Mistofolees and Sweeney

So, my parents are my heroes right now for Pure, Unadulturated Geekiness. Mum told me this ages ago, but I'd forgotten: Mum and Dad used to have a cat named Misty. She was my other mother for the first year or two of my life; she used to bother Mum when I cried, and she slept in my crib sometimes. Unfortunately, she was hit by a car when I was two. But anyway--Misty was only her nickname. Her full name was Mrs. Mistofolees. Mum and Dad figured that the reason why Mr. Mistofolees of T.S. Eliot's delightful Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was such a marvel was because "he" pulled nine kittens out of a hat, thus proving that "he" was actually a she in disguise, hence the cat's name.

But when Mum recounted this to me again recently, her response to my giddy geekish rapture was: "Oh, well, the Sweeneys (friends of parents) named their cat Macavity."

Here my mind went, with a bit of a leap, SWEENEY? I'd almost completely forgotten about them, although they visited us in Massachusetts, and that was long before I was interested in any Eliot other than Practical Cats, so I never made the connection. Now, I have no idea if Mr. Sweeney has ever been Erect, or Among the Nightengales, or if the man in the Spanish cape has ever tried to sit on his knees, but I am already longing to meet him again and ask him these questions, because if he understands them, he will be my hero forever.