The Cats
Puddy Tat, Our Queen
Eight-plus years as our queen — the cat who approved Keanu, taught him to beg, and still watches the garden.
We didn’t find Puddy so much as inherit a friendship.
She belonged to people we already loved, and we’d been her people-adjacent for a while — the house that knew her name, the hands she already trusted. When it was time for her to come home with us, it didn’t feel like adopting a stranger. It felt like making official what was already true.
She spent eight-plus years as our queen. Long fur, longer opinions, zero interest in performing for anyone who hadn’t earned it. She approved Keanu when he showed up — looked him over, filed him under brother, and kept him. Mouse-hunting senpai. Treat-begging instructor. The one who held the room steady in seasons that weren’t.
She’s gone from the couch. She isn’t gone from the place.
Puddy still watches the garden. She still watches Keanu. We feel her in the designs that carry her name and her nerve — Puddynaut and the rest — and in the quieter habit of checking the doorway like she might walk through it again.
This isn’t a stan thread or a eulogy with a bow on it. It’s a Field Notes line item: a cat who chose us back, taught the tuxedo how to ask for snacks, and left the house better than she found it.
She lives in our hearts. She lives in the work. The queen doesn’t clock out.