Book Club

[LoriLori]

@Judaline, I think of her all the time.  I fantasize about getting a detective to track her down so I can knock on the door where she lives and just hold her again.  If she'd let me.  She was a punishing cat LOL.  If I was on the phone for too long (her rules) she would poo next to her litter box to register a complaint. 

We never had a pet growing up so I'd never before experienced that unconditional love (even though hers came with strings attached sometimes LOL).  It's not like any other feeling because it's not like any human relationship.  It's so pure!

[Judaline]

So sad, @LoriLori

[Sammycat1]

@LoriLori, thanks for the recommendation on this book.  I'm an author writing a book about my cat and couldn't resist this one.  On the cover, I'd wager the illustration was chosen for its style and to represent the "every" cat or the universal cat. A cat lover and owner for decades, I've come to realize that it was their personalities that set them apart, and mine have come in virtually every color.

In the end, the cat's color becomes the least significant detail in this story so powerfully and beautifully told. Plus, creative types don't always go the literal route; it's an occupational hazard. 

Thanks again for recommending this gem of a book!

[LoriLori]

@Sammycat1, so since I posted you've gotten it and read it?  Or ordered it?   I can't tell.

There is an explanation for the cover at the end, and it's mentioned upthread:  When they were looking for photos of cats for the cover they found this one done by an artist with a cerebral palsy who works out of a collective in China for the disabled.  That is why they chose it.

And I'll say it again because I'm grumpy:  They should have asked the artist to do another drawing of a cat and had the cat look like Nana.

[LoriLori]

@Sammycat1, cool that you're writing a book about your cat (Sammy?).  What's it like, what's it about?  Let us know when it's published!  

Did you read "The Guest Cat" by Takashi Hirade  Another Japanese cat book and I found it ridiculously overpraised.  I'm one of only 9% that gave it two stars on Amazon so not hard to read my review if you want.  People love that book!  Not me.  

"The Travelling Cat Chronicles" is the cat book I've always wanted and it's still with me.  Can't wait to know what your book is about!

[Sammycat1]

@LoriLori, ordered the book, read it, done.  Let your grump go!    They may not have been able to commission a "likeness" from the celebral palsy collective and the artist may not have had the capability--I made my "universal cat" comment because the cat's face is not facing us on the cover.

My book is about my cat, Mr. Schmoo, a senior cat we adopted at 10 who developed at almost 15 in 2010 a rare condition called biventricular congestive heart failure.  He was given days to live, but he was a tough kitty and he lived nearly 3 years, to almost age 18.  He defied all the odds with his will power, our help and that of his astonishingly great vet. I'm writing about his journey, which changed my life and many others, too.

I started a thread about him, his antics and his fight here on the QVC forums, and he became quite well known in on the pet lovers forum, our local community and across the country. People checked on him every day and I would post the ups and downs of his fight.  I called the thread (in Pet Lovers) "That Schmoo, he is one tough kitty fighter" and it ran from its origin in 2010 until the Q went to the new format here in 2015.  I started a new one by the same name only adding "2.0." where people who have been with Schmoo since his beginning and who have become friends still post.  We call ourselves the "Schmoo Family" -- for his spirit of determination still lives on.  Several agents have requested portions of the manuscript to sell it to publishers based in NY.

Here's a snippet from the first day we met our Schmooster at the shelter. We were adopting a new "big brother" for our other cat, who had become depressed because we'd lost our original, senior boy cat months earlier:

Lit by the grey pallor of old, flickering fluorescent bulbs, the cat room had stacks of cages piled above our heads – and we’re not short people.  Some larger open cages lined the concrete walls on the floor; the kittens in those were being kittens and ignored us.  Most of the adult cats regarded us with timid meows and dead eyes, eyes long past hope that anyone would rescue them from their tiny cells.  For animals who so prized independence and the freedom to roam for centuries, this holding pattern of a room represented an existence barely preferable to death, but it was no life.

We planned to seek out the oldest cats, the ones in there the longest and the special needs ones.  Before we could take another step, a roar came from the bottom of the stack.

The palest cat with the palest eyes I’d ever seen crouched there, his champagne-furred hulk pushing through the bars of his cage. With eyes only half open and a cross, furrowed expression, the lion in a cat’s body stared at me, indignant, knowing he’d been heard.
    
I smiled for the first time in a long time, knowing I was looking at my new kitty boy.  

Still, [DH] and I felt we should complete our due diligence. We continued to investigate the other cats. The champagne lion tracked me as I walked around the room, howling with impatience and incredulity that I’d not stopped at his cage, each meow louder and more insistent.  When I came back to him and read the small name tag on his cage, “Blondie Boy” saved his best missive for his close-up. He breathed in deeply like a opera star preparing for an aria, then bellowed his meow while wrinkling up his nose to bare his fangs and twisting his head toward me for emphasis.

DH followed my smiling gaze to the feline Pavarotti and gestured for the shelter worker to spring Blondie Boy for inspection.  As she opened his cage, he puffed himself up, as though ensuring all was in order for his debut.

She placed him -- a big, muscled cat -- into my arms and he sank down in the nest I created.  Blondie Boy rested his head on my shoulders and closed his eyes – a scene DH said he’ll remember to the end of his days.  “He looked relieved, truly relieved.  He’d found his Mom, and that was that,” he said.

Lastly, here's a picture of my Schmoo, a big cat with a bigger heart who broke all the rules and spit in the face of death to live large.  He won many hearts forever with his zest for life.  He's the cream tabby (the tortie was our other kitty at the time, Sophia Loren).  Another picture shows him in different light that makes him appear orange, but the first picture shows his true coloring:

[LoriLori]

@Sammycat1, I'm in awe.  I wish I had been following your thread since day one.  What an amazing boy he was.  I love all of it, especially his adoption story.  I want to read your book.  There is a person here who self-publishes and they let him use his name when he brings out a book.

You MUST let me and others know when this book comes out.  I'm...I don't even have words.   That face!  That catitude!  The roar!  All of it!!!

I never go to the pet forum because of my broken heart.  I am sad that I missed the ongoing story of Mr. Schmoo.  How awesome that publishers have reached out to you.  I am very, very glad I willl get to read it.  Is the book almost done?    

[LoriLori]

@Sammycat1, I just spent a few minutes looking right back at him.  Purrrrrr.

[Sammycat1]

 @LoriLori, thanks for your positive feedback I'm 3/4 of the way done, but working hard on polishing the first 1/4 for agents, about 25,000. So I think seeing it in print is a while away. DH is a web programmer and will have a site up for me this summer, so more on the Schmoo will be shared then.

Schmoo's vet called him the "coolest cat in the world." This is a guy in oractice for 35 years. When I asked him what made our Schmoo Man so cool, he said and still says, "oh that attitude...he had star power."

Here's another Schmoo photo to mesmerize you....look at the action shot of Schmoo attacking a catnip bag days after lifesaving oral surgery.  One joyful, tough nugget!

[smoky22]

@LoriLori  I had to start the book (small print be darned).  I'm only on chapter 2 though (very long chapters). 

By the way, I love your new avatar.  It looks like a sweet pea to me but I'm not sure.  It's beautiful, just like you!