Old kitty

So today our loyal old Russian Blue (who's gray) turns 14. Ryan and I adopted her from a litter of kittens born on my parents' farm the very first summer we were together and, for better or worse, Miss Alice "Allie" Cooper, has been in our lives ever since. We had taken Ryan on our family vacation to Minnesota that year, along with my Nanny and Papaw, and Ryan wrangled the newborn kittens out from under the deck the night we returned home from the trip. She is the longest-living pet I've ever had, has lived in 2 apartments and 5 houses with us and and seems braced for many a year to come. Sadly our blonde kitty Avrie, a shelter find just a year or two after Allie was born, has no recorded birthdate, so we let her celebrate along with her sister and BFF. We'll say she's 13. And while we're at it, my black kitty Maya Angelou was my birthday present one August 2 years ago (or is it 3?), so I guess Alice will have to share her special day with the outdoor cat who could give or take the rest of us. I know a lot of people just do not care for cats, and the hair on the furniture and hairballs spat out in the most inconvenient of places (and a few even more unpleasant surprises left on my bathroom rug here lately) do certainly get tiresome. But it's hard to imagine our life without these old girls in it. They've just always been with us.

"A dog, I have always said, is prose. A cat is a poem."~Jean Burden

Lots of great snippets of wisdom for cat lovers at www.quotegarden.com/cats.html.