The new kitten is settling in. I picked her up last night along with her hanging ball tree which she absolutely  loves. She had a pretty good night. Slept from about 10:30 until 3 AM, at which point she happily started romping around my room. She seems to like my bedroom most in the house right now. It has just the right amount of clutter and open space for her to hide and romp. The rest of the house is rather spartan and open, so she doesn't really like the large open spaces yet. The home that I adopted  her from had lots of clutter and stuff to run around, hide under, etc. I think she will be fine.

I was a bit worried about myself. This is my first pet of my own, and I went through the fairly typical thoughts, "What the hell do I think I'm doing? Do I really think I can care for another living creature? Is this really a good idea? I guess it's too late now, here goes!" I got some advice from a friend last night before I went to pick up the kitten.

First and foremost, I get out of it what I put into it. And there will be an abundance of emotion and there will be a lot of new emotions as well. Some of them might be "NOT THE COUCH!" But it will be good and emotionally building and maturing.

Next, I do not own the cat. She is her own creature, and she knows it. She does not own me, but good luck trying to convince her of that. It's going to be more of a partnership than anything else. We will give and receive from each other. And going back to the first point, I will get from it what I put into it. But I shouldn't be discouraged by things that I expect "my cat" to do, that she doesn't, or vice versa.

By the time I picked up the kitten and took her home with me. I had a fairly good idea that I was in way over my head, but it would be alright. and now, we are working on training each other. :-)