WARNING: This post contains nothing about food, but does contain extremely cute kittens. If you hate kittens and/or cuteness, you are advised to stop reading now and come back for a food-related post in a couple of days.

I was pretty devastated when Brachtune died. It was even harder than when Tigger died because suddenly there were no cats in the house. And I just can’t stand a pet-less house. It felt so lonely and depressing here. Mark wanted to look for cats right away, but I figured it was best and easiest to just wait until we got back from our mini-vacation in Charleston last week. I caved, though, and did look at the SPCA NoVA website. A couple of siblings caught my eye; I had a feeling about them. I looked at their pictures all day, then at the end of the day showed them to Mark, who said he’d seen those two as well and thought they looked perfect for us but wasn’t sure if I were really ready, so he hadn’t pointed them out to me. So I emailed the SPCA about them and soon we had an appointment to meet them at their foster parents’ house the day after we returned from our vacation. And yesterday morning we brought them home.

Meet Gomez …

… and Torticia.

(For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Addams Family, Torticia’s name is a bit of a pun. In The Addams Family, Gomez’s wife is Morticia. But our sweet kitty doesn’t look anything like a Morticia. She is, however, a tortoiseshell, commonly referred to as a “tortie”, so Mark came up with Torticia, which seemed more fitting.)

They are three months old, adjusting very rapidly to their new home, and just the most playful, affectionate, sweet, wonderful, darling, gorgeous, entertaining, lovely, and downright AWESOME kittens in the world. We are head over heels in love with them. Gomez is a bit more reticent than his sister, but once Torticia gets going, Gomez is compelled to join in. Torticia, on the other hand, is a wild woman: she’s brave, curious, and extremely playful, but also loving and affectionate. This was taken just a few hours after she got here:

Torticia seems like she might become my kitchen helper, like Tigger used to be. She likes sitting on the counter watching me.

Gomez comes when I call him, looking for pets. The second I start to pet him, he starts purring loudly. (Actually, they both do that.)

Tigger and Brachtune never really got along, unfortunately. At best they tolerated each other. It was an extremely rare treat to find them curled up near each other – MAYBE touching if Tigger was sound asleep and oblivious – that happened only when it was very cold outside. Otherwise, Tigger wouldn’t let Brachtune remain on the same piece of furniture as him. So it’s a real treat to have sibling kittens who actually love each other.

Please ignore the state of our cat tree (which Tigger destroyed), but these pictures were too cute not to share. I want to get them a new cat tree ASAP, but they simply love this raggedy old one (and now Mark says I can’t get rid of it even if we get a new one).

Gomez has long been on our list of cat names because not only have I loved the Addams Family since I was little, but just thinking of Gomez (from the original TV series) makes me laugh. Here’s a Gomez pumpkin I carved a few years ago (can you see Tigger and Brachtune in this picture?):

And here are Mark and me dressed as Pugsley and Wednesday Addams for Halloween.

Yeah, these were the right cats for us. We’re going to have a long, happy life together. And you guys are going to be subjected to a LOT of pictures!