Like a mom struggling with a toddler, Judy Norton juggled her purse, car keys and a slightly overweight Siamese cat as she reached for the car door.

Once she opened it, Yoda leaped onto the front seat and jumped onto the dash of the electric blue PT Cruiser, where he settled on top of the vent, curling his tail around him.

The two were ready for a mid-morning run to the bank and a trip to a home improvement store.

Yoda doesn't care where they're going. He's just along for the ride.

His owner makes sure he scratches in the litter box before they go out, and she's never had a problem en route, even if they're gone as long as three hours.

The rescued chocolate point doesn't wait in the car while she runs inside. At the bank, he sat on the counter while she filled out her slip. At Lowe's, he rode in the basket while she pushed the cart up and down the aisles.

"Stay," she said as she walked over to a battery display.

And he did.

That's the only command Yoda knows, "but that's the most important one."

Life didn't start out all that great for Yoda. He used to live with a couple of guys who used him as a football. Declawed, he had little to defend himself.

Norton rescued him. She didn't bother changing his name, although she's never seen a "Star Wars" movie and knows nothing about Jedi masters. What she does know is he quickly claimed his space in the tidy redwood ranch where she's lived in Bloomington for 41 years.

He used to push her to the edge of the bed, until she figured out that if she placed a warm heating pad on his side, he'd stay there. When she sits in her wing chair, he hops into her lap, his icy blue almond-shaped eyes turning into slits.

About a year ago, Norton retired. She'd worked in child care, served up muffins in a university bakery and scooped mashed potatoes in a high school cafeteria. Now she volunteers, even though she can't get around as well with bad knees and finger-curling arthritis.

For the four years she's had Yoda, he's traveled with her.

"He was so abused. I thought he needed to be with people," she said. "You really cannot not like him."

No one's refused them but she knows any place where there's food, including grocery stores and the mall food court, is off-limits.

"We just kind of meander," she said. "Police have seen him. Everybody has seen him and never said a word. The people who've met him love him."

When she pulls into her dentist's office, she parks near a window, where the staff can see him. When she's done, she brings him in for a visit.

"It's unbelievable," said Lisa Boyd, receptionist for Dr. John Van Scoyoc. "She takes him everywhere. He's her little buddy."

Yoda's been to day cares and the nursing home where Norton's 99-year-old uncle lives. She confines him to his room.

"If I didn't, he'd have a heyday," she said.

Too many corridors. Too many laps.

Dr. Lou Herrin is Yoda's veterinarian. Although he's used to seeing a tight bond between dogs and their owners, it's more unusual to see a cat as a constant companion.

"She's really attached to him," he said of his client of 30 years. "She has always taken good care of her pets but she has a real special relationship with Yoda."

Norton's life is quiet now. Her only son, Joe, lives in Japan. A sister she was close to moved to Missouri. The two were adopted together from the Baby Fold.

"Wherever we would go, we'd go together," she said.

For 32 years, she's been divorced and she's usually had a cat. There was a five-year stretch when she didn't and that was too long.

"When I'd come home, there wasn't anybody there," she said. "It was too quiet."