I would like to beg a favor of the assembled body ...

Drink a toast, if you would, to the memory of my cat, Donovan, who died yesterday morning.

As you can see, he had the color of a fine, Irish cat to go with his fine, Irish name. I did not name either him or my remaining cat, Siouxsie--I inherited them from previous owners.

Donovan was a fuzzy tabby cat with no front claws. He was about 15. He was lot like Sylvester in the cartoons where the clownish pussycat flees from one state of panic to another--I once referred to him as a "little fuzzy embodiment of my id."

As my friend Jen could attest, when we spoke on the phone for much more than a minute, we could always count upon one or both of my cats to come and join me--Donovan typically curled up at my side.

He used to burrow his way in-between me and my ex-girlfriend when we slept spoon-style. Once I woke in the night and was momentarily afraid--"Oh, we're crushing Donovan!"

I moved back to look and I never saw him happier in my life: Purr, purr, "Hi, Ben! It's warm here!"