A Cat At Rest Tends To Stay At Rest

This is Isaac The Cat in early 1996, when he was just under a year old and I still lived in the huge flat above the sandwich shop in Grafton with the Reverend Screamin' Ben Jenkins and Sweetpea. The dark cat behind him is Sweetpea's cat, Tasha. She was about 19 years old at the time, and we had to put her to sleep a month or two after this picture was taken. A brutal day.

Isaac wasn't named after Sir Isaac Newton, though in hindsight that just makes Isaac that much cooler. Nor was he named after Asimov. Never cared for the little Asimov I've read. Nor was he named after Isaac Hayes, Isaac Bashevis Singer, or even Isaac Isaacs...

Isaac means "laughter" in Hebrew.

Sometimes I tell people he was named after Isaac the bartender on The Love Boat, but that's not true.

Isaac is 15 years old today. He doesn't have any of his fangs but still enjoys tuna in oil and play-fighting with his teeth more than his hind legs. He can still jump about 4 feet straight up in the air when properly motivated by dangling objects tied to the ends of strings. Hi favorite place in the house to sleep is the left arm of the blue chair (a different blue chair than the one in this picture), though lately he's been digging the floorspace next to the modem under my desk.

These things are true.

Hotcha! Hank