In this current COVID era in which time doesn’t seem to evolve, but drifts endlessly from one day to the next with nary a distinction between what day of the week it is, let alone what month, the same does not hold with my beloved senior cat, Zee. With him, I’m painstakingly conscious of every fast-paced tick of the clock that passes within this slow-motion world. Read more

Happy Birthday to a very special and extraordinary cat.

I’m nearly 60 years old and cats have been a part of my life all of those years, probably totaling at least a couple dozen during that timeframe. And I love them all – past and present – each with their wonderfully unique personalities. I won’t say I have favorites, that’s not my style, but I can say every once in a while one of them really stands out, having an extraordinarily special nature. Kizmet is one of those cats. He’s a cat in which the earth revolves on a very special axis – one that is exceptionally kind, tolerant, intuitive, loving, patient, and accepting. In other words, he’s what’s good and pure about this world and a cat we could learn from. Read more

There are a couple of facts when it comes to cats – one being, unfortunately, that there are millions of them at any given moment living in shelters in need of a good home, and two, that it’s been proven cats can decrease our depression, stress and anxiety levels, lower our blood pressure, and decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke by having them around. With our current COVID-19 landscape, defined by stress and anxiety, and June Adopt a Shelter Cat Month, it seems the purr-fect time to bring that feline shelter companion to your life and household. Save a cat’s life and they save yours. Seems fair to me. Read more

I shared this graphic a couple of weeks ago on a Friday but it remains true to the landscape of COVID-19. Just what day is it anymore?

The dichotomy is interesting and not one I’m entirely capable of expressing or even understanding. I’m living in the present, going through the motions of life, but somehow, I’m detached from it all, as if perhaps it’s happening to someone else as I watch it from the sidelines. Each day runs into the next with no real beginning or end, time seemingly defined by body counts, not days, with the only real marker of time the loud and persistent daily reminders from my cats who demand meals with regularity, showing no regard for my malaise or inability to comprehend the newly defined COVID-19 landscape all around me. Read more

Easter Sunday, as it’s known in Christianity, marks the anniversary of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven and is typically a day steeped deep in traditions to celebrate the miracle – most of them involving social gatherings, whether groups of people at church or family celebrations at home. But today, amid a global pandemic, tradition is replaced with social distancing, cleaning and disinfecting taking precedence, and the holiday will have to be reinvented. We can still celebrate and look for the deeper meanings of love and hope in what is a scary and uncertain world, but we must keep safety and smart cleaning in mind, especially in those households with cats who are cooped up in close quarters with us. Read more