Welcome to the family Isobel MacIsaac

 

There's just something about a cat, y'know?

Soft, curious, snuggly, cozy; a cat roaming around an earthy homestead just makes my heart warm. It makes me think of folded up quilts, crocheted blankets, hot liquids (what I call hot beverages like tea, coffee and cacao). 

Peaceful. 

I've wanted a cat of my own ever since I can remember, but I always feared having a cat would put me in a difficult position with renting: what would happen if all of the sudden I needed to move but I couldn't find a place that was pet friendly in the already saturated city (where it's getting increasingly difficult to find an affordable rental let alone one that allows some form of pet)? I mean obviously I'd just live in my car or figure it out but still, I wasn't ready for that type of variable!

We weren't planning for a pet just yet, I wasn't even visualizing one in my mind's eye, it all just sort of happened, like it was meant to be. 

A cleaning client of mine fosters kittens, and she just so happened to be fostering an older kitten who couldn't find a home. This kitten, originally named "Salty" and later "Marie" was sent to home after home, living the transient life presumably searching for her forever family. Each family who took her in for short periods of time (if I'm understanding her story correctly) weren't actually looking for a cat, but were taking her in to try and be helpful. Their home lives were already quite full with toddlers and already established pets and I guess Marie was causing chaos trying to fit in, and so, she would be sent back to my client's home over and over. After many failed attempts my client decided to just keep her in her home where her two cats were not quite loving the idea of a new fur sister either. 

I showed up to work one day after having met Marie once before thinking all of the sudden "I love this cat I want to take her home" not knowing her story, and so, I asked what her situation was and my client filled me in. I messaged Jon, told him about my newfound love for this cat and he said "bring her home". I thought he must be messing with me since he's deathly allergic, and turns out he was actually quite serious. Within twenty minutes my client had her stuff all packed up for a trial run hoping to give her two cats some reprieve. I had been fully supplied with everything we would need, she spent the night and because my middle name is also Marie, we changed her name to Isobel and haven't looked back. We've had her for two  months now and it's gotten a little bit ridiculous how obsessed with her we are, she's definitely found her forever family, and when Jon sneezes we take care to assure her it's not her fault. 

We chose the name Isobel for two reasons. One being it was surprisingly pretty difficult for Jon and I to find a name we both liked (and Isobel was one of the few) as well as it's a Scottish name which I feel was a nice way to honour our Scottish heritage (who knows what Isobel's heritage is: she's a TNR kitty where this group finds feral cats, fixes them and sends them back into the wild but takes any kittens to be domesticated).   

And that my friends, is the story of how two became three. Welcome to the family Isobel!

Natasha MacIsaac