Kerouac

I wanted to talk a little about my profile picture today. The cute sleeping orange and white cat is my late cat Kerouac. I know it seems morbid to use it as my profile picture, but he was the closest thing I've ever had to a soul mate. That cat could read my mind. He could also take the finish off furniture with that rough tongue of his, but that is another story.

When I met Kerouac, he was going by the name Treble. He had this ridiculous high pitched meow. He was sitting in his cage at the adoption center in the Dewitt PetSmart. We hadn't even had our grand opening yet, and he sat there watching us go by. One day I had stopped to talk to the man running the adoption center, and had leaned against the plexiglass wall.

"Turn your head to the left, slowly" he told me. Over my shoulder there was Treble, rubbing his head against the glass as if to say "Hey you, look at me". At that moment I melted. Pat asked if I wanted to see him. And when I took him out of the cage, he burrowed his head into my neck and started purring. Needless to say, that cat chose me. He came home the very next day.

However, the name needed rethinking. It just didn't fit the little guy. He and I spent a lot of time staring at each other while we tried to come up with a new name. Nothing seemed to fit. Until I realized that the little orange patch on his chin gave him a beatnik appearance. My favorite author is Jack Kerouac. Jack didn't work. Kerouac did.

Kerouac lived with me for five years. He started slowing down. The downside to his adoption was that we had no idea how old he actually was. He was my constant companion, greeting visitors, warming my lap, sleeping on my pillow next to me. One day in October of 2009, I realized that I hadn't seen Kerouac all day. I went looking for him and found him in the corner of the laundry room. He had passed away.

I buried Kerouac on the ridge behind my parents' house, underneath the lone thorn apple tree. I think he would have liked that. I've tried to find another cat, but Kerouac was a once in a lifetime kind of friend.