Introducing Pam Beasley

We love dogs. Big, slobbery golden retrievers and smug wobbly pugs. Blue-eyed Huskies and energetic chocolate labs. We stop and pet them on the street. We look for dog-friendly apartments. We dogsit for Joshua's coworkers and the people I babysit, even when it means living in the suburbs for a week and pretending to be commuters. We've talked about our first dog in the same rapturous way some people talk about their first children (you should really hear us talk about our first children!)

So it is kind of hard to explain this:




Definitely not a dog.





This is Pam Beasley, a sweet one year old kitten/cat (kit? catten?)who caught our eye last weekend at PAWS, a rescue shelter here in Chicago. The fact that we even went to PAWS is entirely the fault of our friends Jessica and Jakob, who were looking for a kitten of their own. (Let's be honest, they also lured me in with visions of adorable kittens welcoming us home from school and work and I am a sucker for a nice hello). Joshua and I (the dog lovers) suddenly woke up after falling into the deep dark hole of cuteness that is the Kitten Room at PAWS, and found ourselves the proud parents of a C-A-T.

Pam is entirely a sugarplums-and-fairy-dust sweet animal. She's a rescue from a hoarding situation in Uptown, where she was found abandoned with THIRTY other cats that looked just like her (we are seriously choosing not to think about the genetic implications of that sad feline home). She spent a month at PAWS before we adopted her, which is unusual for a cat as young and as pretty as she is. Apparently, she was very shy and reclusive. But we think Pam was just biding her time before we got to her, because after only a week of salmon treats, a mouse on a string, and lots of love, she has blossomed into quite the social, attention-loving kitty. (I told this to the woman at PAWS on the phone yesterday, and in all seriousness, she GOT.CHOKED.UP.)

The reason I was talking to a woman at PAWS on the phone yesterday was because we are not just casual cat owners anymore, no, we are OB-SESSED. One of Pam's roommates at PAWS was a 12 week old all-black kitten named Hala, who wrapped Joshua right around her tiny paw. Unfortunately, right as we made the decision to adopt her, the tech decided to take her temp because she looked just a little too sleepy. Without saying a word to us, they rushed her right out of the room, into a kitty carrier and off to the vet because she was running a fever of 104.5!

It was a blessing in disguise, because with Hala mysteriously gone, we decided to adopt Pam. However Joshua couldn't stop thinking about our poor sick kitten, and he called PAWS back that day to let them know that as soon as she recovered, we would like to adopt her as a friend for Pam.

So on Thursday, right before THE OFFICE COMES BACK ON AT 8/7 CENTRAL (and Pam can watch her namesake living la vida Scranton), we will be picking up Hala. We have no idea how to have two cats, we have barely scratched the surface of what it means to have one. Hopefully, Pam and Hala get along marvelously and keep each other entertained while we are away. Less optimistically, I will be totally fine if they just ignore each other, as long as they don't turn our happy home into some sort of feline war zone.

As soon as we move into a bigger place, with a yard and room for playing and romping and animals that must do their business outdoors, we are still planning on getting a dog. We will be that family, with the two cats and the dog, and hopefully a bucket of children (small bucket, maybe like a pail) somewhere in the next ten years. And I love that.