Introducing Phoebe

As most of you know, Kim and I recently lost our beloved kitty Zeus. We both knew we wanted to eventually adopt a new kitty, but weren't sure when we would be ready. We decided that when we were ready, we would want to adopt another Siamese like Zeus, so Kim decided to keep an eye on the local pet adoption web sites in case any Siamese cats showed up. Recently, a cute 2 year old chocolate point female named "Sassy" appeared. She first showed up on the site on a Saturday afternoon, but the shelter was already closed and was not going to re-open until the following Tuesday at 2pm. We talked about it all weekend and decided to go over and visit her when the shelter opened, and we arranged to take half-days off to get there when it opened.

We got there, and were first in line to see her. They set up a visiting room and we got to spend time with her to see her personality and see if it would be a fit. After about 30 minutes of visiting, she curled up on Kim's lap and rolled over to get her belly scratched and we were officially smitten and brought her home. It is fortunate that we decided to get there when the shelter opened because there were a couple of other families who stopped by while we were there specifically to visit her.

Our next step was to come up with a name. We decided to stick with the Greek mythology theme started with Zeus. After some online research by Kim, we found a winner - Phoebe. Most people know her as one of the characters on Friends, but we chose it because she is one of the (many) children of Zeus in mythology. Here is some more information about the Greek goddess Phoebe:

Phoebe. Greek Goddess of Wild Things, Hunter-in-Chief. Phoebe, in Greek mythology, one of the principal goddesses. She was the daughter of the god Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of the god Apollo. She was chief hunter to the gods and goddess of hunting and of wild animals, especially bears. Phoebe was also the goddess of childbirth, of nature, and of the harvest. As the moon goddess, she was sometimes identified with the goddesses Selene and Hecate.

Since she is a chocolate point, Phoebe looks a lot like Zeus at first glance. Up close, though, she has a different shape to her face and she definitely has her own personality, partially because she's a female whereas Zeus was a male. For the first couple of weeks, she didn't talk at all - which is very unusual for a Siamese, and very strange for us after Zeus. Since then, she's come out of her shell a bit and talks to us from time to time. She came to us from the shelter with a cold, which affected her energy and personality a bit. Since she got over the cold, she's become a lot more playful and active. One night recently, she climbed into the toy basket and dumped the entire basket over and scattered the toys around the TV room.

Phoebe doesn't sleep on my chest like Zeus, but she does hop up on our laps while we're watching TV to get petted, and she loves belly rubs and doesn't bite or claw at all. We have also found our first Phoebe-ism - when she is sitting on our lap and we're petting her and momentarily stop, she will look us in the eye and tap one of our hands with her paw to tell us that we need to start petting her again. Her expression reminds us of Puss-N-Boots' eyes in the Shrek movies.

Here is a picture of Phoebe curled up sleeping on our bed the other night: