Snowball

This is my cat, Snowball. We never took a lot of pictures of him, and this is one of the few I have. It was taken in January 2010 withe camera I had gotten for Christmas. It wasn't a planned shot, it was incidental -- I was playing with the camera, and Snowball was laying there on the bed, so I took the picture and never really thought much about it.

Snowball had to be put down today. We don't actually know how old he was. He was a stray cat we had taken in, gave him a good home and loved him for many years; he was at least five.

He had a slightly enlarged head, due to being a mature cat before he was fixed. Somewhere in his life he had broken one of his front fangs, which made him look like a bit of a doofus when he'd look up at you with just the one tooth peeking out under his upper lip. He had soft fur, and the greenest, liveliest eyes. He didn't cry very often, and almost never purred, but he loved attention. He was as lazy as a cat could be most of the time, but now and then in the dead of night he'd run from room to room as fast as he could, jumping on or over everything in frantic bursts of playfullness. He never quite figured out how litter boxes were supposed to work; he'd go, jump out of the box, and dig at the floor periodically looking back in the box as if confused that his deposit wasn't burried. His tail was practically a lethal weapon. Whenever he was happy he'd thrash it everwhere, knocking things over, pressing buttons on the keyboard, etc. He'd do the same if he wanted attention and felt he was being ignored. Sometimes I would wake up to find him cuddled up next to me in bed. When he wanted to show he loved you, he would put his head down and plow his face right into you, demanding affection, attention, and snuggles.

I'll miss you, Snowball.