Flash back to 1986 in my room working on my thesis before graduating. Typewriter, spiked hair, my painting "A Dream" on the wall which is still with me now, and my sweet little cat Jack the Cat.
Jack the Cat was a very special cat. He had one lung and would not eat. I found him as a teeny baby with two siblings and their mama just after they were born on a cold winter day. They were just outside of a building on campus where I worked in between taking classes. I scooped them up into a box and took them home. The smallest of the litter passed away but I found a home for Jack's sister and kept him and his mama. I took Jack the Cat to a veterinarian who gave me vitamin packets for him and I had to cook for him twice a day - eggs with chicken roll and the vitamin packet, which is all Jack the Cat would eat. The vet said he wasn't in any pain, he just wouldn't grow very big and couldn't run or he would get winded. He was SO loved by me and slept on my pillow each night. He lasted 3-1/2 years. Sweetest little kitty, always right by my side.
I loved college and was torn between topics for my senior thesis - it was going to be either the Pre-Raphaelites or the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, a gorgeously colorful medieval manuscript. I chose the former and it turned out to be 60-pages. The following year I worked at The Met and was able to go to London for a week. First stop was Tate Gallery, second was Highgate Cemetery and Lizzie Siddal's grave. It was a time of high hopes and dreams of a future in the museum world.