Spotlight On National Black Cat Day

Our Spotlight shines brightly On National Black Cat Day today, October 27. It feels like the holiday has been around forever but it’s only been seven years. Founded by Cats Protection, the UK’s leading feline welfare charity it’s grown and changed over the years. Read about the history of National Black Cat Day. It’s more of a U.K. thing but thanks to social media, it’s spreading across the pond. It’s my hope that if all work together, it will be an international force for good. I can only dream that in seven years our Black Cat Awareness Month will radically change negative perceptions about black cats and raise their adoption rates. What can I say, I’m a dreamer who doesn’t sleep.

UPDATED 2020: Happy Birthday to My Mom. It’s third year in heaven and I created a special ancestral altar in her honor. I’ll be posting my ancestor altars as Instagram reels this week at @catwisdom101 @Boomermuse and @blackcatsofig From there they will be shared to Facebook and Twitter.

This is not at all what I expected to post. There were images I wanted to upload but there was one obstacle after another. Finally, I gave up and began Plan B. This post is dedicated to my mother Kaija who began using her middle name Kersti about 10 years ago. She never explained why and it’s one of a million questions I’ll never get answered.

It’s her birthday today and it’s her last one.

She’s a feisty Scorpio who has lived at least nine lives and adored cats. She gave me my first black kitten as toddler and I gave her a Scorpio tortie 2o years ago. I never thought I’d wish her happy birthday with a nurse holding a phone to her ear in a palliative care ward. I never thought someone who likes to talk as much as I do could be silenced, mute from pneumonia. It all happened so quickly. My brother said with the disbelief, “She was fine last week, then ICU.” The nurse said she was awake and comfortable and didn’t need the morphine drip tonight. My mother who loved pills and cigarettes, sherry and pot on occasion would disagree. I will never see her again, not because my green card expired and I can’t leave the country for months but I want to remember her as she was, larger than life. Beautiful and tragically flawed, meddlesome and the source of many of my gifts including intuition. I’ll post some pics when the tech gods are in agreement.

Needless to say, I’m not in the mood promote my book and do the relentless marketing needed. I’ll do what I can and hope it has legs to create a life of its own. You all know what you can do. I need everything, Chocolate would be nice too.

There are days when I feel the goal is insurmountable but every day I chip away it. Every day others join me and our numbers are growing. The wonderful thing is you don’t have to be famous or have millions for followers to make a big difference. The people I impact, tell others, who in turn tell others and they may not even know who I am. Advocacy isn’t about fame. What matters is the ripple effect of action no matter how small. Drop by drop

To celebrate I’m sharing a variety of shareable photos, quotes and graphics I created. Pick your favorite and share. If you have a black cat, give them a special treat and if you don’t have a black cat, share the love and buy our book and enjoy over 100 black cats. Barnes & Noble still has the best price but Amazon is running a discount.

Thank you to everyone who is buying our book. The reviews are encouraging and so far so good. We got our first bulk order for a shelter in Arizona to resell the book which made my day. If you are interested in wholesale orders for fundraisers or holiday gifts, please email me [email protected]

I was asked in an interview recently why I wanted to write Black Cats Tell All and take on the black cat cause. There were several reasons but the turning point came while volunteering a shelter in 2014. I’d blogged about black cat awareness for years, knew about the low rate of adoption but there is nothing like seeing statistics come to life. Time after time, black cats were passed over for no logical reason.

One day, I overheard someone say to their spouse considering adopting a kitten. “Maybe the gray one but not the black.” My ears perked up and couldn’t resist asking why not the black one. “Oh no, we don’t want a black cat.” I politely asked again and she spat out. “I just don’t. They’re evil.”

No one had ever said that to me, to my face with such venom. I felt as stunned as if she’d slapped me. Something snapped in me and I left the room without a word. The more I thought about superstition or prejudice as the reason, I began to advocate more actively. I had to. The slap woke me up to take action.

This is an adoption graphic I made when the sunflowers came out in August and never got around to posting. Better late than never which applies to most things.

Okay, I’m posting this one again, just because…

Thank you for being here. I sorry if I haven’t visited your blog, returned emails and forgot who knows what. Since we have another big holiday Sunday and the icing on the October cake, Halloween, I’ll see you soon, I hope.

xo,
Layla