Jorunn D. Newth shares the story with Love Meow:
They were abandoned in a barn by their mother, a stray. The barn belonged to a then-colleague of mine, who found the two charmers. This has happened several times, actually. Somehow his barn seems to attract pregnant kitties. He already had a cat of his own, so he sent out an e-mail request at the office asking for someone to take care of the kittens.
My husband and I had been talking about getting a cat, so I called him and asked, and he agreed that we would take one. But when I talked to my colleague he begged us to consider taking both, as he really did not want to split them up when they were so young and only had each other. Again, I talked to my husband, who at the time was much less of a cat person than I am, and somehow managed to convince him that we could take two. And we agreed that maybe when they were older we could give one of them away (but it turned out that there is no way we could stick to the agreement).
Next thing I know, two tiny furballs are staring up at me from a small cardboard box on my desk. I took them out, put my jacket on the office floor and let them look around a bit. I snapped a blurry picture of one of them with my mobile and sent it to my husband. From that point on we were both completely sold, and my husband has turned into the most devoted cat lover I've ever known.
We took them to the vet the next day, and they were determined to be somewhere between 5 and 8 weeks old. There was never more talk of giving any of the cats away, except for quite a bit of eyerolling and snorting laughs over that original agreement. The cats are very attached to each other, and we to them. One of them being without the other is an awful thought.
They may look very alike to those who don't know them, but the cats' personalities are quite different. Linus is laidback and loves to stay warm and cozy and eats most foods presented to him. Ada is a lot more tense and alert, extremely eager to go outside with us almost regardless of weather, and very picky about food. Linus goes crazy for catnip, Ada usually doesn't care much for it. Neither will come and sit on your lap, but they may well curl up next to you and hope for/expect/demand a cuddle.
Earlier this year our family grew as we adopted our son from Ethiopia, six years old when he came to us. While he was immediately ready to throw his arms around them, they were somewhat more apprehensive, and they were of course used to a lot more quiet and undivided attention around here. Over the course of a few months they have adapted very well, however; Linus is now very much a family cat, and Ada, never one for excessive socializing, now hangs around a lot, and seems to share our son's interest in animal movies on tv, at least when birds are involved.
Ada is named after Ada Lovelace and Linus after Linus Torvalds (the person who created Linux) -- yes, this is quite a geeky household. The closest Linus has come to living up to that legacy, however, is napping on my husband's laptop when it gets nice and toasty while docked. Ada has a particular fondness for stepping on keyboards and discovering hotkey combos none of us were aware of.
We are so happy we got that cardboard box four years ago!
Photos courtesy of ©Jorunn D. Newth (flickr: andedam).