A cat-belly with paws, a tail, and a head

Carlo is the oldest of my cats. I adopted him six years ago when he was about one year old. I've blipped him a good many times, one of my favorites being here. He's my bosom buddy, and not just as a figure of speech. He sleeps on my chest almost every night, with his bosom weighing down on mine. He's a naturally friendly cat, having been cared for by the likes of us since his birth as a "stray." Never homeless, my boy was simply born looking for a pet human.

It's a funny accident that most of my pictures have Carlo looking serious, and this is no exception. It's because he squints when he sees the warning light for the camera's flash. He's actually the most pliable and easy-going of my three, and he likes to be held and to sit on my lap. He looks black at first glance but his fur is actually chestnut brown, or dark chocolate if you like. He was castrated at an early age, probably around three months, and this is why he has a fairly small head. Tom cats who are fixed at a year or older will have a distinctly large one.

As I wrote in a poem once, and blipped last summer(here):,

He might be mistaken for a large baked potato,
He's a cat-belly with paws, and a tail, and a head.
One time I thought I saw him,
but it was just a black tee-shirt on the bed.

I very, very seldom write poems, but Carlo is a real soul mate. In this picture he is posing exactly the way our new arrival Laura Earle always does, but as Carlo never has before. It seemed that my fuzzy friend was feeling handsome and demanding I snap this portrait for posterity.