From today's NY Times "Metropolitan Diary":

Dear Diary:
My brother-in-law, Irving, had long been a pharmacist in the Bronx,
not far from where he had lived all his life. Soon after his divorce,
a close friend gave him a cat for company. Irving was appreciative,
but hesitant, having grown up in an apartment house where no one had
pets. Stray howling cats were all he knew; he had never even touched a
cat before. I, on the other hand, grew up in the Midwest, where we had
all sorts of cats and dogs. Irving named his cat the Professor, in
honor of my husband, a university don. Six months later, during one of
our telephone catchups, I asked Irving how the Professor was.

"Aw, I've got a sick cat," he said. "Not healthy. I may have to give
him back."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Something's wrong with his chest - maybe bronchitis," he said.
"How can you tell?" I pursued.
"He makes this funny noise, a vibrating rattle," he said.
"All the time?" I queried.
He said, "Nah, just sometimes when he's on my lap."
I asked, "Does he sound like this?" And I purred loudly over the
phone, the connection from the Midwest to New York being very clear.
"Exactly," he replied, more interested.
"What you have," I told him, "is a contented, purring cat."
"What's purring?" he asked.

Theresa
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