Earlier this week, I renamed our cats. Because I’m crazy like that. They are, after all, CATS, and they don’t really care what we CALL them, as long as we feed them regularly and let them sleep on the beds. In fact, they’d be happiest if they OWNED the beds.

While I cooked dinner, the cats were swarming at my feet, their way of reminding me that they need dinner too, and I had a burst of whimsical inspiration I decided that the cats should all be named after characters from Shakespeare. I re-named them Puck, Lady Macbeth, and Desdemona.

“Who is Puck?” C asked when I announced the cats’ new names.

“He is a character from Midsummer Night’s Dream. A sprite.”

“And what play is Desdemona from?” he asked.

“Hmm… let me think.” Shakespeare’s female characters all blend in my brain while I try to sort them out—Ophelia, Portia, Desdemona, Regan, Miranda…. They are like bright colors swirling in the white paint of my brain. Desdemona is from….

But C was impatient, so he Googled it. “Othello. Desdemona is in Othello!”

“That’s right! I should have known that right away. One of my students was working on a paper for Othello a month or so ago.”

While I do think Desdemona is a very fitting name for my young lady kitten, the cat names… they were never meant to be serious. Perhaps we might keep it as a secondary name. The brief foray into renaming did accomplish a short discussion of Shakespeare, which is never a bad thing.

C is continuing to call the cats by their “new” names, and every time he does, I smile. My literary cats.

Just wait until I bring them to the vet. When Lady Macbeth (formerly Asia) shows up, won’t they be confused? Oh, I think I could have some fun with this….