On Monday evening, Paul and I adopted this fabulous kitten “Merlin.” Here’s some video that I took of him yesterday.

He’s about ten weeks old and a bit skinny at 2.8 pounds. He’s long-haired (as I require), and he has very interesting patches of dark gray and black in his coat. You can see that in the third segment of the video.

Alas, his ear was tipped when he was neutered. (They didn’t know — or didn’t pay attention to — the fact that he was being adopted. Boo Hoo!) He’s a real love with a big purr, and he’s also very bold. He needs that assertiveness, given that he’s coming into a well-established and sometimes rambunctious menagerie.

I acquired him through my cat-loving vet, Dr. Stacy McVicker of the Overland Animal Hospital. He was dumped at the house of someone who rescues cats.

So far, Merlin is settling in very nicely Chez Hsieh. To my surprise, he has made good friends with our black and white cat Elliot very quickly. I swear, I almost caught them in some gay kitty cuddling under our bed after coming home from riding Lila yesterday. Unsurprisingly but quite hysterically, our big gray cat Oliver is utterly petrified of little Merlin. That should wear off in a few more days.

I’ve been working on introducing Merlin to the dogs — very slowly. Mae has always been friendly to cats, and she’d be happy to give Merlin a low-key sniff, then ignore him. Conrad is more excited about Merlin than he should be, but he’s been very obedient so far. Alas, Merlin must have had some run-in with dogs in his short life. He freaked out when he first saw the dogs, and he still hisses and growls when they get too close. However, he’s slowly relaxing, so I expect that we’ll have everyone off-leash and sharing space in a week or so.

Click for a larger version of these pictures. In the first row, Merlin is laying in the dog dish that holds the kitty litter scooper. (Cats are so discriminating!) In the second row, he’s laying in a glass pan in the drainboard. (Yes, that was a rule enforcement fail on my part.)