We were in the final throes of our move from the Green Street apartment to our house in the University neighborhood. It was Bella’s second move, and true to form, she settled in in spite of the chaos. She greatly appreciated having the mattresses on the floor, and though she tended to avoid the bed in the summer heat, she joined us nightly despite the searing days ending that August.  The air conditioning helped, I’m sure. On a different note, we adopted Callie, a gray tortie, on Sunday. One of Traci’s coworkers fostered her after a neighbor found her under a deck.  She’s about the same age Bella was when…

Before Bella, there was Angel, our often intense, intelligent, shy, and dominant calico. Traci brought Angel home unexpectedly in the spring of 2000. Angel, who had spent months at Petsmart, was two years old. Her previous family surrendered her to the shelter before they moved, though we often wondered if they simply didn’t appreciate her unique personality.  Angel spent her first few days with us hiding under our armoire. She was with us for two moves; each time, she would vanish for a shorter time, but she was never a social creature with strangers, though she did once venture into our elderly neighbors’ apartment below us when we lived in…

Cancer took Bella from us six months ago. Bella developed a lesion in the summer of 2020; we had it removed, the vet sent it in to a lab for testing, and that’s how we learned it was a basosquamous tumor. The surgery bought us two and a half wonderful years. I’ve been working on this site more sporadically than I had hoped. This fall marks the beginning of the 23-24 academic year, and like last fall, I’m teaching classes at Morrisville, Onondaga Community College, and Le Moyne College. It will be my 26th year of teaching, and my first without Bella since she came into our lives in 2014.…