In , "Lotte"
wrote:

| About a year ago, through a series of bizarre events, a young male
| kitten came to live with us [...] then, through ANOTHER series of
| bizarre events, a young female came to live with us [...]

Heh. All of my cats were "unplanned" too: the first adopted me, and the
others came as (indirect) consequences of my work with ferals.

| [...] I have decided I will always have three (indoor, as opposed
| to the ferals I look after outdoors) cats. It's the perfect number.

I don't think there is a perfect number. When I had one cat (Scruffy),
getting another seemed like the right thing to do.

But the second cat (Sally) was not a companion - she was a "forced
socialization" case, a feral without a colony. Eventually I adopted her
out to the person who had originally wanted to take her.

The next one wasn't a cat, but a kitten (Phoenix). If we had done our
work properly and caught his mother early enough, he would never have
happened, but as usual things didn't go according to plan. We all but
killed him as a baby, and then left him too long in the streets. We
"owed" him. I took him, even though a kitten was probably the worst
choice for Scruffy who was by then confirmed to have CRF. It worked
well though, loner cat and loner kitten.

But then, it was clear that I needed another cat closer to Phoenix in
age. I had two potentials lined up, except, Lucas' case reached a
crisis. The person who had taken on his socialization gave up after two
months and decided to send him to a feral cat sanctuary. I took him on
the day he was to be shipped off.

Three became five when I got involved in stabilizing a colony at a local
church and found myself fostering (and socializing) two feral kittens.
I found a home for them (whew!) but then, a few months later, Marie came
to live with me - her guardian's circumstances changed drastically, and
the only job he could find was abroad.

So now I have four, and Phoenix finally has someone his own age in the
house. One thing they all have in common, though, is that each one of
them had walked into a trap set by me. (You trap 'em, you keep 'em??)

| Perhaps you could adopt a pair that would provide entertainement for
| your old girl,

That's a good idea, I think.