Really, this whole experience should have been a disaster: Two people, one cat, nowhere to live for two weeks due to a grouchy former landlord and a new apartment that wasn’t quite ready. But due to the beautifully executed intervention of one top-notch travel agent and one very pet-friendly hotel, the arithmetic all came out splendidly.

Luna, my newly travel-savvy cat, has her own Twitter account, and when Thom the terrific travel agent found us a room at the Hotel Marlowe in Cambridge, Luna gave (OK, I gave) the hotel a quick shout-out just to see what would happen. We didn’t really anticipate a three-week dialogue that started with a friendly hello from the manager, carried through to check-in with a kitty care basket including a little seagull plush toy (Luna’s Twitter-bio goal for 2014, since she’s newly moved to the East Coast, is to #eataseagull), and played out during our stay with an invitation for Luna to preside over the hotel’s nightly wine hour in the lobby. Among other delights.

I edited a luxury hotel guidebook for a few years, and am usually pretty jaded when it comes to accommodations - particularly of the pet-friendly variety - but the Marlowe went above and beyond in just about every way imaginable. After a cross-country move, living out of various suitcases and boxes for a month, loading all the things into a van yet again, and all the other chaos that comes with adjusting to a new place and a new job, being granted a comfortable, well-kept haven (with a seventh-floor view, no less) was a pretty splendid gift indeed.

From all the purrs, Luna seems to agree.