Good Fridays

Good Fridays
My latest novel

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Here, kitty, kitty

My books have cats in them. It's not that I have anything against dogs. I love all animals. But if we're going to include spiders as animals, I'll have to think about that statement some more. Anyway, I do love animals. When I was growing up, my family had a few dogs, but mostly cats. I raised rabbits and sheep for 4-H projects. I worked for a humane society for several years, and worked for a veterinarian for ten years. I understand cats about as well as anyone can, so that's why cats are characters in my novels. In Good Fridays, Emily and her cousin Rosemary moved into their own apartment in downtown Baltimore when they began working at Upman's store. The elderly couple who owned the house where the apartment was had an orange tabby named Ginger, so Emily and Rosemary had a proxy cat. It wasn't until Emily got her own house near the Baltimore Harbor that she adopted Rhett, an independent cat who did things on his own terms. When and if he wanted attention, he asked for it. He hated anyone in the house except Emily, so when Jack Curtis came to call, Rhett was a very unhappy feline. Cats are much more self-sufficient than dogs. The women in the books I write have busy social and professional lives that require them to be away from their homes for many long hours each day. Cats sleep twenty-three hours a day, so that works for them. When they wake up, they don't know if their owner has been gone ten minutes or ten hours, and as long as there's food in their bowl, they can live with the arrangement.

1 comment:

  1. It's interesting that cats are self-contained, self-entertained, and dogs are so totally opposite, and especially Yorkshire Terrors (yes, I spelled that right) who must be involved in everything. A cat-owner author has one (or two) less distractions than a dog owner while writing, unless the cat decides to sit on the keyboard! Or, a favorite of mine (joke), running the back and tail under the nostrils...ACHOO!

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