That’s Trixie. We never really knew how old she was, or what kind of life she had before we picked her out at the pound, but we knew we loved her from the minute we got her — just a little over three years ago.

She was a pudgy little thing, and lazier than hell even by domesticated cat standards, but she could show a surprising amount of energy at the drop of a hat — when we first got her, for instance, she’d race to the kitchen and guard her food the minute you headed in that direction.  And she had a little bit of a pissy attitude, too — she hated being picked up, she’d snarl at you just for the hell of it sometimes, she’d go from purring away to biting at your fingers the instant you started rubbing her the wrong way, and she went through…