Pi at Nine

The Mud Cat (see photo) doesn’t have any Mexican heritage, but Cinco de Mayo is an important day for him—or at least his owner thinks it’s important. Today is his ninth birthday. For his age he’s still playful, curious, affectionate (sometimes), noisy, handsome, and, most important, healthy. He doesn’t stay outside as late as he did a few years ago, but to me that’s a good thing. In between naps he hasn’t slacked off a bit on his main job—patrolling the Mud Bay shoreline. Retirement is a few years off.

Before I did an Internet search on converting cat years to human years, I had always gone by the “multiply by 7” rule. That ratio would make us the same age when I have a birthday later this year. But the formula is more complicated as I learned on a number of web sites. Cats age 15 human years in their first year, 9 in their second, and 4 for each year after that. That makes him 52—the same age as a friend of mine who was also born on May 5th. He’s got me by a decade and it shows.