ATC for Jeanette

Jeanette Jobson and I agreed to make an ATC exchange. I love Jeanette's work and am looking forward to having a small piece of her artwork. I requested something of her beautiful cat Tripod (which I gave the nickname of Mr. T). I always love reading about his antics on Jeanette's blog and seeing photos of him. He looks at her so adoringly and helps her when she is drawing.

I haven't had a cat in over a decade (I raised 4). But when I had a cat in the family, it was always a necessity to keep anything that would fascinate a cat out of harms way. My first cat ended upin the toilet at the ripe age of 6 weeks. If I hadn't been in the room, I have no doubt he would have drowned. After that the lid was always down in our house. That was Tabby a beautiful orange tabby cat.

Second to come to us was Trouble. She was a calico and very loving. But as her name implies, very into everything. I was always afraid she would stick her paws in the sewing machine. She would be on the table behind the machine, and was totally enjoying the up and down motion of the needle.

Then came the hair pulling pair. Brother and sister Mischief (Missy) and Shadow (black with no other color). We picked Missy out of a litter because she was this little grey ball of fur. So cute. We ended up with Shadow as the family who had the kittens ignored him thinking he was ugly. We just could not leave the little scrawny black guy there. He became the most beautiful cat. Full of sinewy muscle and with the grace of a black leopard. But 2 kittens coming into a household with an existing "Trouble" was asking for more trouble.

I had always heard of cats climbing the drapes. Well with these two pieces of dynamite, I actually saw it. They were only a few inches long but full of fire. Chasing each other they went up the side of the drape, along the top, back to the side and down. All in about a seconds time. I have never seen anything that fast.

Each one was a joy. A very cuddly, loveable joy. But we raised them inside only and 21 years of changing a cat box was all I was willing to do.

Living in a city means many uncontrolled cats roaming and lots of them get hit by cars. Mine lived very comfy lives (I even brought in grass for them to eat). I loved each one dearly but now will just enjoy my dogs (3) and watch the life of Tripod thru the wonder of the internet.

Jeanette is sending me a drawing of her cat, so I decided to give her one of my Friday when she was 6 weeks old (now 7 years).

Thank you Jeanette for the trade.