Introducing...

...Hobbes Firefly Cooke!

The Hobbit Hole was not supposed to be home to a kitten. Although our rental agreement allowed for a cat, Aaron and I had decided that we wouldn't get one, because we do not know what the future holds, or how long we will be in one place at a time. So I put my kitty dreams on hold, and all the while Aaron was scheming.

After my vacation to California, I arrived home in Boston, waited anxiously for my luggage, and then dashed outside to see my much missed best friend. Aaron was waiting for me at the curb, and I felt very grateful to be home. As he was putting my suitcase in the trunk, I walked over to the front seat to toss in my backpack, and Aaron said, “Oh, hon, be careful!”

On the seat, inside a carrier case, was a tiny orange tabby kitten, staring up at me.

She was one of the biggest surprises in my life to date! I held the case on my lap the whole way home, getting acquainted with the newest member of our family, who revealed that she was eager to purr and curious about me and the flying world outside the window. I couldn't believe that she was mine.

Hobbes has made this table into her new bed, and she's currently been asleep there for a few hours...some kitten shenanigans are bound to go down once we fall asleep!

It is day two of kitten heaven in the Cooke household, and Hobbes is one of the friendliest cats I've ever encountered. She has an amazing ability to purr while she is attacking her toy mice or trying to climb our headboard, thunderous purrs that can be cued up instantaneously. She can scale a scratching post in a single leap and manages to look adorable even while accidentally rolling off the back of the couch.

Aaron and I are lifelong fans of Calvin & Hobbes, and we even had The Essential Calvin and Hobbes act as the guestbook at our wedding. Our guests wrote us words of advice in the margins. We’d both wanted a cat named Hobbes for years. When Aaron adopted her, he started calling her Hobbes, and of course I loved the name. Although she is a girl, Aaron knew that the original Hobbes was based on Bill Watterson’s female cat Sprite, so we were happy to give our female kitten a more masculine name.

Her middle name was a little harder to come by; we wanted a name suitably nerdy yet feminine. Firefly was one of the first middle names we tested, and although we were both drawn to it, we tried out a few more before deciding that Firefly was perfect, for several reasons. As a nod to nerd culture, Firefly is the name of the cult classic, one season, TV show that everyone who watches it loves. The name is also a throwback to a song that we both loved right after we started dating. And in an effort to be exercise the cheesy side of my brain, Firefly is perfect because she is a little light in our lives.

Our goofy, silly, crazy, girly girl.

I’m already in love, and will be researching ways to move a cat to Africa or India or across the United States or wherever we end up next. Welcome to the newest member of our little family!