"Red Scab" Apartment

Today is the 12th anniversary of the death of Mélisande, my first cat. Gray, charcoal, champagne, white: a mackerel tabby. While yet a kitten, she adopted me when I was living in Visalia in my first apartment in 1982. Theretofore, I was not a “cat person.” Nevertheless, she chose me and began the work of rescuing me from a desperate depression. She ended up accompanying me back to Louisiana to my parents’ home briefly in 1983, then was my companion in 8 different abodes over the next 11 years, in Shreveport and in Los Angeles. In 1994, she actually moved into my life partner’s Silver Lake home Portamento a few months before I did, as a sort of goodwill ambassador. (A story.) She died on this date, the Feast of St. Agnes, Martyr at Rome †304, in 1995, cradled in my arms, at our veterinarian’s practice at the foot of our hill.