NEVER Say Never

I'm gonna preface this entry by saying, all of you out there who are going to tell me, "I KNEW it!", well, you were right.

Short story long.

Last weekend, we had a lot of interest in The Greeks, in particular, Ares (two families). As it turned out, only one family submitted an application (for both Ares and Athena) but they were denied by Hobbes House because they have four children under the age of six As an aside, we were none too happy that we had not been informed up front that Hobbes House does not adopt kittens to families with children under six, nor, as it turns out, will they adopt (typically) to college students or people from out of state (their reasoning for this one is that if the people need to return the cat, it would be impossible of they lived out of state. Of course, one might argue the same for someone that lives in state NOW but moves away at some point!) Suffice it to say, WE think that judgement regarding each situation should be a factor, but, hey, we are not the owners of the business.

Anyway, we've had The Greeks almost six weeks now (can you believe that?) and, of the five, Ares and Athena have definitely been the ones to make themselves at home. Ares is EVERYWHERE (he thinks this is HIS house) and Athena follows me around and likes to cuddle. Both of them play well with Pete and Lily and have little fear of Lucy.

So, ya know where I'm heading with this, don't you?

Well, wait. You're going to think it was ME that went back on my word to Mr. B as I'd promised him I would not ask him if we could keep one of the fosters; this was one of the conditions for him agreeing to foster in the first place. Plus, I kept assuring anyone who asked that I would NOT get attached, that WE wouldn't get attached (I really didn't think Mr. B would).

Actually, the way it went down was, Mr. B came home last night and we got to talking about the fosters and our frustration with all the rules of who can adopt and who cannot. He said, "Well, I don't even want to take Ares tomorrow to the Thon. I'm about ready to tell them, "Here is $100 for Ares, he's staying with us and here are the other three for you to take back!"" I was a bit shocked. Mr. B wanted another cat?

I said, "Uh, what about Athena?" (thinking about how she has taken to cuddling with me in the afternoons while I am reading). He thought about this and said, "I don't think there would be that much difference between having three cats or having four cats so why don't we keep both of them".

My dear husband, I think, has officially been converted and is now a cat person :-)

I talked to Hobbes House about it and they were, of course, thrilled that we want to adopt them. They even said we'd get a discount on the adoption fee (which makes sense as we've been forking out money for them for a month and a half, anyway).

They might not be too thrilled, though, when they learn that, after we find homes for Hera and Apollo (both of us are committed to placing them), we're not going to foster again. We can't! But, hey, we agreed to try this, we knew it might not work, and now we have two more cats. Frankly, though, it feels right. Mr. B, not normally the one to say stuff like this, said, "I think those people got denied because we are supposed to have them".

As of tomorrow, Ares and Athena will officially be part of the B household. And, we're even gonna keep their names :-)

Mrs. B