To see this image in its full, spooktacular glory, please click to enlarge… If you dare! Bawahahahahaha….

It’s officially Halloween and on behalf of the whole spooky gang at Zee and Zoey’s, we’d like to wish those of you that participate in the creepy, crawly, and frightening festivities, a safe and fun day! For those of you that don’t participate, we wish you a safe and fun day as well, just minus the creepy crawlies!

I am spending the day in Atlanta with all of my animal loving friends who are at the BarkWorld/MeowWorld Conference and I can only imagine the outrageous costumes I am going to see! For me, I will be none other than my cat loving self, as in for me, every day is a day to dress up like a cat – the only difference, this time I won’t be the only one wearing cat ears in a crowd!

As an extra-special treat today and to prove my point that I always have been a cat-ear wearing lady, I am sharing a very rare, vintage image of myself that dates back to Halloween of 1979 when I was 19 years old. The only difference between now and then (besides the color of my hair and the increase in facial wrinkles) is the fact that my ears were black and not leopard!

Wow… Talk about a relic… Not just me, but me in a picture back when using Polaroid cameras were all the rage (as well as over-teased hair and pencil-thin eyebrows)!

Quite an image, huh? I think what is the most amazing about it is how much times have changed. This picture was taken in the first apartment I ever had on my own. I got it after I graduated from High School in preparation of attending my first year at Herkimer County Community College (Upstate New York) and I shared it with my best friend.

Even though it was wonderful to be living on my own as a grown woman (can’t you tell by the cutesy animal cut outs I had on the wall that are more suited to someone about 12 years of age and my messy bed with linens that didn’t match at all how mature I was?) it was a horrible place and we only lasted a couple of months. The last straw was when my hair conditioner froze because the place was so cold and so we subsequently found a better apartment. As in an apartment with heat…

I also met my now ex-husband at this time. A mere 10 months later I married him (I was still 19 at the time). We lasted 23 years but the truth was, I was just too young when we married and we both changed far too much in that time to make it last. That is what I meant about times changing – while I don’t regret anything, I do think kids today are smarter than we used to be. They don’t seem to jump into marriage so young, deciding to pursue careers first to figure out who they are before committing to a serious relationship.

Anyhow, no matter how times have changed, the one thing that never has is my love for cats! I look forward to returning from the conference with all kinds of cat loving stories and I will share them as soon as I can! In the meantime, here is another vintage treat – this was me at my first Cat Writers’ Conference in 2011 in White Plains, New York, where I exposed my true leopard lady persona!