Introducing..... Jack!

“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures and cats like authors for the same reasons.”
-- Robertson Davies --

Well, since I talk about him so much, I thought maybe it’s time I introduce you to my boyfriend.
I’ve been sleeping with him for five years. That’s him right there....
Jack!
Ain’t he gorgeous? Ain’t he a beaut?
Cats have served as both comfort and inspiration for many famous writers – W.B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy and Lewis Carroll all loved and admired cats. Ernest Hemingway once offered an explanation of the special connection between writers and cats: “A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”
This non-hiding of feelings may include walking across your keyboard the moment your back is turned (and possibly improving upon what you were writing)! What my particular feline domesticus loves to do is get INTO my bookshelves and push the books outward, and then look at me quite innocently through the gaps in the wreckage!
Jack is a purebreed Ragdoll.
A Ragdoll cat is sometimes referred to as the “gentle giant.” This is because they generally have a placid disposition. They are genial, and relaxed. They tend to be almost flop-around-y.... (hence the name, Ragdoll).... they can be tipped upside down and generally roughed-up without flaring back in anger as most cats are wont to do! For instance, I can take Jack and sort of just shove him into the corner of the couch in a (human) sitting position.... and he will just stay there like that... looking over at me saying “Uh-huh? Is this amusing? Is that it? Is this a big deal for you? So what’s next Dad? Would you like me to wash the dishes? Do some ironing? Is that it?”
Ragdolls are a big, heavy, longhaired cat whose coat does not mat as readily as that of the Persian. They are born white and slowly develop color and pattern over the first few years, becoming “pointed” cats. Jack, in the picture above is about six months old. Since that time (he is now five years old) his coat has become more gold in coloring, but still, he is basically white.
His particular breed color is called “blue point mitted.”
There are also darker Ragdolls. The chocolate ones. Gorgeous!
And then there are ones with a bicolor pattern. Also gorgeous.
And all Ragdolls have one thing in common.
Blue eyes!

In the 1960’s, Californian breeder Ann Baker bred the first ragdolls from a white, probably nonpedigreed, Persian and a Birman-type tom. As far as cat breeds go, Ragdolls are the new kids on the block, winning full CFA [Cat Fanciers’ Association, the world’s largest registry of Pedigree cats] acceptance in the year 2000.
The very year Jack was born.
Way to go Jack!

His full name is really Jacksie. But he has sort of matured into “Jack”. As I mentioned, he is now well into his golden years.
I named him after the author C.S. Lewis. [Mere Christianity, The Narnia Chronicles, etc.]
When C.S. Lewis was six years old he told his parents he wanted to be called Jacksie. I guess he preferred this over his real name “Clive Staples”.
(Can we blame him?)
The name stuck, and thoughout his life, he was known as “Jack.”
I have come to realize over time that Jack (my cat) is only slightly less of a genius than Lewis. He has managed to live in some desirable digs for five years now without doing a single day’s work!
Even C.S. Lewis never accomplished anything so incredible!
I look at Jack. [Gorgeous. Carefree. Relaxed. Retired.]
And I look at me. [Not gorgeous. Bound by the alarm clock. Tense. Working all the time.]
I compare the two of us, and as I do so, I am reminded of the words of Mark Twain:
“Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”