I wonder, particularly, about my girl cat - she's an odd combination of grouchy and dainty. She doesn't seem terribly bright. Though her Christian name is Ampersand, we all call her the Angry Mop. She doesn't care for female humans (maul'd too many times by maids' fists?), but loves males to distraction. The best way I can describe her relationship with my roommate is, to quote another great literary figure, 'a love that goes against fate and ban.'

TO MRS. REYNOLDS'S CAT

Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd?- How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears- but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me- and upraise
Thy gentle mew- and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists-
For all the wheezy asthma,- and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off- and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter'dst on glass-bottled wall.

-John Keats