Magic Fairy Kitty

In keeping with my "one post a day" promise, here's another one for you! This is a picture of my old cat, Callette. Here is her story:

Callette turned up on our doorstep in April 2005, apparently dying of starvation. $300 worth of vet bills later, she was living with us and feeling much better. We put out "found kitty" posters over our neighborhood, but no one called to claim her. The fact that we put "vet bills for this cat may exceed $300" on the sign may have had something to do with this.

Despite her diminutive size (she barely cut 3 lbs.) the vet thought she was definitely 12 or older. She was probably a Burmese, with many odd defects: her meow was rough and choked (like Gollum turned into a cat), she could not retract her claws and they had to be kept trimmed, and she had a habit of curling up on you, whatever you were doing. One of her favorite past times was sharing a lap (preferably mine) with a laptop computer. To maneuver me into this, she would sit on my closed iBook and yowl the way only a Gollum-kitty can. Also, because lap space is scarce when you are walking around, she developed a talent for riding on one's shoulder, halfway wrapped around one's neck.

On sunny days she liked to sit in my window that faced the front porch, sitting on a bookshelf already filled with figurines and thingumbobs, looking more like a furry statuette than a cat. Delivery men who came to drop packages off would invariably do a double take as they spotted the two yellow eyes peering out at them, and half the time bend down and tap the glass, trying to see if the cat was real.

Callette passed away in February, 2006, of apparent liver failure; but not before spreading lots of quirky love around and helping my mom get her dream job. Because of this she has been dubbed the "Magic Fairy Kitty."

Prismacolor pencils, once again, this time of 8"x10" mat board.

Enjoy, and love to all cats out there.