Fela, our cat.

Fela is named after Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Fela Kuti is remembered for his revolutionary political views and his role in the establishment of afrobeat music; Fela the cat is mostly known for loving olives and aggressively sniffing mouths. Also, Fela the cat is most likely homosexual, while Fela Kuti was quite famously heterosexual.

Here is a picture of me with Fela a couple of years ago in our old house in Galveston:

(Everything you see in the above picture, with the exception of myself, Fela, and the t-shirt I am wearing, is now covered with Ike mold and in a dump somewhere. Even the yellow walls have been ripped out of that house.)

We named Fela after Fela because we were listening to Beasts of No Nation and driving around Minneapolis the day that we officially started dating, eight years ago. Before we dated, when we were in college, we used to spend a lot of time driving around Minneapolis, listening to Fela Kuti and pretending we were just friends. I'm sure the romantic tension was intolerable to our friends. Anyway, Fela the kitten came into the picture a few months later, as my first Christmas present from Matt. Fela the cat is our BFF. He hates to ride in the car but is otherwise remarkably adaptable and has, more than once, stayed with friends for anywhere from a week to three months at a time while we traveled. He is always happy to come home to us, though. He's a good guy and he sleeps on my pillow with me.