Willa.

I have a cat who is white and fluffy. I have a cat who is arguably the smallest feline alive. I have a cat named Willa and I'm going to gush about her now.

Willa turned a year old September 1, so she's full-grown. But she's teeny. Her head, large in a kittenlike way, is the size of my tight fist. And I have small hands. When she sits on my lap she barely covers one leg. Seriously. She's tiny.

She's yawning, not screaming. Don't worry. I don't torture my pets. I humiliate them and take millions of pictures, though, which from their perspective is the same thing.

But for her small size she has an alarming amount of energy. She does this curious growl-meow thing when she gets excited. She also likes tearing around the house with her tail puffed out for no discernible reason. She also likes talking — ahem, yowling — at the top of her lungs.

Yeah, that's her back leg that's in front of her face and her front paw in the back. I want to audition
 her for the role of contortionist at the circus.

Oh yeah. This is when I should mention that Willa is Siamese. As such, she has crossed blue eyes and grey 'points' on her otherwise creamy fur. I think she's beautiful. My family has had Siamese cats for as long as I can remember — literally, we have always had at least one Siamese in the house. Did you know they're the oldest breed of cat? It's true. And they're not bad for people with cat allergies like my mom; there's something in their saliva that makes them not as achoo-y.

We drove to Vermont to get Willa. From Maine to Vermont is a very. long. ways. But it was worth it. We drove through the mountains to the breeder's home (very nice people who obviously LOVE their cats, by the way) so her full name is Willa Green Mountain. She's registered as that at the vet's office. Pretty classy for such a little cat.

We have another Siamese cat, too. Her name is Daisy. She's six years old and very dark in color (she used to look like the first picture; we're not sure what happened here). When Willa first came home and we set her on the floor, she just trotted around with all the smugness of a lion cub and made herself right at home. This made Daisy quite unhappy, and for a while she'd have nothing to do with Willa. Now they're buddies. Daisy pretends to dislike Willa, but it's obvious she's 'adopted' her. Seriously. It's hilarious.

Wow. This was my room when we lived on board our sailboat Zora.
That was a LONG time ago!

Daisy and Willa have intricate rituals for their play. Willa stalks Daisy, Daisy pretends not to notice. The vice versa. Willa jumps on Daisy and they tussle a while, then scamper off and go to sleep. It's hilarious.

Willa likes watching TV. You know in that movie The Shining, where the possessed father chases the son through the maze with the axe? (Horror movie buffs, you'll know what I mean.) Well, that extremely suspenseful scene was kind of ruined by the fact that Willa saw fit to periodically jump at and bat the screen with her paw. So instead of holding our breath, we laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
Then today, I came home sick (ugh) and was watching that old flick Lilo & Stitch because we're short on DVDs. Willa was sitting on my stomach and watching the screen of my laptop intently. It was adorable.

And here she is snuggling up to my arm and obscuring my view of the computer. Love ya, kitty cat.

Am I too obsessed with my cat? Perhaps. But if you met her, you'd get it. She has too much personality for you not to love her.
And she's cute, too.