It’s not too late for some Valentine’s Day catblogging, is it? Of course not. Today I have two cats for you. On the top is a picture from one of my childhood books, The Valentine Cat. It features a poor-but-honest shoemaker’s apprentice, an evil chimney sweep, and a good-hearted princess. Plus a cat, who the evil chimney sweep lures away and uses to clean chimneys. I’m afraid to ask where the author got the idea of cleaning chimneys by lowering a cat down the flue, but it does serve a plot point by covering up the cat’s distinctive heart marking. In the end, as you can guess, everything turns out well for the shoemaker and the princess (and the cat), but not so well for the evil chimney sweep. Let that be a lesson to you.
Right below that, we have our other Valentine Cat, with her own distinctive white mark on her forehead. It’s sort of valentine-shaped if you cross your eyes and, um — oh, forget it. It’s just not valentine-shaped, is it? Such a pity. But Domino is curled up under a valentine-themed quilt called “Key to my Heart.” The hearts are appliquéd on, and it was made in 1991, when Marian and I were engaged. It’s machine stitched and hand quilted.
