As of today you've been all the way around the Sun once. That's a long, long journey for a little shiny black beastie. You launch in to each day with fierce abandon, always ready to let bystanders know what's on your mind. Every exertion is punctuated by a growl, grunt or yowl. The rain, much to your disgust, has yet to cede to your muttered complaints, and yet you will rant to anyone with an ear on your dissatisfaction with the weather on stormy days.
You have ridden part of the solar circuit swaying in the tops of various trees, your nose in the wind, like a lookout in the fighting top of a ship of the line.
Part of the journey you've spent burrowed deep in various piles of bedding, visible only as a shapeless lump. The world is your gymnasium, it's wads of paper your footballs, the chickens in the yard your ninepins, and various laps your yoga mats.
You are Eric the Red's last "child", as he is growing old and losing patience with kittens whom he would once have cheerfully raised. You befriended Sam, the patch tabby we brought home from the shelter a month before we picked you up. He is no longer a sad, lonely ex-street cat with few social skills, but a happy, goofy, friendly cat who is happy to play tag with you indoors and out.
You started life with a double hernia which you ignored, but which frightened us terribly. The kindness of friends paid for your surgery and today nobody would ever know this lithe, ferocious little panther had ever been fragile and broken.
Here's to another wild ride around the sun, little demon.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
