Today my little snooger ginger cat Sophie turns 10. TEN! That means that she is officially a Senior Cat, and also that I have had her for an entire decade, which is bonkers.

In honor of her 10-years-young-iversary, here are 10 facts about my lil snooger.

1. Sophie was born some time in March 2006 in Rhode Island with a feral cat colony. (We celebrate on the 15th because I don't remember why.) I adopted her without ever meeting her in person. This was the picture that basically sealed the deal for me.

LOOK HOW SAD SHE IS.

I was living in New York at the time with Kismet, the cat love of my life. (He died in 2011 and I still miss him every single day.) We were getting ready to move to Maryland so that I could start grad school, which meant leaving behind my roommate and her cat. I didn't want Kismet to be an only cat but I hadn't really made any plans to adopt a companion for him, and then I saw Sophie's tragic little orange floofernutter picture and pretty much decided on the spot that she needed to come live with us. Her foster mom drove her up and she has been with me ever since, through five states, five jobs, 10 years and more moves than I can count.

2. She is a cat - I believe the technical term for her breed is a Gingersnap Pooferpuss - but she is actually a puppy. She comes when she's called, she's excited when I get home, she likes belly rubs on her floofy tummy and she LOVES people.

3. Sophie loves all people, but she REALLY, REALLY loves Brandon.

Annoyed that I am interrupting their personal time.

It's pretty much relationship goals.

4. Sophie lives to snuggle. She snuggles with Brandon (obviously).

She snuggles with me.

She snuggles with our other cat, Lenny.

She snuggles with Maisy Bleu.

She is sitting on my lap right now because she wants you to know that she is very serious about the snuggling.

5. She is a ginger tuxedo cat, which means that she is always dressed for any formal occasion, as long as your formal occasion requires that she look like a fancy Lloyd Christmas.

You can tell that Sophie takes her formalwear very seriously because she keeps her bobby socks very clean.

(Brandon will disagree with this because like twice Sophie got poop on her foot and didn't do a great job of cleaning it off and then she walked on him, but to this I say, a) LET HE WHO HAS NEVER HAD POOP ON HIS FOOT CAST THE FIRST STONE and b) what a small price to pay for Sophie lovin'.)

6. She is supa floofy.

Especially her tail.

Sometimes she puts it on top of Lenny, probably to air it out.

7. She likes boxes OK...

...but she loves suitcases THE MOST.

I just realized that is literally a suitcase full of books and a cat, so this photo is basically my life.

8. She likes to sleep under the covers. She would prefer to do so with a person, but in the absence of a human companion, she will build her own cat cave out of blankets.

"No humans allowed. Unless you want to snuggle."

9. Sophie has a tendency to dart outside when doors are open, because she used to be feral and because I guess she likes to give me a heart attack. But once she gets out there, she seems to instantly remember what it was like to live outside full-time (so much scavenging), freak out, freeze in place and meow pitifully until I come rescue her.

Windowsills are a nice happy medium that we can both live with.

10. Sophie has a litany of rhyming nicknames. We use them a lot, and the rule for using them is that you have to say them all together or they don't count. So it usually goes something like this:

"Sophie, you are just a snooger booger and a chirpy lirpy and a floof magoof and a squirmy wormy and a soap-a-dope."

You may also refer to her as THE BEHBEH SNOOGS.

Or you can just call her Sophie. She will answer to all of them...as long as you snuggle her after.

Happy birthday, my little snoogisons. I am very excited to celebrate 87 more birthdays with you since we have agreed that you are going to live forever. You are my favorite girl in the whole entire world, even though you are lying on top of my hands right now and it is very difficult to type.

my wee ginger birthday girl