going viral rite now

what could be cuter than a cat mom spooning her kitten who is having a hunting dream?

when she hugs the kitten to her breast at 00:34!!

the power of prayer

Remember how I posted a few weeks ago that my bro Joey was missing his cat-bro Joey JR??????

Well, it is a testament to the power of a simple cat lady's prayers, as well as to the tireless humane society website surfing of a desperate Dad that JOEY JUNIOR HAS RETURNED!!!!!!!!

I'm so happy for you Joey!

This almost makes up for the daily trips to the humane society that me, my sis and my mom took when I was 8 and we lost Shirley.  Listening to Les Mis on cassette and crying out the window.  Good family.

Window cat of Queen West learns new cuteness trick

She's pretending she's soil!  I love this cat!

Thanks for the picture Emily!

Tail Legend

Thank you to my best friend Meagan, who has a hilarious new blog about annoying behavior of TTC riders, that you should check out here, for this helpful legend depicting the tail positions and their accompanying emotions.

This will help any fledgling cat whisperer to know when to come, pet, stay or run.  It's so beautiful when you go home to your parents crib after months away and your life-cat greets you with a straight up tail - i'm so happy to see you!!!!!

Help find Joey Junior!

Dearest Readers, your help is needed...

Beloved bro of the cat lady and cat-owner extraordinaire Joey Blake is inconsolable over the flight of his newly acquired and beloved kitten Joey Junior. 

This white and tabby stunner ran away earlier this week in the College and Spadina area, and is sorely missed by his pep pep Joey Senior and cat-bro Charleston.  Please keep your eyes out for this little cutie and if you have any leads of his whereabouts or want to cheer him up with a wacky e-card, contact Joey the first at brosephblake@gmail.com. 

Concerned friend of both Joeys, Laura Harris, sent me the following info and photos of the missing one: 

Joey Sr adopted Joey Jr at a cat rescue agency in Toronto.  There were a few kits up for adoption but Joeys of a feather flock together, and Joey Sr knew this was the one.  

Joey is "a little sweetheart, who will happily cuddle up with you - given he's in the mood for it.  When he arrived home right after being adopted, Joey (the cat) was frighteningly thin and had a bad cold, but the caring administrations of food and medicine (via a syringe for the first week) by his loving owner ensured that Joey regained his health, and a few pounds in the process." - Laura

Charlie, Joey Sr's first catty and Joey Jr's new drug buddy, is seen below totally peaking on the 'cid he just dropped with his new best friend from the mean streets of TO. 

As you can see, poor Charlie is literally beside himself over the loss of his new pal (and, admittedly, a reliable drug source). 

Charlie's grief has even caused his feline bulimia to flare up again, just when years of intensive therapy had finally allowed him to accept his curves. 

Won't you please help reunite this homo love triangle today and relieve the distress of two gaymazing dudes by looking in your back alleys, your tool sheds, and your craig's lists for the beautiful Joey Jr?  

Barn Catzz blow the cute meter apart

Recently, award-winning Parkdalian photographer Jill Botting and charming cat-loving friends Shane and Jennifer visited a farm in Hagersville where they met some EXTREMELY adorable barn kits!  Make sure you have your handkerchief nearby before you look at these pictures, because they're going to make your mind explode.

Loving rural mommy with her charges.  Jill wanted me to warn my readers that she, Jenn and Shane literally lost brain cells from their cuteness.  Seriously dangerous levels of cuteness.  That's why these thoughtful kitties  live in remote locations away from humans, because they don't want to damage our brain waves with their extra high cuteness quotient! 

DAYUM, BILL!!!!  Stop being soooo cute!!!  This guy was given the name Bill the Brave and Badass Bill by Shane and Jenn respectively.  Obviously he's so brave to risk tangoing with that curly snake!

Tender little newborn tabby baby times a billion!!!

the graceful one

this is a girl i've been wanting to blog about for a long time.  Lexy Hoff is a very special cat who lives in Kitchener.  She was born with double the amount of grace and sweet temperament than kittens usually are doled out.

She is lucky to have extremely devoted parents who appreciate her beauty.

 The sunlight illuminates her guard hairs - or is that her aura?

Graceful as a ballerina, but this kitten's got claws!

a true lady crosses her paws

I think cats washing their paws is one of the most lovely things to watch.  Cats!

and a perfect full tuck.  

Thank you so much to Lindz Hoff for sharing your beautiful angel with me and for your unwavering support of all animals.

Your Honor, would this face lie?

The face that launched a thousand ships

You can tell I love my mother because I have an "M" on my forehead.

Lenny knows that the camera loves him, and especially loves his leather pads and black velvet under-paw.

"Hey guys! It's me, Lenny (or Aslan).  I'm available for adoption at Toronto Cat Rescue!  

Just imagine if you brought a sweetie over to your pad and s/he saw this mug waiting for you.  

That's why they call me the wife-catcher. 

See my profile here! I hope you pick me."

Cat Lady of Parkdale sez: In a just society, we owners would be advertising ourselves on line for the cats to choose from!  Please support TCR by adopting, fostering, volunteering or donating!  Thank you.  

Coloured noses.

Q: D'y'know what's cute?

A: When cats have coloured noses.

This guy knows what I'm talking about!

This guy DEFINITELY knows what I'm talking about!

It makes me happy.

And apparently it makes this guy happy too.

Thank you to the inimitable Margaret Kwan for the tuxedo cat straight "chillen: on da pavements, and to my best bud Sarah Colleen Dillon for capturing mi amorato on Spencer Ave.

Cat craze.

So the newest craze in cat culture is getting portraits of your cats commissioned in order to prove your undying love and devotion to them.  Without these art works, your cats WILL NOT KNOW you love them!  

Take Brenda here, for instance.  My parents had Bren-Bren immortalized by local textile artist Margaret Butt (yeah, I said it).  Margaret rug-hooked Brenda's likeness onto a chair pad - that Brenda now sits on!  It's the ultimate luxury for little Brenda.  

I mean, look how insecure and sad Brenda looked before we had her portrait taken: 

 She is not certain we love her enough!!!  

But when she saw herself lovingly portrayed in recycled fibres....

She totally knew she was loved.

haha, that wasn't even the photo that Margaret used for Brenda!  She just always looks like that!!  So cute.

Gotta let you COP fans know that the bio-pic about my life, called The Cat Blog, is coming to theatres soons!  I'll be played by Jessica Alba and Tatum Channing's gonna be Kam.  Don't worry - when the bottom falls out of the cat blog boom, I'll work it all out in art therapy.  Happy 420 y'all!  

Cats Saving Peeps, Peeps Saving Cats

This photo was taken in Misoula, not Parkdale, but it's sooooooooo cute!  Go firefighter!  The kitten was found in a fire, given oxygen and love, and recovered.  The firefighters named her smoky!


The following story is about a life-saving cat, who warned his owner about a house fire, and it happened right by my house!  I wonder if I've seen this Hero-cat around?  


Wednesday February 4, 2009 - Residents of a street in Parkdale have a cat to thank for their lives after a fire broke out in a semi-detached house overnight.

The blaze began at about 4am Wednesday in the Spencer Ave. home near King and Dufferin Sts. and quickly spread to a neighbouring residence. A man called 9-1-1 after his beloved pet woke him up.

"My cat jumped on the bed, believe it or not, and woke me up," Rob noted. "I smelled a bit of smoke, looked outside and a burst of flame came flying from the window next door on the second floor. I grabbed my roommates and said, 'Fire! Fire!' Yelled it, called 9-1-1."

Nearby buildings were also evacuated. Residents and their pets were sheltered in a nearby apartment lobby as fire crews made quick work of the blaze.

Fortunately no one was injured. There's no word yet on what sparked the flames. 


I always knew Parkdale cats were special!

when first we faced and touching showed

When first we faced and touching showed

there stood how much our meeting owed

to other meetings, other loves

The decades of a different life

Belonged to others, lavished, lost

Nor could I hold you hard enough

To call my years of hunger strife

Back for your mouth to colonize

Admitted: and the pain is real

But when did love not try to change

The world back to itself – no cost

No past, no people else at all –

Only what meeting made us feel

So new, and gentle-sharp, and strange?

Pictures by Margaret Kwan, poetry by Phillip Larkin.

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!

Cats of New Orleans

I love Toronto, you know?  But there's one city that I love even more, and that's New Orleans!  I've only been once but I'm hoping to go back this year.  It's pretty much the best place that ever happened.  God bless NOLA.

My dear friend Tina recently went to the city that care forgot, and captured some gorgeous NOLA cats for me and you to love looking at!  

This selection of silvery sweet hearts live under the ferry terminal in New Orleans. This front-most one seems to be the leader of the pack.

It's hard out there for a wharf kitty, so it's nice that there's a cat lady/gentleman looking out for them and giving them giant bowls of dry food.  

As one New Orleanean said, "dans la nuit, tout les chats son gris"  Look at the twin loaves on the left!

Hope these guys are doing okay under the wharf.  It seems as though no one looks out for New Orleans, not even for their darling grey strays. 

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.

My fellow cat-whisperer

God Bless the Innanet for connecting me with the inimitable Margaret Kwan, fellow cat-whisperer and Torontophile, whose beautiful blog, thirtyonekm, documents her work, life and inspirations in this fair city.

Lucky for us, Margaret travels Toronto over, making feline friends and snapping pics of her encounters with these beatific beasts.  Wait til you guys get a load of these guys.

So proud!  Margaret caught this guy protecting his Toronto bins as though they contained the Mummy-soul of the late, great King Tutankhamun himself!  I hope I have some little Cat God to protect me when I finally make my journey to the paradisaical underworld.

Am I Rite?

Small Wild Cats Heal Wounds

Dearest readers, I'm sorry I've been remiss in writing.  I am busy, creatively blocked and sadly lacking in Parkdale cat pictures.

Last night I had a dream that a lion cub and mother came into my father's mansion on the hill.  In that instance I was afraid of the cats, but in the following instances these cats are making everything better by existing.

Would that face hurt a soul?

Oh hey guys, it's me, an Andean Mountain Cat.  I'm just clinging to this rocky surface, giving a steady glare to the wild.  I survive on my wits, claws, and fluffy raccoon tail that helps me look bigger to prey (but little do they know I'm very petite)!  And my paws are so fluffed out it's not even funny.

I am the classically glamorous Margay.  Look at the eye-liner!  Eat your heart out, Gaga!

The Pallas' Cat has always been my favorite small wild cat.  They have extremely expressive faces that make them look like they're always saying "who... me???" and the picture above convinces me that the Gods have magic and poetry at their fingertips. 

Two Libyan Cats in Palestine!  Honestly, what can I say here?  These sweeties look like cartoon cats!  Look at the smile and close-set eyes on the left most angel! And look at the expressive paw ("hey!") on the righter one!  If these two sibs can't bring peace to the middle east i don't know what can.

The smallest cat species in the world, weighing between 2.4 and 3.5 pounds, the rusty-spotted cat (i could have thought of a better name) lives in forests, grasslands and rocky areas of India and Sri Lanka.  The rusty-spotted cat has a reputation for being very ferocious and has been known to attack much larger prey. Watch out!

Look at the expression on this beautiful Asiatic Golden Cat!  He's like "take my wife.... please!"

Oh Pampas Cat - you're wild and free like me!!!

Black footed cat, from Southern Africa

I wish the Toronto Government would finally overturn Prop 9 so I could at last get married to this beautiful Pallas Cat!

Thank you so much Amy Egerdeen for inspiring this post and giving me some beautiful subjects to make my day.