Meow, meow, meow, meow

So in addition to all the Christmas shopping, Liz and I have also acquired some company in our apartment. We have adopted two six-week-old kittens that were birthed on Liz' friend's porch. Pet ownership, especially of cats, does not seem to be very common here in India; although stray animals roam freely in the streets. It some areas, these animals cause big problems. Some celebrity here (Amitabh Bachan?) needs to take up Bob Barker's crusade ("have your pets spayed or neutered") Although, I guess it would have to be "have the strays in front of your gate sterilized!" :)

But I digress. Yes, we now have two lively kittens running around our apartment. We wanted to give them good south Indian names, so we have chosen Lakshmi and Priya. Apparently, this many of our friends are shocked by this-they feel that pets should only have cutesy pet names, not real person names. For the first couple of days, we also referred to Priya as "the noisy one". She was constantly crying from the time we put her in the box to take her to the apartment to the time we let them out in the living room. She hated to be picked up and hated to be put down. It was a long night and it made me repeat my mantra ("this is why I don't want kids") over and over. :) Lakshmi was much more pliant. She reveled in the attention and was calm about being handled. However, after a few days of settling in, it seems as if the personalities have been reversed. Priya still doesn't like to be picked up, but she settles in next to you on the sofa without too much protesting. Lakshmi is now loudly demanding more and more attention, as if she has just now realized that she's not going to get to go back to her mother.

It definitely has brought more life to our apartment...especially the amount of time we have to spend cleaning up the messes!!!! UGH!!!! :)