I first saw him in April 2001, mewing and looking out of sorts behind some bushes, but he didn't seem thin or abused at the time. There are dozens of cats in our neighborhood and he left as I approached him, so I just assumed he was passing through.

About a month later, I saw him again, just a brief glimpse as his fur glinted through the shrubs a couple of houses down. The next time he appeared was in August. When I saw him this time, I was shocked. He was now as thin as a rail, his ribs poking out half an inch, his head looking three sizes too big. His eyes had that haunted, dead look of an animal in the last stages of starvation. Now I was really worried about his well-being and concerned that he might have been abandoned.

Sick Cat. I wasn't sure if it was safe to approach Nabakov or touch him, in case he had picked up diseases or parasites, so I went around the neighborhood making inquiries. No one seemed to know anything about him, except that he sometimes wandered through their yards. I asked if anyone had been feeding him. They all said "No."

After talking to a dozen people, I pieced together his history. He had been abandoned sometime around April and had probably been living off his body fat for three or four months. He's a big cat, genetically big, too big to find enough food in an urban environment. We have more trees than in other parts of the country, but there are still relatively few birds, almost no rats, and the snakes and lizards are long since gone. He must have been living on meager garbage scraps (hard to find in our neighborhood) and moths.

I immediately fetched a couple of bowls and put water and food on the porch and called him. He came slowly, moving the way an arthritic cat moves, with clunky, hesitant steps. He ate and drank, slowly, looking up frequently. Because he was weak and ill, I gave him a good lookover and realized that he was only days from death. He could barely get his feet up two short stairs and was having trouble holding up his head. I was heartbroken to see this sweet cat in such a terrible state. I wanted to bring him in the house, where it was warm, but my little gray cat "Shadow" was old and ill and near death himself and I was afraid Nabokov might transmit distemper or other cat diseases to poor aging Shadow.

At the Vet. When the vet weighed him, she said Nabokov weighed 10.7 pounds. He's a very large cat, 36 inches long and his ideal weight is 19 pounds. Imagine what you would look like if you lost half your body weight! Humans can die if they lose a third of their body weight, if they weren't overweight to begin with. Nabokov looked worse than a person with severe anorexia.

His kidneys were in bad shape too and didn't function properly for about the first six months after I began to care for him. It took several hundred dollars worth of vet bills to put the little fellow back on the road to health, but I'm happy to say he's doing fine now. He overeats (which is unusual for my cats, but the vet said this was not uncommon for a cat who has been starved almost to death) and he now weighs 23 pounds, but I've got him on a diet and hope to get him back down to 20 pounds.

An Unwelcome Discovery. That's the good news. Here's the bad news. Finding Nabokov gave me a new perspective on my neighbors. When I first discovered he was homeless, I told all the neighbors about his plight and tried to enlist some help with feeding him, finding him a home, and getting him back to health. No one was willing to do anything. They didn't care about posting a "found cat" ad and weren't even willing to feed him on a day I had to go out of town. I was stunned, but not as surprised as when a couple of them said, "Oh, it would be different if he were a kitten, then we'd help, in fact, we wouldn't mind having another kitten, but we don't want a cat."

Great. Nice neighbors. I was so disappointed. I guess sometimes it takes a small crisis to find out people's true natures. Well, it doesn't matter. I had no qualms about adopting an older cat. The vet said he had a lot of plaque on his teeth, but wasn't sure about his age. He was middle-aged when I found him, so he's probably nine or ten now. And he's wonderful. I'll admit he had many bad habits when he first moved into the house but I decided to trust his intelligence. I told him the rules and he listened and learned.

One Life Fades as Another Blooms. I hated to do it, but I had to keep Nabokov on the porch until my little kitty Shadow passed away. Nursing Nabokov back to health helped me deal with the grief of losing Shadow. It was like exchanging one life force for another.

Nabokov is no longer an ill-behaved, unruly cat. He's exceptionally well-mannered. He's learned the house rules and, unlike most cats, doesn't even break them when my back is turned. He's become affectionate too. For the first year, he wouldn't sit near me or let me touch him (in fact, he bit the vet twice), but now he doesn't claw or bite and I give him twice-daily massages (I guess I give pretty good kitty massages) and he'll even let me pet his tummy in small doses.

In the end, they decided to go ahead with their plans and, if things went bad, we could go indoors. But the weather held. I even brought my camera. The sun occasionally peeked from behind the clouds and cast its rays over the weather forecasters who continued to forecast 100% rain. This is strange. Don't they have windows in weather rooms? Or are the forecasters so intent on their computer monitors that they don't take time to look out the window? The weather station was less than two miles from the site for the barbecue, so I doubt the weather was different there.

I haven't had much time to write in my Web log, but it's an exciting time, one that's important for the placement of my novel, and I'll be sure to upload information on my progress as often as possible. My deadline is Oct. 20. That might seem like plenty of time, but I have so much to do between now and then, it's going to be a race to the finish. To make things even more crazy, I have to cross the border tomorrow (I have family and business acquaintances on both sides), which isn't as easy as it used to be. The US/Canada border has tougher security now, because of the attack on the World Trade Center, and the officials are taking longer to check documents and cars. Lineups are almost inevitable. But nevermind, it's part of traveling and I look forward to getting away from the computer for a few hours.

Well, I'm back from my trip. The lineup at the border crossing was about 45 minutes. Good thing I wasn't in a big hurry. We stopped to take some pictures of the "flower flags" on each side of the border. The Canadian and American gardeners have created flags by planting lovely white and red begonias, with dusy miller to represent the blue on the American flag. Very pretty. Coming back through the border, the peace arch was lit by floodlights, which transforms it into a pleasantly eerie archway. --- Mya

Book banned by US government (recent)
Book banned by US government 2 (recent)
Historic look at book banning
Timeline of book-banning issues
Grapes of Wrath denounced in Congress
Legality of book banning
Banned Books Week commentary
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau banned by US Customs
Penthouse '84 issue banned by Canadian Government
Freedom to Read commentary on banned books
James Joyce's Ulysses
Top 10 Banned Classics
ACLU info on banned and challenged books
List of censored, challenged, or banned books from banned-books.com

I was quite surprised to learn there were many more banned books than I would ever have guessed. The most amazing things have been banned, including many classic texts that are now considered fine examples of literature. --- Mya

Editing is a tough process, but at least I can kick back in a comfy couch with blankets and pillows while doing it (as opposed to sitting at the computer desk). It's probably going to take a week to get through it--it's over 300 pages, but it will be exciting to see my characters on paper and reacquaint myself with them from a different perspective. I'm so happy to share this news with readers. My novel is one step closer to reaching book lovers who are looking for a fresh story. --- Mya