I didn’t exactly plan on it, but…we now have a two cat household.

Meet Miles.

He was a feral cat that walked up to my friend Michael’s porch one day and seemed friendly and in want of human help. Michael and Heather started feeding him and he hung around a bit more, and ended up being very friendly and affectionate. They couldn’t keep him because they already have enough pets, but decided he needed a good home, and…here we are!

Miles came over yesterday to see if he and Muriel would get along, which we suspected might work. Miles was in his cage at first, and Muriel sniffed him, and then when there wasn’t any growling or hissing, we opened the door. Muriel walked RIGHT into the cage with him.

Since then, we’ve been working on getting him situated. He seems to enjoy being inside well enough and is doing well with the litter box. They are wrestling pretty intensely, but most of the time it seems quite harmless (I’m doing a lot of internet research.) I’m around quite a lot this week (and month, really) so it’s a good time to introduce somebody new to the household.

No cat will ever replace Mackenzie, of course (nor any dog), but it’s good for Muriel to have a friend, I think. And it’s good to have some young animals running around keeping us entertained!

Of course, I haven’t taught lessons with them both here yet. That should be interesting. But I’m sure things will settle into a routine soon enough.

I don’t know where the week went otherwise. I was teaching, doing household errands, some stuff with my band…we played at a variety of Make Music Day events.

Louie and I went on a long bike ride on Saturday—we went from St Charles to Machens on the Katy Trail, which was about 12.5 miles each way. Machens is the beginning (well, eastern terminus) of the trail, but the odd thing about it is that there is no way to really get there, except by the trail.

This was the low point of the bike ride.

Oh, and here’s just a few more cat pictures. This is officially a cat blog again, you guys!

Muriel is trying out being a backpack.

Miles trying to escape under the couch.

Oh, and he’s probably about 8 months or so old, and isn’t yet neutered, which isn’t too big of a problem, but a few things have made me want to hurry. I made an appointment for Friday…he has had his first round of shots and tests for illnesses and such though.

Wish us luck! While I still on occasion miss my old pal Oistrakh (the fatness) I’m so happy to have some new cats in my life to grow to love.  And I think that two is a good number.