Welcome Tiberius

Since the disappearance of Lyric, our family has been short a kitty and feeling it, so we decided it is time to get a new cat. After looking around a bit, we found the one for us, and he is, I am convinced, the cutest kitten of all time. He's sitting on my lap and playing with the tie to my pajama pants as I write this.

He's just two months old and cycles rather rapidly from super energetic/playful to super sleepy/cuddly. He's a longhair seal point of some sort with blue eyes and little lynx tufts at the tips of his ears. And he has the tiniest little meow and purr. He's adorable. I'll get some pictures of him up here sometime if I can ever figure out how to get pictures to the computer from my phone (my only camera) (I spent at least an hour trying to do that back on the post about Lyric missing, as I have some great pictures of Lyric there, but it ended with no fruit and a lot of tears).

We named our new kitty Tiberius after discussing a number of Roman names (to match our other cat, Julius). ("I like Tiberius." Tiberius was not a popular emporer. What a moody guy." "Well at least it's better than Caligula or something." "Whatever, Tiberius practically made Caligula into what he was, killing his whole family and introducing him to a world of decadence and vice at a very early age." "He wasn't all bad, though.") We liked the ring to it, and decided he's named after James Tiberius Kirk, rather than Tiberius the Roman emperor because Captain Kirk is a better man than Tiberius was. The deal was sealed by making his full name Tiberius Kirk Kelley. My brother-in-law Tylor lives with us, so they are Big Ty and Little Ty. Tiberius also answers to Tae Bo.

Julius has moved from hatred to annoyance to tolerance of Tiberius in the few days we've had him, so we hope that the chain will continue from tolerance to acceptance to friendship. He didn't get along with Lyric for the first week or so that we had him, but they soon after became good pals, so we expect that will be the same story here. When Tiberius first met Julius, he immediately ran up and nuzzled the heck out of Julius' legs (most likely Tiberius hasn't dealt with cats that aren't his littermates before, so he probably expected all cats to be nice) which was so cute except that Julius hissed and swatted at him in return. Tiberius now struggles with his desire for Julius' affection and his fear of him. He'll follow Julius all over the house, but will turn and run when Julius notices. Yesterday, though, there were a few very cute minutes when Tiberius decided that Julius' tail would be a fun thing to pounce on repeatedly and Julius just lay there contentedly taking it, so I expect things will be just fine in their relationship.

Speaking of those quick cycles, the kitty who was playing with my pants tie and who I couldn't keep off the keyboard when I started writing this is now sleeping in my lap. Man, he's so fluffy and tiny. I love him.