Meet Loki

Over the year since we got Persephone, we've taken to calling her "Little." Friday night we brought home our second little, Loki. She's an eight-month old barn kitten who was rescued not long ago. And she's so adorable, to wit:


We opened the door of the pet carrier after a fairly quiet ride. She wandered out, saw Persephone and bolted for the basement where she proceeded to explore everything she could get her paws and nose on/into. She was leary of the giants, but after a time she warmed right up this "petting" business and started purring loudly. She's smaller than Percy, so we've taken to calling her "Tiny." She has bigger paws and longer limbs and tail so she's just a mess of black fur and appendages. She has a tiny fluff of white at the end of her tail and a little triangle on her chest and the rest is black as night. She's hard to find in the shadows, which is unfortunately where she's had to spend a chunk of her time because of this:


Persephone has not, shall we say, warmed to her. Her first response was of the hissing variety, only the second time she's ever hissed at any creature (the other being Chewbacca, the in-laws large chocolate lab). We didn't think they'd be all Milo & Otis in minutes or anything, but Persphone has taken to hunting the poor thing whenever she runs out of things to do. She's still being affectionate with us, except that now she knows she's not supposed to bat at Loki and scare her, so if she's in the hunting mood, she tends to run at the sight of our approach and stay well out of water-spray range. I was really upset about this cruel behavior, but I frankly admit the animal world scares the ever-loving crap out of me with its lack of moral conscience. I'm not so much with the watching crocodiles eat baby gazelles on Animal Planet. K has a better understanding of this diva-cat syndrome, and so does the rescuer from whom we got both of the cats, so we called her and have been following her advice, hoping against hope that they'll settle in to some routine where Pooper doesn't feel the need to smite her a few times a day.

All this puts into perspective the naming process. We were originally looking for a male cat to name "Loki" since he's a male god in the Norse pantheon. There were no males at the time, so we figured since she was recently spayed, it wasn't like it mattered, and hello, it's the 21st century, I'll play with myths if I like. She's living up the name in that she's inquisitive and smart, but the true cruel strategist is Persephone. Loki should really have her name with its connotation of innocence from the story of her being kidnapped into being the Queen of the Dead. Still, the names are set, and some battle lines have been drawn in our very own Clash of the Titans. They even have some fight songs - Persphone alternately hisses and meows loudly and Loki lets out this throaty and threatening roar (though she never attacks first) which sounds like an un-mufflered car ramping up (as Persephone gets closer) into a power drill whine. If it weren't so frightening to watch, the sounds they make would absolutely hysterical. The humor even shines through at moments, like when we tried to go to sleep on Saturday night only to hear the low rumble start under one corner of the bed and hissing on an opposite side. Ah, the peaceful life of the cat owner.

I really hope it works out to keep her. We've already fallen in love with her. We just don't want to wound her poor psyche for life over this, so we're keeping a close watch and letting the decision hang in the balance for a week or two. We never thought Percy would be so hardened to Diva Cat status in just a year, but she is. Let's hope she has some flexibility in her yet or we'll have to say goodbye to this tightly-packaged cuteness: