My Louie and I have been having a philosophical discussion for several weeks
now. It boils down to: when does Cute give way to Pretty or Beautiful?

Now we think all our girls are beautiful, and Stosh is a very hansome fella
in his formalwear. But Louie said one day, "Brandy's cute but not beautiful;
and Roxie is beautiful but not cute; and Odessa"s kind of in-between
depending on when she tilts her head or curls her tail into a Number Nine."
And she does, like Morris in the 9-Lives ad!

And I wonder, what's the deal with the esthetics? They're all my beauties
because they're my babies and I love them, but there is some kind of
difference. Perhaps Brandy, because of her wide eyes and huge paws, looks
like she still has kitten in her even though she's over a year old now, does
have a more "cute" streak; and Roxie, who glides elegantly like a model down
a runway, and even likes to pose for us, has something queenly in her and a
regal beauty. Odessa has unusual features. I think because she'd been feral
and half-starved, she developed a little differently physically, although
her brains are quite Mensa-level; her snout is small and pointy, her nose
tiny, and her little paws taper into little pads you'd see on a kitten.
She's black and when she jumps she has the lovely form of a panther,
captured in a rare shot for National Geographic. But then she'll look at one
of us, and tilt her head to the side, reminding me of stills I've seen from
Shirley Temple movies and all the cute comes out. And Stosh? Maybe Louie
reserves the word beautiful for the ladies. He's a handsome, macho cat,
muscular and swaggering, quite the GQ fellow. If you were to see him from
the front, you'd see where his tux is buttoned down, and he makes quite a
striking impression. I hear it when I show pictures or have guests: Stosh
gets an admiring "Oh, My!" Brandy always has high AWWWWWWW factor. And Roxie
and Odessa are always compared to museum pieces, statues of Bast as they sit
like the goddesses that they were, some few thousand years ago.

They'd be all beautiful to me if they had purple stripes and backward paws,
because their little personalities are beautiful and they've given us so
much reward in the year or so we've had them. But I need to settle an
argument! What divides the Cute from the Beauty?

Blessed be,
Baha

--

Three thousand years ago,
cats were deified in ancient Egypt.
To this day, they have not forgotten.