No two snowflakes are alike

We've been on the hunt for a name for our new cat. It's a bit like naming your band. Hard to rock out with a name like "my little pony".

Lots of names were left on the cutting room floor...

Oswald

Maurice

Grayson

Brumley

Quintin

Riley

Warren Demontague

Trevin

Tribble

Va Jay Jay

Puss puss

Gar

Brody

Duncan

Trotters

Herschel

Bartram

Whompers

Boom Boom

Possum

Mephistopheles

Thor

Dexter

Cocoa

Reggie Love (... real name of Obama's big black bodyguard)

Gunther

Eyore

Moses

Mister Meaner

CC Pounder

Dorian Gray

Donkey

Slate Smiley

Mack, Gray, Argento, Frassino, Nevar, Chollo, Deuce Bigelow, Chev Chelios, Gogo Yubari, Hank Marvin, Steve McQueen and finally "Johnny Awesome".

I was gunning hard for "Mongo" but got vetoed.

I think we're zeroing in on "Bentley" as in Snowflake Bentley. He was the first photographer of snowflakes, taking pictures of individual flakes on black velvet under a microscope in a cold room in his barn in the late 1890s. He was the first to coin the phrase, no two snowflakes are alike. He wrote rapturously about the fleeting beauty of nature. Any photos you see like this came from him. He made thousands.

It's not over yet though. Typically, cats that compete for best in show have a long name that includes the breeder's name, a given name, and the owner's name, like "PopTart's Momentary Lapse of Reason Concrete Hullabaloo."

It's strictly forbidden to include an award in the name even if it's misspelled (e.g. "Mastere"). So we're going to stick it to the man by calling him "Supreme Grand Champion Sir Keysborough Bentley Preshapotomous Kittyflake."

I insisted that we need a silent numeral somewhere in the name, like a silent seven in "Key7sborough" (just for good luck, you know?) but again, vetoed by you know who (her name rhymes with "prett2y", and I'm not talking about the cat).

New Cat

This is our new boy - we got him yesterday from the Keysborough cat shelter. He's 3 years old and his last owners moved house and "couldn't" bring him. We hoped to bring him home Saturday, but he was sneezing and had a runny eye, so the cat shelter lady told us he might have the flu, or even chlamydia, then made us hose down with antiseptic spray and banned us from playing with any more cats for the rest of the day. We left, tail between legs, in shame.

The shelter ladies said he is half Scottish Fold, but it looks like he didn't get the "fold" (folded ears) part...just the face fat, which is okay.

Here's what a purebred Scottish fold looks like:

or

awwww....

Mommy is tormenting him. Look at that fat face.

He's such a pretty cat - every hue of gray. His whiskers are dark at the roots and white on the tips. Just like mommy! A little smudge of color on his nose and mouth makes him look like he's stepping out of a black and white photo.

We're not sure what he thinks about. He seems to like to just lay around and stare at the walls a lot. Just like Mommy!

Still working on a name for him. His name was "Smokey", although we've tried everything from schmokey, the smokester, smokearooni, golden-eye smokeopolis, kiki, puss, koala bear, ghost, casper (for casper weinberger), angel paws, Bob Barker, maru-san, Chairman Meow, nothing seems to stick. Anyone have any suggestions?