Feline royalty

A couple of years after I got my first cat, Bernie, my then-boyfriend and I decided to get another cat. To put it mildly, Bernie wanted some company. He'd stand outside our bedroom door all night, meowing as loudly as he could because he was lonely. This is when we started to use earplugs.

I browsed through our local shelter's website and found an adorable kitty, about 18 months old or so, named Jake. The one thing that stood out, so to speak, was that Jake only had one eye. He was described as loving and cuddly, but when I called the shelter they told me no one wanted to adopt him because he was missing an eye.

What??? Honestly, I'd rather take a sweet kitty missing an eye than a two-eyed cat that is mean or aloof. He came home with us a couple of days later and has been the most loving and snuggly cat I have ever met.

This is our new kitty the night he came home with us. We gave him a new name - Willie (point if you get the reference), or as I call him, Willie Boo.

He rules the house, or rather, he rules Bernie, who is bigger but definitely not braver. He greets all our visitors with a quick sniff and then plops on the floor so he can be petted.

He is also very good at being comfortable :D

Recently, we had some animal show in the background and they began talking about the Egyptian Mau - Mau being the Egyptian word for Cat. Turns out our little Willie-Boo here belongs to a race over 3,000 years old, celebrated in artwork and worshiped by pharaohs. Then we found out that our friends' cat is also an Egyptian Mau, signaled by the extra flap of skin under their bellies, an M marking on their forehead and a bird-like vocalization. Willie has chirped for years without us knowing it was a clue to his prestigious lineage.

On the downside, Willie is a licker with a sandpapery tongue, so if you come by, please don't let him lick you for too long. My husband took a nap while Willie was licking his arm and woke up to dots of blood where his skin had worn off - yikes!

Here's a really good shot of Willie that our friend took a few days ago:

Last photo courtesy of Hyperfocal Studios