Mr. Hawthorne

Last year as I began to move down to Champaign, I thought I was going to have a roommate by a certain name.  Things came about that changed that plan and I found myself in an apartment I would never have chosen to live in alone.  After a few weeks, I got tired of being alone and glanced at my finances only enough to see that I could (barely) afford to adopt a kitten.  I began trolling the Humane Society website and, logically, told myself I couldn't adopt anyone until I'd met them.

I called three friends and my mother to get them to talk me out of going to hold kittens alone.  None of them picked up.

I saw some adorable ginger kittens, but the brothers were to be adopted as a pair and I wasn't quite prepared for that.  So I stuck my finger into cages, tapped little damp noses, and saw this owly face peering at me from his own cage in the corner.  I asked to take him out and hang out with him in the "Meet and Greet" room.

The day I met him and all my friends failed to keep me from the Humane Society.

As soon as the door closed, he looked up at me and climbed onto my shoulder and perched there.  He was about 3lbs and soft as can be.  I snapped a picture on my phone and asked some friends if I should get him.

He's always been a snugglebug.

I did get him to come down to see if he wanted to play with some of the toys in the room, but he preferred my lap.  I was hooked.

This lap is MY lap.

I brought him home a week later and he was still as snuggly as he was at the shelter.

Cat Model, if I do say so myself.

Definitely got into the spirit of Halloween.

Little baby likes to play with his feet.

A fellow book lover.  Adorable, until he tries to eat them.

He has since gotten much bigger, but there are many stories to chronicle his growth.  And, of course, many more photos.

Quietly, quietly I step forward.

Many things have happened in the past year.  Many distractions, many sadnesses, many adventures.  To tell them all would take a year, a year I have already spent.

Whoops.

A short history I suppose would be fair.  Since moving to Champaign, IL, I have worked:

1) At a used bookstore.
2) At a coffee shop.
3) At a book and paper conservation lab.
4) At the Residence Hall Libraries.

While I do love coffee and I do love books, new and used, those were much less enjoyable experiences than I would have ever guessed.  I wanted to do more for the bookstore, help with inventory, do major re-organizing, but alas.  They said it was too much work.  Which was precisely why I wanted to do it.  The store was in dire need of work but they simply pushed it off saying they didn't have the time.

The coffee shop, while an excellent source of free coffee also resulted in smelling like coffee all the time.  Not my favorite thing.  And wearing a headset while trying to talk to people is just plain awful.  My sympathies go out to all drive-thru workers.

Oh!   And I got a kitten now cat.  Perhaps a retrospective on him later.