My best Boyfriend.

My husband is downstairs, building a very small house for our front porch. It looks a little like a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home for cats, and it’s the latest step in my fiendish plan to adopt the stray cat known mainly as Boyfriend.

Boyfriend has been around since June or July, when he showed up, starving and timid, on our front walk. We fed him and he kept coming back. He got his name this summer, after he developed a habit of calling up to my office window when he wanted food and cuddles. Smitten, I thought of adopting him then, but we had two cats at the time. So Boyfriend remained outside. And I stopped worrying about him because he appeared to have been taken in this fall. I’m thinking he was taken in by the college guys in the neighborhood because he’s fat and not neutered.

But then my older cat, Copy passed away. And then all the students started going home for Winter Break, and Boyfriend started coming around, asking for food and trying to get into the house. And I started thinking of making him a permanent family member and giving him a permanent home and a permanent name. Read more