"Woman with a Persian Cat"

(oil painting on canvas, 16X20, 2006)

"Dogs have owners, cats have staff."

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."

"Cats are smarter than dogs, you can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow."
Jeff Valdez

I love cats. People who hate cats have never taken their time to get to know one. In my lifetime I was blessed with having two great cats. The first one I got when I was thirteen. I was feeling incredible lonely and somewhat abandoned after my mother moved to the States and I was left in the care of my grandmother.

My grandmother felt sorry enough for me to allow me to get a kitten despite her general animosity towards felines. Ever since he was a kitten (Ivan Ivanych) went with me everywhere resting comfortable around my neck like a fur collar. He was my very best friend. A few months before I left for the U.S. he disappeared. I was heart broken and fell to pieces. I searched for him everywhere. Later I found out that my grandmother has given him to my uncle. I know that she thought it was for the best, since she was battling cancer and I was leaving, but I still wish she told me that he was at least alive…

For the next twelve years I put cats out of my mind and concentrated on other animals. That is until Fate intervened and I got Tihon in the fall of 2006. I found him on Craig’s list and I knew right away that this abandoned gray-white kitten and me were meant to be together, which we now happily do! He reminds me a lot of Ivan Ivanych. I think sending me Tihon was God’s way of recreating for me the miraculous relationship that Ivan Ivanych and I once shared.