Thanks for all the "welcomes"! Yeah, we love this place.
Many of you asked about Pippin, the blind kitten. He's a very special boy. We adopted him a year ago from Little Shelter Animal Rescue (Long Island, NY) when we lived in Connecticut. I had worked for them, writing grants, taking & posting web photos, advertising and fundraising, etc. Anyway, the VP, Ruth, and I became good friends and she was always on the look out for potential additions to our family. TigerTiger was also one of her suggestions - he was at the shelter for a few months and as he grew older, he would sit on the shelves in the adoption room and when people came through he would reach out with a paw and want to hug, but they wouldn't give him a second look because of his eye problem ( the "not perfect" syndrome). When she told me that story, I told my hubby and he was like "Go get that cat! Any cat that wants a hug belongs here with us!" So we got TigerTiger, who is now definately Dad's cat, and that set things up for adopting Pippin.
Ruth called when Pips was brought in - he was apparently found near a church and the priest decided that he needed to go to a shelter. Luckily he took him to Little Shelter (no-kill) cuz I don't think he would have had a chance otherwise. Pips was about 4 months old by now and she described him as the most laid back, unafraid, trusting and inquisitive little guy she had ever seen. But she said, he is completely blind. 2 seconds later, we said yes and took a chance that the other guys would help him adjust.
Little did we know that TigerTiger was going to take on the role of big brother to the max. I no sooner got Pippin home than TigerTiger was in his cage, chirping and nuzzling him, trying to get him to come out and play. After that, we didn't need to do much - TigerTiger was in charge. I don't think they were separated much for a month and just by virtue of Pippin following Tiger around, he learned all about the house, the big footed Fiona, when to eat, where to sleep and how to antagonize the older guys just for fun. He goes everywhere now and visitors to our home don't know he's blind unless we tell them.
One thing we did do was build an adaptive ramp on the cat tree - Pippin loves to climb, but can't get down very well. At 3AM, he would get stuck at the top of the tree and just meow until he woke us up to get him down. Enough of that! Jim built this ramp in the picture - its pretty cool and works like a dream.


Thanks again for all your replies.