My name is Elwood. That is the name my humans gave me; the name my mother gave me cannot be pronounced by humans. My brother Jake and I are beautiful all-white cats. I am a bit taller than Jake and my tail is more impressive, but we are truly spectacular felines.
My first memory is of being taken from my mother and put in a shelter cage with Jake. It was small but clean. They fed us and petted us, and every now and then we went to another place were lots of humans could look at us and hold us. That's how we acquired our present humans.
The day we arrived at our new home there was a big thing in the corner decorated with lots of toys. It looked a lot like a tree, but didn't smell or feel like a tree. Every time we took one of the toys off the tree we were told "no" - I don't know why they put toys out if we aren't supposed to take them and play with them. There are other cats, too. Jake is especially fond of Midget - actually, he goes on and on about how beautiful her whiskers and tail are, till I am sick of hearing about it. I must admit Midget is very nice, though.
There is another black and white cat named Dana - she was pretty bossy at first, and tried to push us around a lot, but seems to have accepted us. Occasionally Jake gets mad at her and wants me to figure out how to light the stove - he thinks we should burn the witch. No thumbs, though.
The orange cat named Mandy hates us with a passion. She is always growling at us, even when we aren't doing anything. Mama says her face will freeze that way. The other white cat, Alexis, is crazy. Just plain nuts, but harmless. And then there is Lorelei, who is terribly shy but is trying to learn how to play with us. She cries a lot and says she wants Katmandu.
We have lots of nice food, just not enough. Seriously - who can get by on half a can of cat food a day and unlimited dry food? We have nice filtered water, too, not that nasty smelling and tasting stuff at the shelter. And LOTS of clean litter boxes. Our humans use different litter boxes in different rooms than ours. They are full of water, and after the humans use it the water disappears; it's a lot of fun to watch. And we get cuddled a LOT. That's really nice. I especially like the tummy rubs and chin rubs.
Jake and I are gradually learning the language of our humans. Sometimes they punctuate their speech with a squirt bottle of water, but we are trying to break them of that habit. I have learned a lot of words I don't really know the meaning of, like "violin factory" and "Chinese restaurant". Mostly we hear these words when we are exploring the counter in the kitchen or sharpening on the couch. Really, how can anyone expect us to walk all the way to the sharpening post every time the urge strikes? Mama gets pretty mad when we eat the houseplants, too, but why put out a buffet if it's off limits?
About the third day we were at our new home Jake and I discovered that it is really big - lots of room to run. We had not been able to run at all in the shelter, we were always in that little cage. We can really get up some speed here. A few nights ago I was stretching my legs and going for a new speed record. When I went over one end table I accidentally knocked some stuff off. Mama was really upset, used the word "irreplaceable" and cried. I have tried to be very good since then - at least when she can see me.
There is this toy we like that the humans call a "cricket". It makes a small dot on everything, and we get to chase it. Try as we might, we never actually catch it. Someday....
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