Every morning I awaken to an assortment of furry faces staring at me in anticipation of breakfast. Of course all of my cats are the best examples of feline beauty to ever meow on this earth. But usually one sticks out in its extraordinary catness each day.
Before I am fully awake, I reach for my iPhone and I start snapping photos.
Then I share the most endearing photo on Facebook. Within seconds, I start getting alerts to “Likes” and comments on the photo. It goes on all day, and sometimes continues into the next day.
I’ve read articles by so-called social media experts suggesting that you should not post too many pet or baby photos on Facebook. They say it annoys people. They obviously don’t know me or my Facebook friends.
I am a serial “Liker” of baby and candid pet photos, and my friends seem to be too.
Here is the real reason I share my cats’ photos.
Although my studio is a few paces from my home, I still spend many hours away from my cats each day. When I share a photo of the sweet moment I have with them in the morning, I take it with me all day, and it keeps me close to them.
Each time I get an alert that someone “liked” or commented on the photo, it makes me smile. I need those extra smiles some days.
I guess the photo makes my friends smile too. What’s the harm in that?
I have shared the stories of each of my cats this week in order to celebrate my status as a Crazy Cat Lady.
I purposefully titled each post with “Crazy Cat Ladies Rock!” because I wanted to get some positive posts about ladies who are crazy about cats on the interewebs. Why?
If you Google “Crazy Cat Lady”, you will find that there is so much negative and really harsh stuff out there. I think it is time that we ladies (and Crazy Cat Guys) fight back!
I was inspired to do this by my friend Dorian who publishes the Your Daily Cute blog and also writes for Catster (pictured above). Dorian recently wrote this post for Catster where she rightfully claimed her title as the “Official Poster Crazy Cat Lady of the Internet”.
Now I am a fifty year old lady without much shape or style, so it is a little bit harder for me to shirk the stereotype of the Crazy Cat Lady. But Dorian is young, has great style, works hard at keeping a nice figure, spends much of her time at the beach, and is the essence of “cool”.
And she is CRAZY about cats. So crazy, she has a dream of saving every cat that is in need or is in danger of being euthanized because a shelter is not able to find it a home.
A lofty dream, for sure. But not an impossible one. We must strive for excellence, and we cannot achieve that if we do not dream big.
Dorian is working on plans so that her network of cat lovers can work together in innovative ways to help cats that need care and homes.
My hope is that my latest Okey’s Promise project will help us in moving towards the goal of finding safe homes for cats and other animals that are in danger of death or abuse because they have no homes.
The photo above is of Dorian at the Animal Aid cat shelter in South Florida. The photo was taken by Stephanie of Sonju Photography.
Sadly, as the Catster post shares, many websites have used the photo illegally to demean women who love cats, rather than for it’s intended purpose, which was to encourage cat adoption. Dorian and Stephanie granted me permission to use the photo, as they knew I would honor its purpose.
I am sharing the photo and its story here, as I want to make a challenge to my Crazy Cat Lady (or Guy) friends.
I challenge you to write a post about how positive Crazy Cat people are and why it is FABULOUS to be crazy about cats. Please don’t use the photo without permission. Find some photos of your own that share the joy of cats so that we can debunk the myths about women and cats.
Can you? Will you? Lets have some fun with this!
Lets fill the interwebs with positive things about people crazy about cats!
One other thing. I agree with Dorian. We need to get her on Ellen as Google’s most popular cat lady. Lets put our paws together to make it happen!
I have always had short hair cats until Noah and Who found their way to me.
I really was not keen on long hair cats, and I was hesitant with these two. But as I shared in yesterday’s post, I reached a point where I needed a new cat, and these two needed a home.
Noah (top) and Who (bottom) are brothers. Their mother, pregnant with them and their sister, was a stray cat rescued by a woman in Waco, OH.
They were kept in a basement in a plastic bin after they were born. The basement flooded, and all but Noah climbed to safety onto a shelf. He was found floating around in his plastic “ark”, hence the name.
I needed another cat for Slick to have a companion after her best pal Bub went to the Rainbow Bridge in 2004. I coincidentally, had a need for a another cat, as well.
I had just moved my mother, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, from Houston, TX to live in a supervised facility near me in Ohio. The only way I could make the move acceptable to her was getting her a feline companion. Luckily, the facility was pet friendly.
“Who” photo by BZTAT
My mother had always been one to name pets unique names, so her attempt to simply call her new cat “Kitty” really brought her disease into focus for me. I had to push her to name him something different. Eventually, we settled on “Kitty Kat Who” after the “Cat Who…” murder mystery series by Lillian Jackson Braun, her favorite book series at the time. I simply called him Who.
Who was a great companion for my mother for 4 years until her illness progressed and she had to be moved to a more secure facility. He was not allowed at the new facility, and he came to live with me.
Noah was a huge even as a kitten. He eventually grew to a humongous 21 lbs! He became very overweight and had to go through a special weight loss program. Now he is around 18 lbs, which is still huge, but a fairly normal weight for him. He could still use to go down a pound or two, but couldn’t we all?
“Noah” photo by BZTAT
When I first got Noah, he was a VERY rambunctious fellow, and he proved to be too much for Slick. I brought Brewskie into our home to give him some distraction. It worked.
Brewskie is the MASTER of distraction.
Noah is now a pretty calm fellow. He is probably the one cat with whom everyone, including Okey, is the most comfortable.
