Ten Things I Love About Kerwin

Kerwin is our amazing and huge black male cat. When I discovered him stuck up in a tree back in August 2006, we certainly were not in the market for another cat. We already had Woogas, you see. But there was no way we could have left that tiny, frantic, strange-looking, black kitten stuck up in a tree, so Roy climbed up and got him down. We left him on our apartment patio with some food and let him decide what he wanted to do. He chose to stay with us. So we brought him inside, introduced him to Woogas, and watched the hilarity unfold. And we have never regretted it for a moment.



Here are some of the things that I absolutely love about Kerwin:

1) He acts like he's all cool, but when sometimes when he is alone in a room, he cries because he is lonely.

2) He loves water. It is not uncommon for him to walk around the edge of the bathtub (we have a claw-footed bathtub) while I am showering or taking a bath. He's even gotten in the shower with me before (but has always hidden himself behind the shower curtain). And he loves to have water dripped on him. He has spent hours and hours hanging out in the bathroom.

3) He has tufts of hair sticking up between his toes.

4) He loves to burrow, especially under the covers on our bed.

5) He stretches out all nice and long when I start petting him, making sure that I don't miss scratching his tummy.

6) He has bald (well, thinning) patches over his eyes (see the picture below).

7) He has a big nose. This was one of the things I first noticed about him: the hugeness of his schnoz. Not only is it huge, it's also as wet as a dog's. Given his burrowing tendencies, it's not uncommon to feel a wet nose on my leg under the covers at times. (As he has gotten older, his nose doesn't seem as big. I think he just had to grow into it.)

8) He has a million nicknames (Little Man, Little Guy, Baby K, Good Kid, etc.) and takes them all like a man. He probably even enjoys them.

9) He can't be bothered with wearing a collar. If I put it on him, he takes it off. He's a smart one.

10) From the start, he trusted me. As soon as he came out of the tree that we found him in, he let me hold him close to me, and he automatically began purring. I think all he needed was someone to love him, and we certainly do. We've received nothing but love in return. (Okay, to be fair, I'm leaving out all the times he's pooped in front of the litter box, as well as his other overly aggressive habits.)