Already somewhat affectionately known as the Lion of Douglas Avenue, or the mouth that tried to bite every piece of exposed flesh, little Cletus wasted no time exploring his new home and the humans, pets and furniture to be found there. Beulah is beside herself – it’s a toy that runs and plays back! Cleo is naturally and quite understandably pissed off beyond measure. I am trying to recover from the numerous scratches and bites I got last night, and Harald is just worried about how his little girl is going to adapt to the new guy in the house. In other words, everything is perfectly normal for a new kitten’s first day at home.

Now this is the very picture of cuteness, is it not?

Awwwwwww …..

Checking out Cleo’s cat grass, another reason for her to be annoyed.

Playin’ on the pillows.

Beulah loves to lick this little kitty and, for the most part, he doesn’t seem to mind, although he did have to clean himself after one of Beulah’s lick-fests last night.

Détente on the living room rug.

Cletus playing on his grandma’s shoulder with the Kleenex.

That’s right, we are! Next Tuesday, in fact. When I took Beulah to the vet yesterday to be checked for a possible ear infection (turns out she has a nasty case of one), there was the most adorable little kitten at the vet with a sign that he was looking for a good home. He was found hiding in the roots of an Sweet Maple tree on a farm and had a bad upper respiratory infection and eye infection. The eye infection was so bad that his third eyelid had adhered to his cornea. An operation fixed that and his eye seems to be healing nicely. When I went over to check the little guy out, he was so playful and even at only 8 weeks you can tell he’s got an absolutely sparkling personality. I called Harald on my cell phone and he agreed to come by after work to check him out. Right now, his name is Simon Jr., because he looks a lot like the other cat, Simon, that has a permanent home at Gehrman Animal Hospital. All the staff have been calling him J.R. We’ll pick a new name, course, and our top two choices so far are Cletus and Tofu, though we are still searching for the perfect name for him. The vet has agreed to hold him until we get back in town next week so we will pick him up on Tuesday and bring him home and have a trial run with Cleo to see if she will accept him. We already took him out of his cage and let him play with Beulah and she was so glad to finally have a cat to play with. He was fearless with her and liked the licks and attention. So keep your fingers crossed that all goes well and we have a new addition to the ever larger brood at Douglas Avenue!

I know I have been terribly tardy about posting pics of our new puppy. She grows up so much each week and she’s now more than twice as big as when we picked her up in June. So all you puppy lovers out there, here are some more Beulah pictures taken recently.

Looking perfectly adorable and nothing but loveable.


She rarely stops moving long enough to get a good shot, but she must have been tired when this picture was taken!


Beulah trying to figure out whether going down the steps is as much of an option as going up the steps, and Cleo sitting a few steps above her – because she likes to tease Beulah into chasing her around the house, especially if Beulah isn’t paying any attention to her.