Employee No. 2 and I were very grateful for all of the expressions of support when we lost our Chigger. We still miss our boy terribly, not to mention his brother Ray, but life must go on.
We began our search for new kitties almost immediately, contacting the local pet rescue agencies and completing their applications. That's where it got a bit interesting because, unbeknownst to me, Theresa has been following Beth Stern's Instagram page for years. Beth Stern, nee Ostrosky, will be known to most as the wife of Howard Stern, but her dedication to four-legged creatures is the real deal. From Rolling Stone Magazine:
Stern began working with the Animal League fifteen years ago, when she was working as a model and was asked if she could do a runway show at the organization’s annual luncheon. Shedidn’t leave until every puppy was adopted. “They recognized my passion for it, and I started volunteering and going to the shelter,” she says. “And then came out that I was Howard Stern’s girlfriend at the time.” From there, she began doing television appearances and became the organization’s spokesperson.The Sterns, who married in 2008, have been fostering cats in their Long Island home for five years. “It’s really my purpose in life,” Beth says, noting that almost a thousand cats have come and gone through their house — roughly 200 a year. “I wonder if I had all thousand cats and kittens right now in one room, would I be able to figure out who was who?” she wonders. “I think I would be able to.”
There's lots of interest in that interview for pet lovers, but the coup was placing her kitties with the hubby in the cover photo:
Ironically, one of the subjects Beth discusses is dealing with the Howard Stern fans pretending to be pet lovers. In our case, Howard is a bit of a negative, though watching him with her kitties does at least make us keep an open mind.
Theresa's respect for the work Beth does was unknown to me, another instance where the husband is the last to know. Beth places some very troubled cats, and Theresa has long followed and admired that process, as well as the obvious love that she showers on her wards. I had no objection to adopting from Beth, I just worried that the queue would have thousands in line in front of us, which fortunately turned out to not be the case.
Neither the bride nor I are social media tyrpes, but Beth's use of Instagram is pretty compelling. For instance, this might have been the first posting of our boys on Beth's Insty account:
Who could resist, right? Then came this one, and if viewed the post on Instagram, you'd see that the bride told Beth we'd love to adopt them.
That got a fairly quick response from Beth's assistant Cindy, whereupon the process started that resulted in our expanded family. We were in limbo for a few days, assuming the worst, but the call finally came last Wednesday, which just happened to be the day they were spayed (and that this adorable video was posted:
But the post that really tugged at our heartstrings was this that popped up on Theresa's phone on Saturday night:
That's our cue... And this from the drop-off
The orders came from Cindy to set up an Instagram account for the boys, which Theresa fumbled her way through, and to tag the account back to Beth (I think that's the term the kids use). That put us in Beth's ecosystem, and our boy's Instagram account, which as of a couple of hours ago has its first post, has 2,580 followers.... I personally know at least two of those.
Theresa and I are absolutely over the moon about our boys. We've watched them get over their initial fear of their new circumstances, and become increasingly affectionate on an hourly basis. They loved each other from the beginning, that was apparent in Beth's posts, but they're now comfortable allowing us to pick them up and pet them, and we just allowed them their first exploration outside the back bedroom in which they have been situated since their arrival.
Here is that first post, video that Theresa captured:
And a few snaps:
First, Napoleon's original hiding place:
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