Friday, February 27, 2009

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING
The Next Generation

Reine and Dash




If you've been watching Real Art's Friday Cat Blogging for the last three years or so, you've been getting an alternating dose of two sets of cats. The reason for that is that I started cat blogging back when I was married. We had three cats back then, Paz, Phil, and Frankie, and I would post the whole pride on a weekly basis. Then Frankie's brother, Sammy, decided the feral life wasn't for him anymore, so for a while there I was posting four cat pics a week.

Then Becky and I broke up. Don't shed any tears for us, though. We're currently fabulous friends--really, we broke up to save our friendship, and it's ended up being a good call. Part of the divorce, however, was splitting up our family of cats. Frankie and Sammy, who Becky and I adopted when we were a couple, stayed with me; she kept Paz and Phil because they were older and had been with her for years before she and I met.

So far so good.

But how was I to handle Friday Cat Blogging? I had lots of pics of Paz and Phil on my hard drive, so I decided to alternate between my cats and her cats. I mean, the way I see it, and Becky agrees with me, they were still all our cats, albeit living separately. Eventually Paz, old girl that she was, finally passed away. Becky was, of course, miserable about it, me too, as well as Phil, so she decided after a time to adopt a new kitten, Reine. Meanwhile, I was running out of Phil pictures to post, so I made the hour and a half trek from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to get more shots of Phil, and to photograph my new step-cat Reine. Those are the pics I've been running every other week for a couple of years now.

Of course, today I'm living in NOLA myself, and Becky has given me shit about posting pictures of Reine from when she was a kitten, when all I had to do is hop over to her place to get some new ones; I mean, the little girl's all grown up now--Becky definitely had a good point. And in the meantime she adopted a third cat, another jet black one named Dash, my second step-kitty. But I never seemed to make it over to her place with my camera to get a new roll of Reine and Phil and Dash. Circumstances, however, have finally forced my hand. When Phil died recently, I decided to use the last of the pictures I had of him for his memorial post. Two weeks later, or, if you prefer, two weeks ago, I decided to finish off my Reine pictures, leaving me with no new images of my step-cats for Fridays.

But now that's all changed: this is why Reine appears to be fully grown in the photo above despite appearing here as a kitten only fourteen days ago. It's also why there's yet another cat, Dash. Essentially, they're the next generation. I mean, you know, Becky and I are cat people, and even though she and I are no longer a couple, these cats are essentially our children. This is our family. And we love them.

Obviously.

Anyway, be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics.

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