World, I’d like to introduce you to Cyrus, Cy for short.  I’ll just start by saying that if you told me this morning that I’d be coming home with a 10 week old kitten barely bigger than my foot, I would have crawled back into my bed, buried my face in my pillow and screamed, “TOMATOES!  NOOOO!  I’m going to buy tomato plants!”  Life is funny with its twists and turns.

We’re going to have to keep this necklace on Sydney to tell them apart.  There is also that 13 lb weight difference that also is a key indicator between our twins.

The girls and I drove up to my hometown today, and after much ballyhoo’ing on my school’s playground, we headed over to my favorite Pet & Garden Center, because I seriously cannot put off my garden one more day.  When the torrential rains stopped, we woke up to 2 weeks of 95 degree days.  It’s INSANE here, and ain’t nobody planting anything.  If you like corn or tomatoes, I’m warning you: Indiana isn’t growing a whole lot of anything this year, and it’s going to be slim pickings when harvest comes.  As we drove up to the store that I swear hasn’t changed a bit in 30 years, I said, “You know what girls?  I bought my first pets here exactly 30 years ago: Tico and Taco, the world’s worst hamsters.”  And at that moment, I sealed my fate.

As I innocently wheeled my wagon around, filling it up with $5 fully grown tomato plants (I love shopping in my hometown), the girls came running to me, “They have a kitten!  And mice!  And guinea pigs! And a kitten!!”  If I had a nickel for every time the girls (and Greg) have pulled my arms to see kittens, I’d be rich.  Maybe not rich, but I could have my own light up tennis shoes.  Why should the kids have all the fun?  And there, with every ounce of his being pressed like a wild furball against the glass trying to get our attention, was a miniature Sydney.  My heart chimed that song it sings when you just KNOW something is true, and I picked him up, and groaned, “Oh no.  OH NO.”  Sara left the store in tears, not because she didn’t have the kitten, but because he was all alone in a big room.  All of his siblings were adopted weeks ago.  My hometown Pet & Garden Center isn’t really a formal pet store.  It’s a gardening store that sells pet food, and has pets on occasion, when the adoption need arises.  The kitten space is not a cage at all, but a lovely, brightly lit room.  They have an entire staff person to care for their small menagerie of animals…SO, as you can SEE, I should have been able to WALK AWAY.

But here’s the thing: I believe in signs.  I knew that kitten was a good egg.  He purred all over the girls the second they held him.  I left my card and went for ice cream.  I called Greg, who immediately said, “Just get the kitten.  Just buy it!  You know I don’t care.” Over ice cream, with my non-pet Mother telling me to go get the kitten, I asked the girls what we should name the cat.  With old man cat names like Syd and Max, I thought maybe we should stick with our unintended “Old Men Feeding Birds In the Park” theme.  Ira?  No, we all agreed, that human name just doesn’t make the feline jump.  CYRUS. It took us less than 30 seconds to land on it.  YES!  We all yelled!  YES!  CYRUS!  Syd and Cy.  And Max The Wonder Cat (who for now will probably be called, “The Cat Who Is Very Pissed Off”).

We licked our ice cream as fast as we could and drove back to the store, and we bought a cat who looks exactly like Sydney the day we bought her home, at the exact age when we brought Sydney home, for exactly the same price we paid for Sydney, from the store where I bought my first pet 30 years ago.  Cyrus was my Great Grandfather, and while I did not know him, I’ve heard he was a great old man indeed.  If you are looking for the girls, you’ll find them with their rears in the air, chasing this poor creature through every nook and cranny of the house:

Here’s the thing, I’m really not a pet person, and I’m certainly NOT a 3 cat person.  I never knew I’d be a Mother of Daughters kind of person.  I’ve never been a plant tomatoes kind of gal.  But here I am, a Stay At Home Mom with 2 girls, 3 cats, and a minivan full of tomato plants (hearing the thud of my old work colleagues falling out of their chairs). Life is funny with its twists and turns.  I took one look at that kitten and thought, “Oh heck, the house is already a wreck.  Nothing looks like I planned anyway.  It’s actually better, so I think I’ll roll with it.  Excuse me? Sir?  We’ll be taking the cat, and in case you wondered, his name is Cyrus Johnson.”  (Followed by the sound of the lady who probably sold me those crazy hamsters, “I LOVE THAT NAME!  He IS Cyrus.”)  Welcome home Cy, please ignore the other cats for a while.  They’ll warm up to you once they realize I adopted a BABY for them to share!