Zoot () passed away in the early morning hours on Monday, October 24, 2005. I adopted her as a six-week-old stray on Memorial Day in 2003, when I found her crying piteously in my driveway in a heavy rainstorm. She immediately started purring when I picked her up, which sealed my fate.

I don’t know what the cause of death was: I found her on the floor next to the couch, with no apparent injuries, when I woke up in the morning. When I’d gone to sleep a few hours earlier she was as affectionate and playful as always—the picture of rude feline health. Losing her is a blow, and I miss her. I’m posting this because I’m retiring her blog, and I wanted to let folks know why.

Yesterday was the first annual Tour de Bob. The modestly-named tour is a bicycle ride through Marine Park and Rockaway, and points in between. Sunday afternoon and Laura, and and Shana showed up at my house wearing “Tour de Bob” tee-shirts that they’d designed and had printed for the occasion. To say I was floored would be an understatement. I pulled on my tee-shirt and off we went on a three-hour, twenty-mile tour. All photography by the incomparable Laura Chavoen, except for the group shots in front of Battery Harris East, which were snapped by a kind stranger.