Today's update

On Wednesday, my place of work was auctioning off a number of old laptops via its phpBBS. I snuck in at the last minute to snipe an auction to get myself a Toshiba Satellite 2410-S203 with a Pentium 4 1.8 GHz Processor, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard Drive, Floppy Drive, and DVDROM Drive for $150. (I then spent $50 more at Best Buy to get a Linksys wireless card for it.) I took it home, wiped its Windows XP infestation, and put Xubuntu Linux on it. Then I spent some time cleaning my room.

Last night, I finished up cleaning, while using the laptop in my room to listen to my Pandora quickmix stream—at least of the floors. There is still a lot of junk piled up on the tops of bookshelves and other surfaces, but I can get to that over the weekend. I'm really proud of the job I did, and I'm tempted to put up a Flickr photoset of how it all looks. (In fact, I probably will, when I get home.)

I'm taking the second half of today off, because I'm not going to be burning the vacation time I had intended to to hit GenCon this year. My Bengal is going to arrive at about 1:00, then my friend Sandy and I will go pick up Diva from the shelter. Then I'll have all weekend to get them acquainted with me and with each other. I can't wait to see how big Benji actually turns out to be.

This is so exciting!

Feline Progress Report

They've both been in the place for a few hours now, and they're getting to know each other. The shelter operator, who was well acquainted with Benjamin's personality, said that she would advise putting them together right away. She said she wouldn't advise it for every cat, but she knew Benji's personality, that he was all right around other cats and wouldn't fight back against a bossy female. So I went ahead and introduced them together right away (after giving Diva a while alone to calm down from her car trip).

So far there's been a lot of "talking" from Benji, a good bit of hissing from Diva, a lot of circling around and watching each other, and a very little yowling and batting. Neither of them is really doing the full-out ears-back ominous yowling that I associated with my old cat when anything invaded "her" territory—their ears are mostly forward—and whenever there is a shrieking confrontation it's only a second or so long. (There've only been about three or four of them so far.)

Benjamin seems more prone to seek "higher ground" in the disputes—on top of my bed, or on the back of the sofa. Diva likes to go under my bed and peek out from behind the blankets. So far Diva has been the mainly aggressive one, and Benjamin has mainly backed off. When Diva moves in on Benjamin, she moves in low to the ground, and Benjamin stands up on his hind legs.

Oddly, Diva is the only one who seems to be very playful at this point, even on catnip. I can't get Benji to notice a laser pointer for the life of me right now. Maybe he'll loosen up once their relationship settles down.

If I get near either one, the other gets jealous, so I'm just leaving them alone right now. I'm hopeful that soon they'll settle down to a state of detente.

And here are some photos:

Benjamin - http://flickr.com/photos/30169195@N00/sets/72157606114396483/

Diva - http://flickr.com/photos/30169195@N00/sets/72157606059566624/ (includes the ones you've seen already, plus new ones)

My Room - http://flickr.com/photos/30169195@N00/sets/72157606114396529/ (no cats in it, but it shows where they live)

Incidentally, there are three Bengal kittens in Arkansas that are going to need rescue. The shelter lady told me they'd just heard from a vet about them. Apparently a breeder's pregnant Bengal had gotten very sick, and the breeder had taken it to the vet but not been able or willing to pay for its treatment. It died giving birth, but three of the kittens from the litter survived (and are being hand-fed by the vet's people). The shelter is now looking for a way to get the kittens up from Arkansas to Mansfield, Missouri, and will presumably be offering them for adoption when they get old enough.

The rescue organization is Tender Loving Rescue.