The Original Grumpy Cat?
Sometimes I feel self conscious of the fact that I am a cat person. Well let me rephrase that. I am self-conscious about the way that other people will react when they find out that I am a cat person. There seems to be such a stigma about people who own cats. Somehow owning a cat automatically means you are two steps from crazy. And if you are single and own a cat you are just one swift breeze away from going down to the local shelter and smuggling out a duffle bag of kittens.
I find it interesting to note that this stigma is still around despite the fact that cat's own the internet. Without cat's the internet would never have gotten the hold that it has on the world. Of course maybe that is part of why the stigma has been maintained. I mean cat videos, pictures, and memes don't upload themselves. And while cats paws are perfectly designed for catching mice they are not designed to run a computer mice. Or maybe this stigma has really come into it's onw since the internet became ubiquitous?
I remember being young and knowing and fearing becoming the "crazy cat lady." But I wonder when this came around? I mean is this just a hold out from when owning a cat meant that you were a witch? So strange...
I few weeks ago, a friend and I went to see the Pittock Mansion. It is an amazing mansion build in the west hills overlooking Portland. The mansion is amazingly beautiful and suprisingly homey. Downstairs there is a painting of a fluffy white cat which looks perturbed about being forced to sit for a painting. When I saw that painting I couldn't help but giggle. I felt some vindication in the fact that these very wealthy people had spent the money to commission a painting of their cat. I felt slighly less self-conscious of all of the pictures I have taken of my cats over the years.
At least one of us is comfortable in this picture.
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