I’ve had a passion for writing maybe forever and I’ve followed that passion for pretty much all of my adult life. I started writing for publication in 1973, but before that I wrote stories for my three small daughters, lots of letters, poetry for greeting cards for family and friends, PTA agendas, and prompts for fashion shows.
When I started writing for publication, it was articles for magazines . That’s probably when I discovered that I write not only to entertain, but to teach, share, educate, and help. That’s what I felt I was doing—what my mission was—all 
those years I wrote nonfiction. My articles and books were designed to help people learn something, do something better, obtain a better perspective, etc. When I retired into fiction, it just felt right to continue that as much as I could. Within the Klepto Cat Mystery stories, I still strive to teach on solid topics as well as values. Through my stories, I attempt to put forth a good example for people. And people notice. Often I get comments about how good my characters are. Readers say they’d like to spend time with some of my characters.
They’d like to know them, sit down and chat over coffee, count them among their friends. Now that’s a lovely compliment for an author, I’d say.
I’m sorry, but I just love interesting and meaningful cat quotes. Here’s one that showed up on my Cat-a-Day Calendar recently: “Cats and monkeys: monkeys and cats; all human life is there.” Henry James
Some cats love adventure. If they’re lucky, they find a home with someone who will take them on interesting trips—hiking, canoeing, or just seeing the sights. But there’s the occasional cat who, perhaps, isn’t getting the excitement he craves, so he launches out on his own adventure. This was the case with a black long-hair cat named Sasha.
when he was found.
We all have them—memories of cats that once graced our lives, but that no longer live in this dimension. Almost anyone who has ever loved an animal knows the pain of losing that precious pet. Even those who tried my patience, hold a special place in my heart—like our snowshoe-type feral cat who constantly engaged in inappropriate urination. How I loved that big boy. Well, we went through a lot together—each of us trying to understand the other and always
forgiving.
Few of my cats lived past the age of ten, including a gorgeous shaded-silver Persian I bought from a breeder. She came to me infected with feline leukemia, although the veterinarian couldn’t identify it because it was so new at the time. We just continued to treat her with random remedies the vets thought would help and some did for a while. Poor kitty didn’t have much of a chance.
You probably see jokes and cartoons and quotes showing cats during the stay-at-home orders and a lot of photographs of cats. I get a kick out of them. There’s one, for example, where two cats are talking to each other from separate apartment windows. One says, “I hate this. My humans have taken over the couch.”
my own bed now.”
Here’s a site with pictures of cats in isolation with their humans. I was entertained–thought you might be, too.
This story is just too entertaining and cute to not share. So that’s what I’m going to do. Thank you, Virginia, for sending it to me. It’s about a cat named Carrot. The photos are absolutely adorable and so is Carrot.
We talked about this in an earlier post. Where does your cat go when you let her outside? A study group has finally answered that question for us—well sort of. It’s still going to take some imagination to figure out why the cat does what he or she does.
Tracker’s Project involving 900 cats over a six year period. They fitted the cats with GPS collars, then sat back and watched and waited to find out how far they travel. Most, they said, stay within 330 feet of home. I saw a map once outlining the actual path of a cat on the prowl. That cat stayed within a fairly small area, but walked quite a long ways as his route took him here and there, back and forth, up and down and across–often many times over.
In this most recent study, seven percent of the cats monitored stayed within a 25 acre space and several covered larger areas. The record, however, was set by a cat named Penny who roamed three square miles. There was one cat who walked one mile to the next town, they say, for no apparent reason.
long with the many changes taking place in our lives these days, we’re seeing a different view of the news and weather forecasting “from the hovel,” as some say. News- and weathercasters try to find a quiet space in their home to present their message, give the weather report, or share the news of the day. TV show hosts are filming through computer technology from their kitchen, living room, even their children’s cluttered bedroom or their backyard. You get a glimpse of how your most familiar TV personalities
live and sometimes a peek at their pets.
Cats are even more likely to show up on screen during an at-home filming session. If the cat is at all curious, she’s going to worm her way into the room just to see what’s going on. Take Betty the Weather Cat. She wandered onto the temporary home-based set one day and is now on demand as part of the team. According to the story, ratings are up since Betty joined the crew. 
Book sales are up! And it’s not just wishful thinking on my part. According to Ingram’s BISAC studies this is true across the board, with humor, especially related to animals and history, leading the pack with a 1085% increase in sales. Young adult book sales are up 843% and fiction (mystery, fantasy) are up over 500%.
book sales showed that our focus was more on self-help, such as cooking; body, mind, and spirit, and language arts. And the increase in book sales was not as dramatic.
“Love this series. The characters, both human and animal, are engaging.”
What’s your favorite game to play with your cats? Max used to love to play catch. Each evening when he’d see me prepare to head off to bed, he’d jump up onto the cat tree and look at me in anticipation. I’d get his spongy ball and we’d have a wild game of catch. Because the ball was soft, he could catch it in his claw and he’d toss it back to me. Wish I had a video of that.
straw. I use a straw in my coffee and clip the end off so it will fit better. Lily hears the clip of the scissors and runs into my office waiting for me to flick that piece toward her. She catches it then drops it and waits for me to flick it again. Cuteness.
toy.
Seriously dangerous.
