As Kym intimated in her last post, I have a big cat named Elvis. A really big cat--18 pounds the last time I checked. Now he is big boned (don’t laugh--its true). He has the shoulders of a bulldog or a linebacker and is taller than my IMac. He is actually quite slim these days, as, when I got him in July 2000, he weighed closer to 23 pounds. At that time, he was already at least five years old and seemed to have been through the wringer. He had a huge scar on the left side of his face, stretching from his eye back to his ear, almost as long and wide as my pinkie. Clearly no one had taken him to the vet to have it properly stitched up, leaving me to wonder if someone was abusing him or if he lived on the street. The scar still bothers him in the winter, when the dry heat causes it to itch--I try to moisturize it with a Burt’s Bees salve that smells like lavender. I think all his kittenhood traumas and abandonment issues cause him to focus on food as a sign of security. He is, as they say, an emotional eater. And he isn’t just greedy about food--he wants constant affection, often sitting on my chest or sometimes even my head to ensure he gets it.
About the name. It was not my idea and I’m always a little embarrassed that I have a cat named Elvis. The sweet but slightly crazy cat rescue people who go through the pounds adopting cats about to be put to sleep came up with the moniker, inspired by his amble girth. But it really fit him, so I kept it. Oddly, another cat named Elvis lives in my building. He a sleek, cool Abyssinian whose owners got him from Christopher Walken. So we have ‘70s Elvis and a ‘50s Elvis together at last.
I also have a little sweet cat named Audrey, who I will write about later.
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