This is my Cat Brandy. She’s an unbelievable 18 years old. She’s a cat next door and siamese cross and acts nothing like a typical siamese. I brought her home 16 years ago when I was a Veterinary Technology Student at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, ON (yes a very eclectic background;)). Ironically in my cancer theme this week, her original owner had cancer and was dying and she neeeded to find a home for Brandy. Brandy’s age is starting to show. She’s arthritic and her joints don’t work as well as they used to. Yet she still insists on jumping on and off the couch despite often landing in a jumbled heap on the floor. I’ve tried putting in stepping stools to create a midway jump for her, but she won’t use them. Like humans, she refuses to accept she can’t do it the way she always has. One behaviour that Brandy has always had is she eats paper. She rolls all over it and rips pieces off it and chews them. Sometimes it drives me nuts because she’s damaged a few important papers. For the most part, it’s not an issue because it’s only when the papers make their way to the floor that it’s an issue. I cleaned my desk on the weekend and missed this flyer that I had been keeping for work purposes and Brandy got to it before me.