Roman, the Orange Handbag of a Cat

Roman is our two and a half year old orange kitten who joined our household with his petite tortoiseshell sister, Becka, in the summer of 2001. There is something just plain FUN about orange cats. Roman is my first.

Ever seen one of those bright-colored, fuzzy caterpillars that appear in the fall as the leaves are turning? We call them woolly bears, but I don't know if they have another name. Roman is a woolly bear cat. It's not that he has really long hair, it's more that he is slow-moving, good-natured, and fuzzy, just like one of those cute, downy caterpillars.

Since Roman has always been an "OOHH I HAVE TO PICK HIM UP NOW AND CUDDLE HIM" kind of cat, he's learned to put up with me slinging him over my shoulder and carrying him around like a handbag. I need to get a picture of this in action to put up on my future website.

You can carry him around this way, and he'll just purr and go along for the ride. He's very comfortable being up high and has no fear of vertical spaces. He used to have a habit as a kitten of thinking that poor Tom, at 6'4", was a tree. He liked to climb up his legs all of a sudden or climb up his back. He still does this once in a while, but for the most part, he's learned to tell the difference between PERSON and TREE.

Roman makes an excellent handbag. Now, if only he had a pouch like a kangaroo, I could carry my wallet around in him.

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