After spending some time with the Little One, I decided she needed a better name. I wanted her name to have alliteration so I wanted it to start with an S. A friend dug through an Italian verb book and found the word sosta, a noun for stopover.  Since she used to stop over at my patio every night, it was perfect. It was easy to add Themis (in honor of Zeta Tau Alpha) as her middle name. Sosta, Sosta T., and Sosta Themis all had a nice ring to them.

There was another benefit. She has never responded to “here kitty kitty…” but has always been responsive to a “pss pss pss” sound.

To get her used to her name, I’d whisper it over and over while she was drifting off to sleep. “Sooooo-sssssta” went the lullaby.

It always amazed her Grand-pa-pa (her nick name for my dad) that she liked the “pss pss pss” sound and didn’t care for “here kitty kitty…” Of course, at that time in life, he’d never had a cat. He used to hate them, even. He would have much to learn from the Little One named Sosta.