A Brief List of My Cat Kuma’s Favorite Things

  1. Hugh Jackman. See accompanying photo of Kuma watching X2 in our apartment in Lublin, Poland. Maybe he just knew that a few years later, his human mother would be teaching on the university campus that houses the X mansion. Whatever the reason, he’s spellbound when Jackman is on screen. I think a lot of us can sympathize.
  2. Russian composers, specifically Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev—but not, oddly enough, the zoophilous Peter and the Wolf (he’s more a Romeo and Juliet cat). Frankly, I was disappointed because I listened to a ton of Chopin while I wrote The Snow Queens, and I noted that Kuma couldn’t care less about that most beloved of Polish artists. But if I play anything by the above Russians, he comes and sits by the computer, listening quietly. And Kuma is not a quiet cat.
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