Bean is 14 years old, born late April 2000. He grew into a huge, teddy bear of a cat. He took on the characteristics of my golden retriever, rather than the other cats in the house.

My mom, being a frustrated grandmother, would spoil my pets and, sadly for us all, refer to them as her grandcats, granddogs, grandhorse…and worst of all, grandfish.
 
But I must admit I did love that she loved my pets, as she never took a shine to any of our pets when I was growing up. These were my guys and she treated them great.
 
One day my mom showed up at my front door with a very smug look on her face and a Target shopping bag in one hand. She said barely a word at me as she walked in my house and I accused her, “what did you do?”
 
She handed me the bag, and I pulled out….a chicken hat made to be worn by a cat! You see, Target decided to design and produce novelty hats for cats. I had even seen a gardening hat (no, I am not making any of this up), complete with Velcro under-chin closures.
 
This was a gift for Bean, her favorite of my three cats.
 
Oh Brother. I do not remember why I waited, but a several days later I put the hat on Bean, fastened the velcro and quickly stood back expecting to lose some blood. Bean just looked at me with his sweet blue eyes and I decided to grab my camera. I did not expect to be able to repeat this deed, so I called my mom and started to film. The only way I could share the video with my mom was to post on youtube.
 
It was a great laugh for us both. The next thing I knew a blog in the UK decided to run a contest for whomever could post the best reply to my video. Soon I had over 700 views and replies.
 
A near-star was born.
 
Bean’s video has over 1200 views last I looked, and he is oblivious to it all. But he still puts up with more than any cat I know. He is a great boy, and happy to have his name part of my venture and labor of love.