Guest appearance by another pair of felines

This is Travis (the orangish fellow) and Fortune (the calico gal) who live at my vet's office. In this picture, they're snuggling together on a bench in the waiting room.

Travis and Fortune

I don't remember now how Travis came to live at the vet's office, but he's a wonderful constant presence there. He especially likes to hop up on the high counter, where he has an unobstructed view of everyone coming in and going out, can keep out of reach of the many canines who also are patients, and can easily solicit petting from clients waiting to pay their bills. (He also likes to sit on the office paperwork and drapes his tail across the receptionist's keyboard.) Every once in a while, Travis has to earn his keep, as he's the blood donor cat.

Fortune was an SPCA cat...from time to time, the staff go to the SPCA and pick out a few cats and dogs and bring them back to the office, knowing that customers will see them and fall in love and adopt them. Fortune was a real sweetie, but didn't get adopted. At least not right away. And it's just as well...because Travis fell in love with her!  They can often by found together in the nest in the cat tree that a grateful client donated to the clinic or like this, curled up together on a bench or chair in the feline waiting room. (The only sad part of this story is that the other resident cat, Wink, was also in love with Travis. Now he doesn't get much time from Travis at all, and because he's a fairly antisocial cat, he now stays in the back part of the clinic, supervising the human staff.)

I took Louie to the vet right before I left on my Maine vacation...he needed his annual rabies shot and exam. Much to my surprise, the vet didn't yell at Louie and me about his weight, because he's lost a pound since last year. Admittedly he's still overweight, but at least he's losing rather than continuing to gain.

Speaking of the Maine vacation, i hope to finally catch up with my blog writing this weekend. As a prelude, here i am back at home with Gingy showing me that i could easily have taken her with me. Both Fuzzy and Louie were also checking out the suitcase.

Funny story about the suitcase--it's a big blue LLBean suitcase with wheels, external pockets, leather trim, etc. When i removed the bag from the luggage carousel in the Portland, Maine, airport, two women asked me if i was sure it was my bag. I was startled...of course it was my bag! Wasn't that my bag...and my cat's fur? (Having put the suitcase on the bed to fill it, it immediately picked up a fine glaze of cat hair from the bed.) I opened the luggage tag to show them my name on it. They told me they had a bag just like it, including the cat hair! Sure enough, sometime later when i was waiting for the rental car to be brought to me, the two women came up behind me, wheeling an identical suitcase..and laughingly pointing out the cat hair on it!