I have obviously lost my mind.

The day started out so normal. Bug had a thing to do and was gone by 7am, I laid around until 8, then I had coffee with my homemade Paleo creamer! This was the first cup of coffee I'd had in three weeks, and it was lovely. Sat on the back porch in mid-60s weather, reading the paper, drinking my coffee, planning the rest of the day.

I hate grocery shopping on the weekend, but it happens that way more than not. I didn't start on my menu planning until Friday, so there was no choice that today would involve a trip to some store. Hey, while I'm out, I'll run by Hobby Lobby and pick up a few autumn accessories. Great idea.

Until we got to the shopping center and saw white tents set up. Guess what was in them? Pets from various shelters available for adoption.

Don't get ahead of me.

As we drove up, I'm saying out loud, "We do NOT need another dog. We do NOT. Do NOT ask me for another dog." By the way, this is only being said to my husband, not a child, like you might expect. I have a really good reason for this. About a month ago, we went to a home show and almost came home with a pit bull. If there hadn't been a couple already planning to take her, we'd be a family with three dogs already. So I was a little hesitant to even go in the tents.

Back up a sec: We have two dogs. Until late last year, we had three, but our oldest boxer left us suddenly. Beau is an 11-year-old boxer, and Theo is a 3-year-old Rottweiler.


Bette is the one sleeping alone - she's no longer with us.
Beau and Theo have a need to be on top of each other most of the time.

With the ground rules established, we entered the tent. A beagle, a humongous Great Dane (is there any other kind?), several pits, couple of yippy chihuahuas...hooray, we made it out without incident. Hey, what's in that other tent? Oh, cats...no risk there...

Until we met this guy. Gorgeous solid black, maybe a year old. He'd been at the shelter for about 3 months, as everyone told us. Black cats are really hard to get adopted, as everyone told us. He was purring within 3 minutes when we started petting him.

Here's Kobe, making himself at home:

Picture this guy meeting my other two guys. Beau is no newbie to cats, having tormented one in his very formative months 10 years ago. He learns fast -- two swipes with the lethal Kobe claws was pretty much all it took. Theo, on the other hand, learns the hard way. Poor baby has no idea what those claws can do, but he's about to learn. It should be an interesting few days until they come to an "understanding."

Perhaps I should ask for donations to pay for the psychiatric help I obviously need.