Introducing Lina

Hi everybody,

This is Lina. She was one of the third-year vet students' "practice" cats, so she was just spayed on Monday. She's about 1.5 years old, skinny little thing, nice and fluffy. So far she seems to be okay in my little apartment.

She's pretty laid-back, more interested in being manja-ed than in toys. A good cat for reading or sleeping. The vet students said she was so calm that they used her to test the dogs for cat compatibility. She knows how to do her "da bian" in the litter box, no problem.

Also, she has a tail which is as long as her torso and is as silky as those electrostatic feather dusters...oooh.

The name, in case anyone's wondering, is a reference to the monster with big teeth (which used to be a woman, and has the heart of a child) that follows Curdie around in George MacDonald's "The Princess and Curdie". Steve says he'd have named her Lilith instead, but I haven't read "Lilith". The name that the animal shelter originally gave her was "Kizzy" which I wasn't too keen on.

I've wanted to have a cat for a long time but despite having worked in a vet clinic I was sort of bemused by the amount of preparation it takes to have an indoor cat here...as opposed to the Southeast Asian method of "go out in the back alley and dump a bowl of rice on the ground". The adoption application form from the animal shelter was almost as invasive as the one I had to fill out to get my US student visa.

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS BLACKMAIL PICTURE: Steve fondling my...kitty. Er, yeah, that's right...kitty!