What's in a name?

Scruffy little thing

What's in a Name?

It's not like naming a baby where you have nine months of preparing to think about names and what would be the perfect fit. You adopt a pet and you look at it and say "Hmm what does he look like?" I guess it doesn't help when you have a car full of kids yelling their first choices at you and some are just plain crazy. Sandra wanted to name the poor thing 'Neil Patrick Harris', like Sigmund Freud wasn't enough of a mouthful. Roger jr. wanted to name him 'Speed Racer', which at the time seemed inappropriate since he was so calm and sweet (if we only knew what he would be like after nap time!). Of course my favorite thing at the time was Twilight and I knew that if I had gotten a girl kitten I would have named it Bella but this was a boy. I considered the boys names in Twilight. Edward- definitely not. Ed's a nice vampire and all but come on, a kitten? Since I'm not really one for the wolves it had to be a vampire so the only one that made sense was Jasper. He is my favorite anyway. Jenny was thrilled but the two older ones were holding tight to the NPH and Speed Racer.

Roger jr. with Speed Racer

In the nearly two years that we've had Jasper he has been called a lot of things.  Fortunately, Neil Patrick Harris never stuck. Speed Racer however, is the only thing Roger jr. will still call him. We haven't had a kitten around the house before this since 1999 when Molly had those mutant food-stealing bastard kittens, so I guess we all forgot just how much trouble kittens can get into, so 'Trouble' or 'Troublemaker' became another name we (not so) lovingly referred to him as. His stocking even says 'Jasper, aka Trouble'. 

Beauty and the Beast

Another name that poor Jasper had to endure was 'Beast'. This was Sandra's invention. She says this is because "he's a beast" and I guess if you know him you will understand. This led to many a "Oh beasts"  in an 'oh poor baby' kind of tone being said around the house for more than a year. It also led to the implementing of a new law called the 'no beasting' law. It is still in effect to this day. 

Another thing this poor cat has had to endure is the whole Rafiki on pride rock move. The kids, and I'm sure this was Sandra's idea, like to call him Simba and hold him up in the air like Rafiki showing Simba to the whole animal kingdom. Of course this led to poor Molly becoming Scar. Not that she doesn't deserve to be the villain. She hates Jasper even more than Scar hated Simba. 


Sandra of course gave Jasper another one of his nicknames, Kamir, or Kamir-and-he-likes-it. As if 'Oh Beast' wasn't bad enough now we had to listen to 'Oh Kamir' and "His name is Kamir and he likes it" about 50 times a day. 

I think however the very best nickname Jasper has been stuck with is the one that clearly fits him best- Dummy. Since he is certainly the world's dumbest cat, Dummy is the perfect nickname for him. 


Though this certainly isn't all of the things people call this poor cat, nicknames seem to change weekly, I'm sure new names will continue to be thought up. I am confident however that choosing Jasper as his actual name was the best choice.


Neil Patrick Harris? Seriously?

Welcome Home Jasper

Welcome Home Jasper

May 10, 2010

What's the best Mother's day present in the world (besides maybe a spotlessly clean house and well behaved children who shower you with love and presents)? A furry baby kitten!

I searched the internet for just the right kitten, which was strangely difficult. There didn't seem to be a lot of people with orange kittens available. I found a couple rescue organizations that brought the animals to local pet supply stores on weekends so when Roger asked me what I wanted to do on Mother's day, that's what I suggested. He wasn't to keen on the idea of getting another cat but hey it was Mother's day!

On the way home

The very first place we went, a Pet Smart in New Brunswick was supposed to have a litter of orange kittens. Unfortunately, all but one had already been adopted. They did have some other adorable gray fuzzy kittens but there's just something about an orange kitten. About a hundred dollars later we were in the car with our fuzzy little sleepyhead. It must have been his nap time because he was very calm and quiet the whole way. 

If we only knew then what we know now.

From the very first time I picked Jasper up, which was in the store and I guess I wasn't supposed to because the rescue lady nearly yelled at me, he was part of the family. He didn't need any adjustment time at all. He just took right to us and knew he was going home.