I got a cat today

My latest scans did not indicate that I'll be dead in a year, so I went ahead and said yes to getting the cat I'd seen at an animal shelter last week.
His name is Raymond. Despite my recent good news, my odds are still long enough that I knew it'd be foolish to get a kitten or even a young cat. Thanks to improved care, cats often live to be twenty or more these days. (The oldest cat ever was named Creme Puff and lived to be 38.) 
I got the oldest cat they had. Raymond is twelve. His last owner was a woman who developed dementia and was no longer able to take care of him. He'd been in the shelter for about six months. The shelter was a good place but Raymond doesn't get along well with other cats (generational differences?) and the shelter would only give him to someone with no pets. That's me!

Not having had a cat since I was a kid, I'd forgotten how much is involved. Cat food is around $1.50 a can now, and that's all he can eat. Cat litter is heavy and expensive and if you get the clumping kind you learn that an ounce of urine makes a clump the size of the cat's head. 
The center is a responsible one. They give you vet records, the cat is chipped, and there's a contract you have to sign when you pick up the cat. There was no cost to me, but I was reminded that a donation would be useful, as that's what they depend on. 
The cat was said to be hard of hearing and a woman who spent time with him daily said Raymond didn't seem deaf to her. 
She was wrong; he is quite deaf. I clapped and whistled loudly when he was facing away from me. You know how cats' ears sort of flatten and aim backward when something's going on behind them but they're not about to let some idiot make them turn around? Raymond's ears didn't even twitch. The woman wasn't lying; Raymond seems visually astute enough to get around his hearing problem.
He also seems vocally challenged. At six, when he was hungry, he walked up to me and spoke, but I could barely hear him. His purr is a loud one. It's probably the only sound he can hear.