Meet our new kitties, Brian Eno (he’s a tuxedo cat) and Lola (she’s a long-hair grey gal). They join Lucille and Maybellene, the 1.5 year-old female kitties Elizabeth and I saved from being killed on a farm (the farmers wouldn’t spay/neuter, yet there were new litters all the time, so they’d just…drown ‘em), and Alex’s 5-year-old boy cat David Byrne (DB walked into Alex’s life as a lil’ guy and hasn’t left).

We had no intention of getting new cats. David Byrne moved in this past August and the three cats are all still kind of getting used to each other. But we stopped into PetSmart today to pick up two things and Elizabeth and Alex made a crucial mistake: they went over to look at the cats. I make a point of not looking at dogs and cats at pet stores. It breaks my heart to see the animals stuck where they are and I just want to take them all home. So, of course, when E & A called me over to see a sweet 2-year-old cat named Lola who looked a bit like Lucy with long hair, I was doomed.

First it was looking at the cats from the outside, then it was talking to the volunteers about the cats, then it was going inside the cat holding area to meet the cats and pet them, then it was discussing conditions and volunteering and adoption procedures. While in there and playing with Lola, we met a sprightly little tuxedo kitten named Ryan. He was very playful and adorable and, we were told, just under a year old. We decided to leave the store, go get some stuff from CostCo and talk out the pros, cons and logistics of getting another cat. Removing ourselves from the heat of the moment seemed best.

It took about 20 minutes to agree that both Lola and Ryan had to be adopted. They’re both young and cute and friendly and we could give them a loving home. It would just break our hearts to leave them—and taking only one of them wasn’t even really an option. They both needed to come home. And in discussing everything, we decided that Lola had a great name that would fit in with Lucille and Maybellene, what with their names taken from rock songs (though their names are also homages to Arrested Development characters). And Ryan would need to be renamed. There’s only room for one Ryan in this house, obviously. Using LOGIC and SCIENCE, we decided we’d rename the cat Brian Eno. Brian sounds like Ryan and kitty Brian Eno looks a bit like kitty David Byrne and it seems only fitting, so he’d be renamed! We came up with all this before picking up the cats.

We adopted both Lola and Brian Eno and they’ve been adjusting pretty spectacularly (Lucy, Maybe and DB are a little slower to accept the new kids, but it’s all good). We’ve agreed we made the right decision and we’re all happy that the family has grown by two.