"The only thing to fear is fear itself."

This famous quote from FDR really seems to fit my new foster group. I picked up two more kittens that need to be socialized because they had been found outside. They are younger than my current nameless kitty, only 4 weeks or so old and pretty scared.

They are two adorable little orange fluff balls. Pictures will follow in a few days after they have a chance to settle in. I have one girl and one boy. I have let my niece name the girl Arista since that is what she was dying to call the gray guy that I am running a name poll for right now. It is hard to explain to a 4 year old that a boy cat might not like the name Arista.

Arista, for those of you who are not aware, is one of Ariel's sisters in the Little Mermaid. Paige is a little mermaid freak. We have yet to name the boy, although my roommate has suggested Julius after Orange Julius.

The reason I say that the quote fits this kind of foster is because they are so terrified, but you can see in their eyes that they really want to not be afraid and be with us. They are such social creatures. All they have to do is overcome their instinctive fear and realize we mean them no harm.

Nameless kitty spent the night in my bedroom last night, much to the dismay of my own cats who had to be banished from the room for the night. He calmed down really quickly once I brought him in the room and actually was playing with a cat toy, chasing it on my bed for a while. I wanted to bring him into my room for a night because it would give him a longer period of time to be exposed to me rather than the 45 minutes twice a day he has been getting so far. I set up his bed on the far side of my room from my bed near a corner so he would have a place that he felt safe to sleep and also figured he could curl up under my childhood rocking chair like our cats do. He did that for a while when I was awake. I curled up in my bed and he curled up there and I turned out the lights.

My "bed" right now is just a mattress on the floor since my bed frame did not survive our recent move. (Actually when we went to take it apart to move it, I realized that the frame was broken and and only thing that was holding it up was the many under bed storage containers full of books I had under it so I tossed it - and kept most of the books.) I am perfectly happy with just the mattress until I find a new bed I like so I am not in a rush. Because it is just pushed up against the molding on the floor, their is often a small space in between the head of the mattress and the wall.

When I woke up in the morning and did not see him in any of the places I expected him to be, I went looking for him. I realized that although he was not brave enough to actually sleep on the bed, he did want to be closer to me and had left his hiding spot near the rocking chair for the space in between my bed and the wall. He spent all night and day there until I moved him back to the foster room to meet his new roommates.

The ironic thing is that the kitten that wants nothing to do with people suddenly became quite jealous of these new kittens being fed and touch and held by "his" person (me). He hissed at them and growled a bit and for the first time let me pet him on the back without having to scruff and swaddle him first. He was definitely staking out his territory. Oh well, I will use what ever works. The new kittens, being much younger, completely ignored him in favor of trying to figure out how to eat solid food without it going up their noses. :o)