Happy Birthday Miss Thing, Happy Birthday to You. You Look Like a Great Grey Cat. And You Act Like One, Too.

Today is the birthday of my sweet grey cat, Miss Thing.

She completely rules my little brick cottage.

She eats only Fancy Feast, and that only if it's flaked or in gravy. No nasty aspic for Miss Thing.

When my ankle was broken, she would come sit on the cast and purr.

When I am disconsolate, she comes and sits on my lap.

She has even deigned to accept my grandson into her life, assuming that he undersands lese majeste.

Here are the words she knows: Canned Cat Food, Treats, It's OK (just before I sneeze). Snuggle. Nose scratch.

When I go sit on the screen porch in the morning to eat breakfast, she come out with me and observes the birds and the squirrels without running and hiding. I daresay that few of you have been loved like this.

When I sit zazen in my ritual room, Miss Thing comes and sits with me. See above re: having been loved like this.

Miss Thing, it was a lucky day for me that you came to live with me.