Happy Birthday, Blackie and Grace!

  Today is a special day, the anniversary of Blackie and Grace, two of my many kitties. They were born on this day in 1984. I was still a teenager, in the tenth grade, and the Celtics were well on their way to Championship #16.  

    We were not irresponsible pet owners, we had Foster, who was a pretty money cat, and stayed strictly indoors. I wasn't there, so I don't know who the father or fathers were, but I assume that Grace was Bigfoot's daughter. She was the spitting image of Bigfoot's mom Katie, who was a gray tiger with double paws. We had to bring her to the cat farm when she kept on killing birds. But that's beside the point. We were very surprised when we noticed Foster getting chubby. Before you know it, four lovely kittens were born. There was Grace, Blackie, who obviously was all black, an adorable pale orange tiger I named Max (Get Smart was on all the time back then), and Junior, who was a tortoise-shell like her mommy. They didn't get their names right away, of course.

      We ended up keeping Blackie and Grace, and found homes for Max and Junior.  I really wanted to keep Max, he was my favorite. But in retrospect, I have no regrets. Blackie and Grace were very special.   Blackie was a real character, and he had challenging behaviors at times. He was extremely sensitive, and sweet.  Grace was shy and feminine. Together we called them "The Cat Twins" even though they did not look alike.

      Blackie lived to age 15. He was an indoor cat all his life, except for the last year or two, we started to let him go outside, and he always stayed in the yard.  Grace outlived all the cats we ever had, living to be 19. She was the healthiest cat we ever had.

All my best pictures are in a photo album I can't get to right now, but here are some good ones, I'll just save the others for next year!

This is a poor quality image, but I wanted to include Blackie and Gracie's Mom,  Foster.

You can barely see Max, on left, Junior is under him, Grace is on the right, and Blackie . Not sure how old they are, but not long after their eyes opened.

Here is Blackie all grown up, circa 1986. Isn't he beautiful?

Here is Grace, in all her fluffy glory. You can't see it, but she had double paws like her Dad.

They spent a lot of time doing things together, especially naps.

She almost looks like a stuffed animal!

Is he smug or what?

Nap time again!

Blackie and Grace, I miss you! Happy Birthday!