that special someone

I have a huge space reserved in my heart for this special-faced Cowan avenue sweetheart. 

Such an oddly beautiful special face, with freckled eyes and big lips!

and the softest blonde fur!

And the tenderest nature.

This kitty identifies as neither gender, and uses the pronoun "they".  Good kitty.  Dreamy.

They demonstrated an adorable kitten habit of rolling around in the dirt and leaves - yet they stay so clean and well groomed!

Intimacy nerves

This guy’s face says it all.  I never knew a cat could have social anxiety, but this one clearly does!  This is the face I make when I’m nervous up in da club.  

Just chillaxin', but still so anxious!  Look at his back foot - awkward kitty!  Unlike with humans it just makes him cuter.  Excellent double paws, bro.

This beaut lives on my street - Spencer Ave!

Found Cat Art

Some incredibly cute and industrious cat lover made this sign about a pretty kitty.

black beauty in a secret garden

WHO GOES THERE?

I DO.

Aristocratic bone structure and perfect brown welwet paw pads on a Melbourne Ave porch. 

Catfitti Part Troix

What kind of animal do you think this is that someone drew in this dangerous alley way in Parkdale?

This “mow”ing kitty is in Milky Way between Cowan and Elm Grove. 

The Milky Way is lovely and magical because of its name and all the colorful graffiti in it, but it's also a source of Black Magic - when Kalim (my best gay shopping buddy) first moved into Parkdale, they found the severed ear of a sex worker in it.  

Whoops, there it is.

little Cowan sidewalk cat

You are irresistibly small!

 I love you more.

To A Cat

Stately, kindly, lordly friend,

Condescend

Here to sit by me, and turn

Glorious eyes that smile and burn,

Golden eyes, love’s lustrous meed,

On the golden page I read.

All your wondrous wealth of hair,

Dark and fair,

Silken shaggy, soft and bright

As the clouds and beams of night,

Pays my reverent hand’s caress

Back with friendlier gentleness.

Dogs may fawn on all and some

  As they come;

You, a friend of loftier mind,

Answer friends alone in kind. 

Just your foot upon my hand

Softly bids it understand.  

-Algernon Charles Swinburne

Thanks, yet again, for the wonderful picture Margaret!

SYNTHESIS CAT

The Queen West Art Crawl put on an amazing fundraiser called SYNTHESIS last Friday, and OH BOY! there was one guest who was getting all my attention!

The gala was held at a beautiful ballet school (think black swan except with feminism and fun instead of psychosis and ultra violence) in Parkdale!  They have a resident feline ballerina who patrols the place to make sure there are no mice to trip up the little dancers.  Unfortunately for the event he had to be quarantined in a separate room, but as we prepared for the guests to arrive, I got a little one-on-one with him, as captured by my friend Eric "Red Hill" Akaoka - literally the best, nicest photographer in the world.  

OH SHEET!  Who's that tiny dancer?

Oh hey guys, it's just me, the little lionette who lives in the ballet school, protecting my charges from evil competitive mommies, rapey Austrian dance instructor dudes and faux lesbianism with Mila Kunis!

Then I got down on all fours (in formal attire! at a professional function!) for a little pat sesh and he was soooo loving!!!  Look at that mamma's boy face!  Purr purr.

Then he remembered he was a working cat, and on the clock!

Back to work!

Mother-of-Pearl eyes.

                               I hope that love and magic will always surround you.

           Perfect set of haunting eyes and a velveteen nose bewitch Dundas and Lansdowne.

Depicted by my friend Emily.

Molson and the Six-Pack Paws.

There's a beautifully special cat that I came across whilst perusing/stalking the neighbourhood cats on Facebook. MOLSON is amazing. Not only is he named after the fine makers of one of my most favorite beverages (Canadian is the best, you snobs!), but he also has another little trait that i love so dearly - polydactylism!

This pretty Parkdale chap is packing a lot of punch in those powerful paws. Six toes never looked so sweet. Let's take a look back at the development of this special sweetie.

Oooh the face that launched a thousand ships.  Love the eyebrows!

Glamor shot!

growing into a little gentleman.  sick paws, bro.

You could tell just from looking at him that Molson would be a literary fellow.  Proud face!

Molson's paws come in handy for holding open his tomes.

"OMG!  Rochester already has a wife and she's living in the attic?!?!? WTF!"

As a book-lover, Molson stands in protest against the lesser medium of TV.  Can't you just imagine him raising his little paws at a protest rally?

Thank you Parkdale Cat Mommy Liang. 

Get ready for your heart to throw up.

What could be better than babes and kittens?????

Two lovely Parkdalian ladies had a kitten party one day and I have usurped the photo-documentation, so you can puke love from your heart like I did when I saw these pics!

Kerry, the tattooed babe holding the brown guy owns an amazing store called The Future of Frances Watson. If you want to be steezy in Parkdale, you've gotta go there!

Christy, the left-most babe with the orange angel is the owner of the teen mum who birthed these babies. You can watch this gorgeous orange kitten become and adult angel at her adorablog My Catty Blog.

Brown and marmelade viciously attack a snake!  That plastic snake is shaking in it's boots (from cuteness).

Destroying this dastardly snake requires immense concentration in the form of forward-downward ear pointing and oversized fluffy paw smack downs.

Heart of a killer with the face of innocence.

Oooh what is this thread doing to my head?  I better stare at it with my Precious Moments eyes!

Inspection of a human knee.  Love the nose colouring!

Introspection.  The escapade with the snake lead this brown guy to ruminate on the concept of Original Sin. Deep thoughts, guys!

Oooh, what's that? A hand? Maybe it will pet me!

Can't thank you babes enough for this.  Parkdale makes the cutest kittens!  I've posted a lot of cute cats on this blog, and I do think all cats are incredibly cute, but I have to say in my expert opinion, this is the cutest kitten I've ever seen.

Cat Lady of Parkdale

Rocking a cat hat at the Parkdale Dollarama

It kinda looks like a bunny!  Maybe it is.  But let's just say it's a cat to fit in with my lifesteez.

Oh, the ironing!

 

The ironing is delicious because cats ARE feminists!!!  Here's the proof.

Thanks to Alex Hall for this great picture!  I saw it in real life the day i posted it.  Right outside Good For Her on Harbord Street!

peeping Parkdale tom cat wants a beer

DANG what's going on in there?

Eh, I'm gonna get me a Bud.

Pervy peeping Parkdale tom cat caught in the act by Kevin Steele. 

More human than humans.

Shortly before xxxmas 2010, I won the cat-sitting jackpot and got to stay in an expansive luxury art-deco bachelorette pad in the heart of Parkdale with two beautiful, intellectually special cats.  Thank you to my co-worker Samm for letting me step inside her beautiful life for a week when she retired to Florida. 

Finn, Taz and I had a really nice time together.  I, doing my paint by numbers, (of course of a kit thru the window) and Finn intermittently meowling for more food and deeply sleeping in a fluffy warm pile of purring in a basket at the end of my adopted bed.

"Me want foooood and looooove!"

hahaha I put out sooo many bowls for them because I was always worried they would starve or thirst!  At one point there were eight bowls for two kitties!

The other kitten, the shy, graceful, silvery lilac petite bon bon with the big sea-green eyes enchanted me at once.  I felt her name, Taz, didn't suit her, and thought she should have some more dignified name, such as Grace or Mary. Then she warmed up to me.  Once she started getting pats from me, she couldn't get enough, and entered a drooling, purring, head-butting love frenzy.  She started sleeping in the bed with me at night, and would unexpectedly awake with a start and jump down to attack my slippers, then streak around the apartment like a bat out of hell.  I guess she is a little bit of a Spazmanian Devil - but she sure looks like a beautiful little ballerina. I guess looks can be decieving.

Taz with my troublesome slippers in a headlock.  The right one looks down for the count.

I love you Taz and Finn!  I'll never forget our time together.

New Design!

Check out the new design for Cats of Parkdale! 

It is strongly inspired by Parkdale.  Another great thing about Parkdale is all the great Tibetans! Best people I've ever met.  I wish I could have their values.

Check out this baby Tibetan holding a kitty! 

THE Cat of Parkdale

I remember clearly the night that I first conceptualized this blog.  I had just moved to Toronto, I was heartbroken, unemployed and confused.  I didn't have a lot of friends here yet, so I used to spend a lot of time walking the streets at night, exploring my new home of Parkdale.  I walked all over the neighbourhood, trying to figure things out.  One night, I walked up Gladstone Avenue where it (used to) meet Dufferin, and I came across this cat sitting outside this ramshackle house reminiscent of my elementary school portables. 

As I walked up to him he jumped up on the recycling bin (on the right) and asked for pats.  We had a little love sesh and I felt so infinitely comforted and welcomed to the city. He connected me to my cats at home and all the cats I have had, known and loved in my life.

I didn't have a camera to capture the moment, but I saw what an integral, equalizing role animals fulfill in a city.  Being near animals - cats, dogs, squirrels, pigeons - makes me feel more human and connects me to my inner animal.   

That was about a year ago and I was lucky enough to come across a picture of this fellow on my new friend Lillith's facebook.  How many other people do I know who have had a moment with this same cat?  His sweet trust somehow connects us all in this big cold city.  I wanted to document this phenomenon in some way. As I've gained friends here, I was able to do so through their generous support of my blog and sharing of their cat pictures.  I will always think of this cat as THE cat of Parkdale.  Cat connections forever. Love Ellie.

Thanks to Lillith Ze Davil for the picture.

Screw you, Internet.

Because of your foul indoctrination, you base internet, you, I can only think of Wilford Brimley memes when I see this beautiful, dignified Cat of Parkdale.  For shame.

"ask me about my diabeetus"

"leave me be to eat my damn oatmeal"

I bet Brimley doesn't have a lustrous tri-coloured pelt like this so infinitely more beautiful creature... I hope not!

Cats of Parkdale

 

My neighbourhood is one of the most beautiful places I could imagine. One reason why it is so great is because it is chock full of amazing cats! I have lived with and loved cats all my life, and now that I’ve set out on my own in the big city, I don’t have enough moolah or stability to take care of a little kitkat of my own. Not being near to cats is, for me (if I may flip the script on J.Lo) like NOT breathing. To remedy this absence I now wander my neighbourhood looking for other people’s cats to fulfill my daily kitty quota – and boy, am I in the right hood! In the summer Parkdale is canopied with lush dripping greenery and the cats flatten themselves out on the hot pavement in the sultry air trying to stay cool. It is a little piece of heaven, and I need to share it. In the snow-time I capture that special kitty-in-the-window phenomenon, and visit neighbourhood kits in their warm homes and businesses. I hope you enjoy! I never run out of pithy comments so please send pictures of the cats you see in your homes, neighbourhoods and dreams to ellieanglin@gmail.com. 
 
Thank you to Kalim Eustace Baker for his great photography and greater company.