A Luna Update: Twins from Different Mothers

Don't let that innocent face fool you. I guarantee she is plotting something...

I figured it was time for an update on Luna, the kitty I adopted back in March. The short version is this: she’s happy, healthy…and driving me crazy. The long version is a bit more complicated, but mostly she is doing well. Mystic the gigantic gray boy is still going after her, alas, but she is figuring out some high spots where he can’t reach her, and has made friends with yellow boy Angus, who at eight years old is the next youngest and still very much a kitten at heart.

Angus and Luna playing.

I've had to buy a lot of new cat toys.

The vet finally decided, back in March, that she was about six months old, which would mean she is about seven months and a half months old now. Still very kittenish and full of beans. Just like my author friend’s cat Miss Paddington, also known as Paddy.

In fact, the two kitties look so much alike, they might be twins. (And yes, they’re BOTH still wide-eyed and full of mischief.)

That's Paddy on the left and Luna on the right. See what I mean!

Karen Rose Smith and I actually “met” through our mutual love of cats. I commented on a blog post she wrote about one of her rescue cats, and talked about how all mine were rescues too. She invited me to write a guest post about my cats, and so a beautiful friendship was born. We live in different states, so we haven’t met in person, but we’ve been there for each other when dealing with cat issues—she called me when she was worried about Halo, Paddy’s mom (Karen had never been present at a kitty delivery before, and I’d been a cat midwife a number of times), and I called her when I was bereft at the loss of Samhain right after Christmas (since she’d been through the same thing not that long before with one of her favorites).

Karen Rose Smith and Paddy

So it is kind of ironic that Paddy, the child of the cat she rescued last summer, and Luna, who I rescued this winter after she was found in a snow bank and put up for adoption by the vet who saved her life, look like mirror images of each other.

In fact, we’ve had so much fun with all our cat chat on Facebook, we ended up starting a Cat-Crazy Book-Lovers page HERE with two other cat-loving authors. The page is dedicated to people who love both cats and books, and apparently there are a lot of us out there! Every week one of the authors takes a turn doing a kitty (and sometimes book) related giveaway, and we are having a blast. If you're on Facebook, drop by and see us.

In the meanwhile, Luna is growing fast. She was tiny when I got her, only four and a half pounds. I haven’t taken her back to get weighed, but I’m pretty sure she’s gained weight. She has a long body and long legs, and even so is still much smaller than the other cats. It’s hard to say how big she is going to be when she finally stops growing, but I can say for certain that she gets prettier every day. Just like her twin, Miss Paddy.

Karen was talking about us on her blog today too. Go check it out if you have a minute. Karen's blog

So, anyone else have a cat who has a twin?

Feline Friday--Introducing Cat-Crazy Book Lovers!

No, that's not actually Magic the Cat. It's her look-alike, Zoie, who belongs to author Karen Rose Smith

(And here is Karen's "Invitation to Cat-Crazy Book Lovers" stolen from her blog, since I was going to write exactly the same thing anyway. Thanks, Karen!)

Most of my friends love cats! I guess cat people just gravitate toward each other. In the writing world, the same is true. With a common interest in cats and their welfare, we just seem to find each other. Four of us have banded together to create something special--

a CAT-CRAZY BOOK LOVER page on Facebook!  (Click on the link!)

Along with Karen Rose Smith, Susan Meier and Melissa McClone, I will be posting photos and chatting with readers on this Facebook page. (I post lots of cat photos on my personal profile and author page now, but this just means I have an excuse to shoot more pictures.)

We're planning themed days when readers can post photos of their cats too. Visit us on Monday for MONDAY MAYHEM. Do your cats get into trouble? Ours do. We can compare notes.

Wednesday is for WEDNESDAY WISDOM. We can share strategies for caring for our cats, solutions to problems, a place to give and get feedback,

Friday is always FELINE FRIDAY. Every cat is beautiful, and on Friday you can let yours be a star by posting his or her photo.

We'll also have a giveaway every week--books and cat-related prizes. (We're trying Monday's for this, so be sure to check in. I'm up next Monday, and I have some fun cat prized to give away!)

So if you love cats, like to chat with others who do too, can't get enough of cat photos and generally just want a friendly place to discuss your fur babies, the CAT-CRAZY BOOK LOVERS page is the place for you.  Just LIKE the page and join the fun! (Don't forget to check GET NOTIFICATIONS on Facebook so you don't miss a thing.) And don't forget to follow these other great authors. They're cat-crazy too!

CAT-CRAZY BOOK LOVERS

Guest Blogs and Upcoming Events

We're heading into the last week before the book release and things are gonna get a little crazy :-) I hope you'll all ride this roller-coaster with me. I need someone to hold my hand!

First off, congratulations to the folks who won the Book Release Celebration Blow Out CONTEST. I sent an email to everyone who won, and the names are also listed at the bottom of the contest form. Don't worry if you didn't win this one--I'm planning to give things away almost every day between now and the release of Wickedly Dangerous on September 2nd, either here or on my Facebook Author Page (you've "liked" me there, right, and then clicked on "receive notifications" underneath the like option...right?) So you're probably going to check back often, since some of these contests will be only one-day affairs.

Secondly, all sorts of lovely people have been kind enough to invite me to be a guest on their blogs in the next few weeks to help spread the word about the book. I hope that my WONDERFUL readers will take a moment to pop over to these places and say hi. You know, so it looks like someone likes me :-)

Today, Raymond Bolton did a seriously in-depth interview of me over on his blog The Write Stuff -- damn, I wish I'd thought of that name -- you might be surprised by some of my answers.

The lovely Karen Rose Smith is talking up the book on her blog. If you go there, be sure to read her earlier posts about Halo, the stray cat she took in recently, and see the progress of Halo's pregnancy and KITTEN PICTURES (warning: the cute may kill you). Karen and I had a great chat on the phone before the kittens were born, since she'd never helped to birth cat babies before, and I'd done it a number of times.

Here's a quick question for y'all:
I am going to be doing a live event online at Bitten by Books on the actual day of the book release, starting at noon PST/3pm EST. Since I'm going to be pretty much glued to the computer that day anyway, I was thinking about having a live event to on Facebook too, where people could ask me questions, say congrats, and win prizes. What do you think? If I did such a crazy thing, would you come?