Yesterday was a big day

And I'm not just talking about the Saints win (although that's great too!) You see, 15 years ago yesterday, someone was born. He was a tiny someone and he couldn't see or hear yet, but soon he became stronger, bigger, sassier, and far more opinionated. Soon he became part of our family. 15 years ago, on February 7, in Spring, Texas (just North of Houston), Toytown's Ramius Houdini was born. We just call him Ramius around here. It took us a week to pick out a name for him. I wanted to name him Drake, but Mickael wanted to name him Ned. Neither name was right so we kept thinking and then one night we were watching Hunt for the Red October and Sean Connery's character was named Marko Ramius. We looked at each other and knew that his name was Ramius. We added the Houdini for his registered name because he had a tendency to appear randomly where you were pretty sure he wasn't. I'd see him downstairs, go upstairs and find him in the upstairs hall taking a bath. We've never been sure how he did that trick, but he did it a lot. We figured he was either being transported a la Star Trek or he had Houdini-like talents. The first part of his name is the cattery he was born in - Toytown Tonkinese. Random bit of mostly useless information: unlike dogs, which you can name anything as long as it's different from everything else ever registered in the AKC, cats have rules for their registration names. The first part of their name is the cattery of their birth, then comes whatever name you want (although there are some rules as to what you can and can't use here too - mostly regarding place names if I remember), then that's it if you aren't a cattery (we aren't), but if you are, then the word of is added along with the name of your cattery. For instance, if my blog was a cattery, he would be Toytown's Ramius Houdini of Pink Lemon Twist. By doing this, I can look at Ramius' pedigree and see where his ancestors were born as well as where they lived, just by looking at their names. That concludes today's lesson.

I had to use a picture from a couple weeks ago since it's pouring rain here and it's very dark - there's no way I'll get a good picture of him this morning. Happy Birthday Mr. Kitten!