Who Are the Kitties in Your Neighborhood?

My neighbor Mark (the one who offered me $100 to stop feeding peanuts to the squirrels because he is convinced the dropped peanuts grow into monstrous sumac trees) has finally paused in his house renovations to move in the gentleman who actually owns the house ~ Walt. Walt had been "fixing up” the house for 20-some years, until he got too old to deal with it, which is where Mark came in.

Along with Walt came a cat – an old black cat with failing vision and hearing. Walt, who is now in has 80s and has never had a pet before, is besotted with this cat. When said kitty is gone for more than five minutes, Mark is dispatched to find her, and wanders the yard rattling kibble and calling her name. The cat, who finds all this a bit strange, is quite content with her new digs and even sits on the garage roof to watch my cats as they scale rooftop and pergola. And she seems to have made Walt magically content.
Though I have no black cats in my brood at the moment, we have certainly hosted our share of black kitties, each unique and quirky. I considered adopting a black cat to round out the current menagerie of five (not counting front porch strays) but I haven’t recovered from the last round of vet bills yet. Instead of adoption, I made a set with a black cat bracelet, necklace, and earrings.

I had a few cats carved of hematite left in my stash, and added plenty of hematite beads to round out the pieces. On the bracelet I threw in two kitties of black onyx, which kind of match the ones in the earrings. I say “kind of” because, when carving cats from rocks, no two look even remotely alike.

Both hematite and cats have healing properties. Did you know that the frequency of a cat’s purr is the same as ultrasound? Next time you have aches and pains, just apply a purring cat.

It seems to be working for Walt.