Pet Profile: Aurora Moon Girl

Aurora Moon Girl (aka Moon) Female Short-Haired Kitty Age 3 (August 4, 2003 - Octover 24, 2006)   Origin of Name: Moon was named in honor of Beth's friend Gina's deceased kitty "Mün" who possessed an extreme sass factor and was highly intelligent. John added "Aurora" and "Moon" (for "Luna") along a theme of mythology. "Moon Girl" is a character in a children's book he once read.   Theme Song: "Never Gonna Get It" by En Vogue   Little-Known Fact: Moon likes to practice exotic and pole dancing on the bed posts.   Interests / Hobbies: Reading palms, watching Audrey Hepburn movies, acrylic painting Bob Ross style, skydiving, organic chemistry, and fiction writing.

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Moon's Story: Strip Tease

Moon is a nuclear chemist by day, donning a white lab coat, spectacles and hair up in a bun. She spends her days researching fusion, fision and other such high risk "isions" surrounded by beakers, autoclaves and centrifuges. As much as she enjoys the intellectual stimulation of combining various elements of the periodic table to discover revolutionary new uses for the elements, she has a thirst for living on the wild side that can only be quenched by her night job, where she lets down her hair as an exotic dancer! She enjoys exotic dancing for the thrill of the energy she feels while on stage under the bright colored lights with the music blaring. She keeps her dances rated PG-13, but is often approached by strip club recruits for a more bawdy dancing career. Moon is too practical to risk losing her day job by someone at the government research firm where she works as a scientist discovering her "Moon"lighting job. Dance on, Moon!

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Factual Moon

Moon is very independent and affectionate, but doesn't like to be held. Her favorite siesta place is John's red bean bag chair, which he vehemently argues is HIS not Moon's. She likes nothing more than for you to make eye contact with her as you're walking past and continue to watch her until you either bump into a piece of furniture or move out of eyeshot. She hates nothing more than to be pointed at! She is very inquisitive and active, and quite vocal for a kitty. If you speak to her, especially when you say her name, she feels an obligation to meow back with gusto.

Moon and her brother Neptune were adopted as rescue kitties from John and Beth's friend Meg, who had brought in their feral mother. Her name is both an honorarium of Beth's friend Gina's cat "Mün" and an extension of the mythology "schema" John came up with for the kitties--Aurora and Moon, or Luna, being goddesses in classical mythology. The "girl" on the end makes for a nicer sound and may be from a children's story John once read with the character "Moon Girl." Kitties do need complicated names, after all, if not to the extent of T.S. Eliot's feline cognomens.

On October 24, 2006, Moon passed away from complications believed related to a thoracic duct tear, although the diagnosis was never clear despite examinations by several clinics and veterinarians. Later that afternoon, a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet visited John and Beth as they walked through Monticello Park. Perhaps Moon, who had always been fascinated by the birds she could see outside, had become one with her avian friends and had appeared to wish John and Beth goodbye.