I’ve always been a cat person. I got my first kitten as child. I named him Cinnamon. He became a big, fat ginger who was so mellow that he seemed perpetually stoned. I dressed him up in my doll clothes and bonnet, and wheeled him around in my baby carriage.

I have photographic proof of this and I’ve never had a cat since who would put up with such abuse.

When I was in college, I got a Siamese kitten that I named Tolstoy, so I could find an excuse to brag that I’d just finished reading “War and Peace.” (I was in my Russian literature phase.) Tolstoy had the charming habit of jumping onto the top of the refrigerator, hiding until I came into the kitchen, and then leaping onto my back, digging in with his sharp claws. He enjoyed hearing me scream.

When I moved to Southern California in 198

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