meet mia

Today marks one month (four weeks, perhaps not quite an exact lunar month) since I brought home our rescued cat. We are already quite used to having her around, and making the transition from loners to pet owners has been more seamless than I imagined. The most difficult part has been choosing and sticking to a name.

After my last post about the cat, I got great feedback on names from the general public, but everyone had a different favorite name option. That's what I get for putting forth too many choices. I had hoped there would be a clear winner and we would be able to name our cat via democratic majority. That didn't work out the way I had planned.

We've been calling the cat multiple names over the past 4 weeks; we tried Neko, as in Neko Case one of our favorite musicians, but that didn't feel right coming off the tongue. Then I tried Pixie for a few days, and after that I tried Freckle. None of the names we tried seemed to match the cat's personality and presence. She is a mature 2-year-old, don't you know, so none of the kitten-y names seemed right. Every morning when I get up to feed her I call her Meow-ers, because that's what she's doing, but that doesn't cut it as a proper name in my book. It's not what I'd want to put on an ID tag or on her file at the vet's office.

One of the name possibilities that got a few votes was Maeby. This name was on our list mostly because it makes us chuckle, referencing Alia Shawkat's character on the TV show Arrested Development. Plus, it represents perfectly the process we've been going through - maybe we'll call her this, maybe we'll call her that, maybe we'll call her Maeby! And we did try calling her that for about 4 days. But it felt like I was calling out to grammatical modifiers instead of a pet: "Come here, Probably;" "Here Somewhat, Somewhat, Somewhat;" "Where are you, Kind-of-Sort-of?!" Maeby was just a little too non-committal.

So I think we've settled on Mia. It's been 3 days so far, and it doesn't yet seem like a ridiculous name. Or far-fetched, over-serious, old-lady, or arcane. Plus, in French the onomatopoeic word for what a cat says is "Miaou," and that is definitely what this cat says a lot. In an effort to finally commit to a name, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our cat, Mia.