I came across this snippet about my long term roommate, and thought I’d include it . We were together years after I thought I was done living with animals.
I’m grateful for the persistent demands for affection from Himself. He was adopted by the people who rented the house next door to me when he was only three and a half weeks. He has a very appealing habit of trying to cuddle up under my chin and he does it at the vet’s. I have since learned that he does it with every human when he’s scared, but it really endears him to veterinarians. I expect he got held like that when he was first adopted. Unfortunately, the love over there waned and when they moved out, they left him and his brother. In rural Maine that’s a death sentence, coyotes. And I think it was only his need to be with people that got him hanging out next door with me. He spent a day on my porch trying not to fall asleep with his little head nodding just as it does with people, jerking up when his face fell far enough. I didn’t know it at the time but he was off loading his fleas, for me to carry into the house. He was quite motheaten and the first 6’’ of his tail had only sparse weedy looking fur.
I wish I had a picture of him at first so I could compare with his “after.” His luxurious coat grew in as soft “as the down of a feather,” so soft, it never tickled. He’s settled into life as an indoor cat, with no interest in going out. We had our routines and I think we both enjoyed our “dances.” One is when I finish with my morning ablutions, and not before, we walk together with some back and forth discussion about how much he’s looking forward to breakfast. Which I have to touch before he wants to eat it. I decided long ago that none of my cats have been conversant in English, but I know a smattering of cat, well I can imitate a smattering of cat, and he was generous in his willingness to ignore my terrible accent.
I was so lucky after a few months, to have found Lupin, a very different cat with a couple traits that make me think of M’Weec, his coat, the way he sometimes starts to “pour” himself off my lap.
And all himself, to me he has a wolfish look.
