What, I ask you, can be better than a good long stretch and scratch? If you've never tried such a thing I highly recommend it. Just find a piece of cardboard located somewhat above your head, arch your back  and reach reach up as far as you can with your front paws and scratch into that cardboard with your claws. Ooh! You outdoor cats jetting around the narrow Quarter streets don't know what you're missing!
One of my favorite things to do during these stretches is to have an open book right underneath my torso so that I can satiate my mind's curiosity whilst I satisfy my body's urges. Here at Beckham's we've just gotten in a shipment of books about the rugged strong women (that's human women) of the great American Frontier. I'm sure stretching was important to their daily perseverance in that harsh and open terrain.  I take after their example. Huzzah!

What a day we're having! Without drawing too much ire and resentment from some of my fellow Quarter felines - I'm looking at you Tabitha Fur-stein, you prowling molly of Clinton St. - I am going to allow myself the indulgence of a momentary boast. As all cats know, there are few better things in this world than the comforts of a small snug cardboard box in which to curl into a furry mess and nap like its midmorning...or early afternoon...or late afternoon...or early evening...or late evening...or nighttime. It is a pleasure not unlike sipping warm milk only to be wonderfully surprised with a lively mouse at the bottom with which to paw and play. Now, when such a box has a pile of newspapers in it to make into a bed? Warmth fills my body just thinking about it. And indeed, I don't have to just think about it as today such a box has materialized and been filled with newspapers for me to sleep on so many times, so well.
What was in the box you ask? Nothing less than thirty seven tomes of The World's Greatest Classics published by Grolier's. Now I can purr myself into cat dream world in the full armor of the warriors of the Iliad or the moral grace of Anna Karenina or amongst the detailed goings on of Dickens' London in Great Expectations or with access to the higher plains of Emerson's Trans-cat-dentalism. What sweet purrfect bliss (puns are generally the foray of Tabitha Fur-stein and I give her full credit for this particular gem).

Good day all and welcome to my very first personal and professional blog! I've found that there are few spots on the internet to hear first hand about the life of a French Quarter tomcat and after meowing for years about what a shame such an egregious oversight is, I've decided its time to place the complaints of kittenhood in the past, put paw to keyboard, and tell my story myself! 
A few things by way of introduction. For years, indeed nearly the entirety of my young life, you walking patrons of this, the beautiful vieux carre, have likely noticed me darting around the carpet floor of Mr. Beckham and Mr. Cook's shop, lounging comfortably by the fading graybrown wood window, and defending myself from unwarranted attacks by stray pieces of plastic wrap and packing tape (though a worthy foe you are, you shall never beat me fiendish plastic wrap!). Many of you have taken to coming inside and petting my back or scratching my face or knocking my nose around playfully. To you I give unending gratitude. 

I would like to take some time to answer some of the more pressing questions that you regularly seem to ask me and which, but for my inability to make the proper sounds of English with my narrow jaw, I would happily answer. My name is Juniper. I am a boy cat. Yes I like, nay love, it when you playfully scratch my head. I am four years old going on a whisker ...that's an old cat joke. Yes I can read (I do live in a bookshop) and while it's always difficult to pick a favorite writer, today my mood is quaintly Faulkner-esque (though I doff my ears to Haruki Murakami as he seems to have some amazing insights into the soul of my species...suspiciously amazing now that I think about it) . And finally, I'm always excited to meet new people and if we haven't met yet, well come on by and say hello already!

One last note: At risk of upending my own grandiloquent vocabulary and sounding somehow crass, I would like to take a moment to send a message to the birds: I will find you. I will eat you.

Here's a picture of me next to my latest reading pile - a collection of cookbooks. Tonight's main dish: Cerulean Warbler.