.
Marianne claimed her Christmas present this morning: an exquisite gem of a freshly spayed Bengal cat. There she is, above. She's been wandering about our house examining everything and taking the occasional break to disappear into a closet and sleep.
She's very small and very beautiful.
It's been a long time since we've had a female cat in this house and that will take some getting used to. Plus we've never had a small cat in our house and Bengals are only generations divorced from the wild, so the next few months will be a voyage of discovery for us.
You'll be getting posts whenever I manage to take a good picture of her. Which is to say, not all that often.
And her name?
Those with weak stomaches may very well want to leave the theater now . . .
Marianne and I told our son Sean that we needed a name for a beautiful female cat and expressed a preference for something literary.
"That's easy," he said. "Name her Hope Mirrlees."
Which was almost perfect. Its only shortcoming was that it wasn't a pun. So, on reflection, we decided that the newest member of our family would be called: Miss Helen Hope Mrrlees. With the accent on the mrr.
Above: That's Hopie herself. The picture gives you only the faintest idea of how lovely she is.
*
Congratulations. Bengals are special, and she is quite beautiful.
ReplyDeleteTruly the Cadillac of feline companions!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous! The pressure to replace my own dear departed becomes that little bit stronger.
ReplyDelete> So, on reflection, we decided that the newest member of our family would be called: Miss Helen Hope Mrrlees. With the accent on the mrr.
The pun meets appropriate horribleness requirements - but isn't that pretty much the correct pronunciation anyway? Also, Hope is an excellent name.
And on pronunciation - I was fortunate enough to have a nice chat with Robert Silverberg at the worldcon this year and he said that you would pronounce the second 'W' in your last name, at which point I made grumpy noises about Americans and their phonetic pronunciation. Is this in fact the case?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMatthew -
ReplyDelete> Phonetic pronunciation would be pronunciation conforming to pronunciation?
Phonetic - in this case an acknowledgment that American pronunciation often does make more sense, and a hint that you shouldn't take my post as seriously as you perhaps did :)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete