Shanks

(I guess Manchaca offended me slightly less - even though it's possibly the most egregious since A isn't a silent letter in English like an ending E might be, but at least it's 'just' a person's name that people might not know where the others are both religious and geographic/historic references.)

(Yes, the erasure is SO pernicious right now when Mexican [and other] immigrants are being scapegoated for so many problems.

My mother is an immigrant [Cuban] and my father's ancestors [in New Mexico] were colonized in the Mexican-American war, so this hits really close to home for me!)

(Oh, fuck me, white folks, that one isn't hard.)

(I feel like with that one there was maybe an attempt to pronounce it correctly and then it was like a game of Telephone over multiple generations before they landed on that? Unlike the way people pronounce "Guadalupe" in Austin which just feels like the most, "Fuck you, we're not doing this.")

A small grey-brown tabby is curled up on their side on a patchwork quilt on a blue plastic storage tote. One of her front paws is very blurry as she reaches out to the photographer.

(She says, "Hi!")

Hers lift, but wott of efurrybody else??

Wott am Comrade Gene thimking, @jortsthecat.bsky.social ??

(Forgot the link! )

bsky.app/profile/lady...

(And he seemed fine with my plan to gradually and cautiously introduce her to the others, not leave her with them unsupervised until I had a feel for their dynamics, etc. 🤷)

(Looks like I have another ambassador on my hands. She seems to be in perfect health otherwise and the vet said there's a fair chance of a false positive, but he also said at this point the only reason to run the other test was if it would affect which cats I was going to expose her to.)

(That one still makes my skin crawl.)

(Well, and I don't know about Louisiana, but from what I've seen of Haitian Creole - and my VERY limited French - it's not French. Like it's closer to French than Spanish and French are to Latin probably, but it's a noticeably different language.)

(I mean, if anybody knows anybody in the central Texas area that would be interested, I've been trying REALLY hard to not get too attached, but given my track record of being able to place even TINY adorable kittens, I'm not holding my breath.)

I'm thimk ours am stuck with she. 😤

(Refugio, if memory serves, was something like, "Re-furry-oh.")

(Oh, man, when I got my job working the high school sports desk and one of our [Hispanic] editors had to give me the rundown on all the towns with Spanish names that the locals do NOT pronounce correctly, it was painful. "Rye-o [Rio] Vista and Refugio are the ones that still haunt me.)

😹😹😹

(Debs had a pretty solid checkup today. Vet confirmed my guess that she is female, guesstimates that she is about five months old, and said she looked great. Her FIV test did come back positive, but he said there are a LOT of false positives. We can run the more sensitive test or just be careful. 🤷)

A small grey-brown tabby is curled up on their side on a patchwork quilt on a blue plastic storage tote. One of her front paws is very blurry as she reaches out to the photographer.

Goofy gorl (allechendly)

(Goofy girl [allegedly])

Unkol Quentin am wonton to meat hims new niefling!

(Uncle Quentin wants to meet his new niefling!)

(And I probably would have given up the idea of them as fosters completely and started fully integrating them into the rest of my household at least a year or so ago if I didn't have a few other cats with behavioral issues I was trying to get under control before introducing my former street boys.)

A short haired "tux tabby" with patches of white on his striped grey-brown tabby coat lies back to back on top of a green plastic storage with his fluffy black tuxedo companion.

(I think Penny [the tabby] - while probably just a Texas kitty- would make a great ambassador for how low the risk of transmission is. He is FIV+ but his husband Fogg [the tuxie] is negative, and they've lived in fairly close quarters for years now.)

(I haven't seen them with the other cats yet for quarantine purposes, but they are ridiculously friendly with me. 🤷)

I'm thimk dis Shanks am getting an new smol simpling. 😤

bsky.app/profile/lady...

(Getting some socialization time in.)

Inzactly! Plus inpurrest!

No 😤😤😤

(I was mostly trying to get to bed at that point. 🤷)

(Yes! I haven't seen any yet, but better safe than sorry!)

Thems am inside mine hows now?!

(They are inside my house now?!)

Mine hoom am jost giving an gogurt... to getting thems INSIDE!?!