind of obsessed with them.

As you can see, I love my girls.