Caturday: from cats to cat-a-combs.

We go way back with cats. We’ve been spoiling them since 1977 when we adopted our first stray, “Gray Fluff”.  Apparently “Kitty Hook” was another of her monikers judging from her personalized Valentine cake.

Time flew by, and while I apparently did not gain any fashion sense (Tina and Angie, why did you let me wear that blouse?), the CE and I did acquire a very handsome fellow we named Huckleberry. Legendary for having boldly sunk a claw into the head of a German Shepherd that erred in coming up our driveway, Huckleberry was long our favorite feline and we prized him for his long-ish fur.

Cat-a-pulting into the future, the one, the only, Dizzy came into our lives. The CE’s now-famous line was “Okay, you can get a cat but it’s your cat and I’m not having anything to do with it”. (Guess whose cat Dizzy became?)

Dizzy was billed as a Persian by his back-yard breeder, who then backtracked, saying he was half Persian and half Himalayan. Looking back, I don’t think he was “half” anything but he was gorgeous even if he was an exotic mongrel.

He had the softest fur! And, somehow, it never needed to be combed. This wasn’t exactly the case with his sidekick Cody, a purebred Himalayan we acquired soon thereafter. Cody got the occasional combing for his thick fur although more often he got the humiliation of a lion cut.

You’d think we would have remembered about that. But Cody had sadly departed and Dodger certainly never needed a comb.

We are suddenly, however, in a new season, and the fur is flying. Or, more accurately, matting.

Both The Countess and (especially!) Mischa have cotton candy fur that, frankly, can only be properly tended to under permanent quarantine, because we are combing, combing, combing. There isn’t time to leave the house even if we were allowed.

We start like this every morning:

And it takes all day to get to this:

This is part of the problem:

Here is our arsenal:

Oh, and don’t forget the eyes! Because Mischa is an actual Persian, he is subject to tearing. Since he is a “doll-face”, or traditional Persian, it’s not as severe as it would be with a “Peke” faced show cat, but nevertheless, he has to have his eyes wiped – and then powdered. Yes, every day.

I wonder if all this is why there is a certain association between cats and, um, mental instability. As you can see, we’ve always been crazy about our cats, but we weren’t certifiably so. Until now. We have gone completely catty-wampus.

Would anyone like to sign on as cat valet? Permanent unpaid position, but you get to see this all day every day. Who could resist?