Yedi the Kedi

This might come as a shock to many of you, since I never made a formal announcement.  I never posted tummy photos.  I never compared the size of the fetus to the sizes of various fruits and vegetables.  Nonetheless, here is my “new” baby (..."new," as in adopted in May):

I am funneling 27 years of pent-up maternal energy into this cute little monster.

On a semi-related note, an airline worker actually asked if I was pregnant as I boarded a flight last May.  You have to be at least 7 months pregnant to need any kind of doctor’s clearance.  7 months = a sizeable cauliflower, or a soccer ball.  A goddamned soccer ball.  I think I deserve an award for getting in my swimsuit the next day, maybe a big cookie or something.

My new kitten has two siblings, a plain black one and a black-and-white one.  The mom is colored like mine, but the dad is all black.  The dad is probably the brawniest, most intimidating cat I’ve ever seen—the campus bully.  And he must have had a falling out with mama cat, because she is not excited about granting visitation rights.  She prefers to claw him in the face instead.

But as I move forward in life with my new feline friend, I also need to look back and pay tribute to the cat that (oops!) never ever received a blog post:

Harry, a.k.a Kits McGee

I once blogged about being lovingly attacked by a feral dog in the middle of the night, but that’s not the only time in India that I inadvertently shared my bed with a wild animal (not a metaphor, unfortunately).  One night I was sleeping at home, as per usual, when I woke to feel a small, warm, body-like object curled up next to me.  I reached for the light, saw a bright orange cat innocently looking up at me, then turned the light back off.  Meh.  I could make sense of this in the morning.

In the morning, the cat was gone… perhaps a furry figment of my imagination?  Then my roommate knocked on my door, holding the orange cat and looking slightly accusatory.  To this day, we have no idea how it got in the house, but neither of us actively kicked him out.  My roommate ended up naming him Harold/Harry, and I alternated between that and Kits… short for Kits McGee… get it?

Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

Kits is with another owner in India now.  But obviously, I’ve set a really high bar for myself as far as choosing cat names is concerned.  I thought about giving my new cat a regular Turkish name so that he knows to be proud of his heritage.  I like Turkish names because they all double as real words (think of English names like Hope or Lily).  My favorite is Evren, which means “universe.”  But I know a real human Evren, so that would not do.  Instead, in keeping with my compelling and rich pop culture references, I’m giving a nod to Seinfeld... but with a Turkish twist.

Seven, in Turkish, is Yedi. 

I thought about changing the number from 7 to 9, which is Dokuz, because cats allegedly have nine lives… but I’m coming to realize that people are generally cooler once they’ve cycled through a few lives and reinvented themselves a few times.  Cats don’t usually have that luxury, so I'm helping him out.

AND Yedi rhymes with kedi, the Turkish word for cat.

AND Yedi looks/sounds like Yeti.

I would like to say I adopted Yedi with the mentality of a true do-gooder, but it was definitely a selfish decision.  I was in it for the warm, cuddly pulse of another living creature.  I was in absolutely no way prepared to adopt a cat, as evidenced by these Google searches I conducted AFTER taking him in: 

How long do cats live? 

How long should a kitten sleep each day?

Can a kitten fake being asleep?  If so, what would its motive be?

Will cats starve themselves even if there is food around?  Will cats eat themselves to death?

I want to eat my kitten because it’s so cute.
Can kittens be manic-depressive?

Can a kitten catch a cold?

                *Say that 20 times, fast.

Over the summer, someone came to my apartment to care for Yedi a few times a week.  As was to be expected, Yedi grew a lot over the summer.  I was kind of sad about it, but my sadness kind of intrigued me.  I have never understood when mothers (as in, 75% of my female Facebook friends) lament the fact that their smallish child is growing.  Shouldn't we be biologically programmed to rejoice when a child is successfully evading all of those Oregon Trail-esque infantile diseases?  But there I was, all sad and all.  I think the key difference is that, as children get older, they're able to hold conversations and tie their own shoes and make you macaroni art.  The only thing that cats start to do as they get older is purposely make eye contact with you while they use the litter box.

Or is this just my cat?