"Why the long face dear friend?" This here is a very special cat that used to be in my family. Her name's Maxine and her backstory is quite an interesting one. Hope you don't mind if I wax nostalgia and reminisce for a spell. On my farm, we used to have a cat named Max who looked strikingly and eerily similar to Maxine who you see her. He was a mild-mannered fellow and was just a cool cat all-around. He went missing one day and we were never able to find him. One day, after quite a time of searching for our lost companion, we got a call from a nearby resident responding to the flyers and missing pet notices we had pasted up and down the mountain roads. There was a cat that looked just like Max underneath the resident's car. My mother and I raced over there to get him.

To make the long story short, we didn't realize that the at we had picked up was actually a female and not our precious Max after all. We realized we had the wrong sex as were driving back but we couldn't just drop the cat off now could we? Our search for Max ended and instead, the new cat became our new friend. In honor of our old friend, we named this new feline Maxine. Maxine lived with us for a very long time ad it was only just before the start of this fall semester that she passed away.

She always looked like a grumpy girl but she was one of the most affectionate cats I have ever been around. She was a very hardy and durable cat the she endured through getting half her tail crushed in a door at one point! Don't worry, she got better although the compound fracture in her tail resulted in us having to have the local vet amputate it. Overall, she was a special member of the family and her stiff, irritable-sounding "meows" and "mews" and her trademark thumping down our old wooden stairs in the cabin are fond memories of her. Here's to you Maxine!