Misty Born April, 1985 Died December 23, 1997 Misty was a High School graduation present from a good friend. When I received her, she was only a few weeks old and could curl up in the palm of my hand. She was several pounds of feline sweetness that became a big part of my life right from the start. At first we lived at my parents' house while I was in college, and she would lovingly keep me company while I read and studied for exams. Several years later we moved into my first apartment. It had lots of big windows for her to sit in to watch nearby birds in fascination. She was always an indoor cat, but never seemed to have trouble finding amusement. She spent her last seven years at the second apartment. Here she would curl up in my lap while I worked online with the Internet. She sometimes would try to type too, but we had a pretty good understanding that I should type and she should nap. I also had to switch to a less exciting screen- saver, so that she wouldn't step on keys and delete files in her eagerness to catch the dancing colorful lines on the monitor. Other favorite activities included playing chase the laser-pointer and pouncing on the covers when I would try to make the bed. All her life veterinarians had pointed out her heart murmor, and expressed concern that she might develop heart problems. Several years ago an extensive ultrasound workup wasn't very enlightening, but did show some problems developing. Fortunately, these didn't become reality until several days before she passed away. She did not suffer long, and led a healthy and happy life up until the last few days. Misty is now immortalized in cyberspace, with domain names, web URL's, and USENET posts archived in the search engines of the world. She is quite a cat! My Mom added some thoughts of her own about Misty here. -- Mark