Happy World Cat Day

Happy World Cat Day to all our kitty loving friends out in blog land.  We are celbrating today by featuring tortoiseshell cats with me Chica hosting. I had a very rough week but I am doing so much better. Thank you all for helping to pull me thru with purrs, prayers and donations.  This is Mom's favortie picture of  me taken a couple of years back.  I think it shows off my tortieness very well.

Some cool things about torties:

Poet Edgar Allen Poe wrote about cats as sinister in his poems but adored his cat Catarina who was a tortoiseshell.  She was the inspiration for his story The Black Cat.

Most people think that all torties are female but  actually one in 3,00 is a male. But male torties are not true males - tortie coloring requires two X (female) chromosomes and males have one X and one Y.  Tortie males owe their coloring to a genetic mistake such as an extra Y chromosome and are usually sterile.

Mom just found out recently that in animal shelters torties are next to the last to get adopted and black cats the very last.  Who would not want a tortie?

Those of you that have torties know they can be diva cats with attitude.  But we are also impish, playful, social and very loyal.  We have Tortitude!

Whatever kind of cat you have - please give them extra love, treats and playtime today.  We are here for such a short time on this Earth - appreciate each moment you have with us!

We will wind up today with this great poem -

THE TORTOISESHELL CAT
by Patrick Reginald Chalmers (first published in Punch magazine, 4 March 1914)

The Tortoiseshell cat
She sits on the mat
As gay as a sunflower, she;
In orange and black you see her blink,
And her waistcoat's white, and her nose is pink
And her eyes are green of the sea.
But all is vanity, all the way;
Twilight's coming and close of day,
And every cat in the twilight's gray,
Every possible cat.

*

The tortoiseshell cat
She is smooth and fat,
And we call her Josephine,
Because she weareth upon her back
This coat of colors, this raven black,
This red of the tangerine.
But all is vanity, all the way;
Twilight follows the brightest day,
And every cat in the twilight's gray,
Every possible cat.