This is an excerpt from an email I received last week from Jenny at PartyPail.com.
Dear Linda, My name is Jenny Franklin. I work with PartyPail.com; my job is to search blogs such as yours for individuals who put a great deal of effort into making birthdays extra special.
I am writing you because of your post on Rosie's 16th birthday party. If anyone deserves a birthday party, it certainly is a cat that's lived 16 years! On behalf of PartyPail.com I would like to award you the "Best Decorations" badge. Little Rosie is so adorable!
Thank you, Jenny. I was surprised and pleased to have Rosie's party post selected. Of course, I accept this award in memory of Rosie, after all it was his party.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better. - Abraham Lincoln To me this is an odd phrase, and not something we hear often, if ever at all. Usually if we don't like someone, we tend to avoid them if we can, or if not, hopefully we practice civil tolerance. Mr.Lincoln deals with this a bit differently. It sounds as if his initial dislike of a person intrigues him, as if he is saying to himself, "I don't like him. Why is that?" In getting to know him better he may either decide he does, in fact, like him, or that indeed, he does not, but now he has a clear picture of why.
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. - Rabindranath Tagore
Sunsets are like snowflakes, no two are alike, because no two clouds are alike. Even those that brought forth rain or storm, when spent, will glow peacefully as the sun bids us good night.
I often told Rosie that they broke the mold when they made him, that he was one of a kind and there would never be another like him. Yes, I do talk to my cats, and we had some interesting conversations in spite of the fact that neither of us knew what the other was saying. When asked what kind of cat he was, I had no answer. For years I wondered what his parents might have looked like. His coloring was that of a Russian Blue, but they were short haired, and his hair was anything but short, and I was among those who had never heard of a Nebelung. Quite often Rosie would lay in my lap while I was on the computer, so one night I was sitting there missing him and I Googled "long-haired gray cat with green eyes." Imagine my surprise when I found this video.
Why hadn't I done this sooner? It's my Rosie right down to his glowing green eyes and silky silver-gray hair. I wish I known this back when we adopted Rosie rather than finding out after he was gone. I always knew he was special, and even though I only saw two other cats that looked like him, I never realized how rare he was in the cat world. It would have been great to be able to say 'he's a Nebelung'.
He was born in 1997 and considering the breed has only been in existence since the mid 1980s and I only found two Nebelung breeders in the U.S. (neither in my area), he may not have been a purebred, but he definitely had the characteristics and personality of the breed. Here's a little history on the origin of the Nebelung. Siegfried, born in 1984, was the first registered Nebelung. His parents were a black domestic shorthair named Elsa and a black longhair that resembled an Angora. Later, Brunhilde was born, and this was the foundation for the Nebelung breed. The breed standard was written by owner, Cora Cobb, based on the standard for the Russian Blue, with the difference being the coat length. The name Nebelung comes from the German word nebel, meaning fog or mist. Here are more pictures of my "creature of the mist":
This one shows off his magnificent mane.
Look at those eyes!
A little desk time with mama.
It just didn't get any better than this. I miss you my friend.
