WELCOME TO --- "MIDNIGHT'S CAT MUSINGS". I'm writer and cat lover Antoinette Beard. Are the thoughts of black cats special?... while you are pondering that, if you'd like, check out my "Featured Post" and c-ool black cat quotes at the very bottom of this page... Oh, --- and you'll find only happy cat stories here. (I can't stand that sad stuff.) Enjoy!!!... :D =^_^=
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Friday, November 29, 2019
Pregnant Cat Preparing For Delivery, --- Little Beauty!!!...
A little gray tabby stray came to my door. I thought, --- "You're a round little girl!!! Then, I realized she was pregnant. I wanted her kittens to be socialized so they could find good homes, so I took her in and her kittens were born inside. One night she was so big, her belly swaying from side to side. The next day she was sleek. She had her six babies all by herself, no trouble. They had extra toes, --- thumbs!!!Me and my son Josh didn't have any trouble finding homes for them and her too. I named her Olivia.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Monday, November 25, 2019
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
Righteous Cat Takes A Move To Save A Friend Stuck Inside The Wall...
Righteous Cat Takes A Move To Save A Friend Stuck Inside The Wall
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Friday, July 12, 2019
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Monday, June 10, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Friday, April 26, 2019
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Friday, April 19, 2019
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Ernest Heminway Was A Cat Person. [Here's his house...]
Being a “cat person” comes with an unfortunate stigma (though a glance at the internet would tell us that cats clearly rule). But that was definitely not the case for Ernest Hemingway. The manliest man to ever hit the literary scene had a very soft spot in his heart for felines.
One of his companions was a six-toed white cat named Snowball, which was given to him by a ship’s captain and lived at his Key West estate.
Today, the house is home to a museum and around 40 to 50 cats. (A few felines can allegedly trace their lineage back to Snowball.) I've been to this charming house in Key West, saw his little room upstairs where he wrote his books on his old typewriter.
It was in this house that Hemingway wrote some of his best work, including the short story classics "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", his novel To Have And Have Not, and the non-fiction work Green Hills of Africa.
The house stands at an elevation of 16 feet (4.9 m) above sea level but is still the second-highest site on the island. It was originally built in 1851 by Asa Tift, a marine architect and salvage wrecker, in a French Colonial estate style, out of limestone quarried from the site. As testament to its construction and location, it survived many hurricanes, and the deep basement remained, and still remains, dry. Before Hurricane Irma struck the Florida Keys in September 2017, the entire population of the island chain were ordered to evacuate by the federal government, but the museum's curator, general manager and a team of Hemingway Home employees declined to leave the house or evacuate its cats. Several Hemingway Home employees stayed with the cats and the house. They all survived the storm intact.
The Hemingways had spent the previous three years living in Key West but had rented housing, the last being a two-story home at 1301 Whitehead Street. Pauline (the writer's second wife) found the Tift house for sale at a tax auction in 1931. Pauline's Uncle Gus bought it for her and Ernest, for $8,000 cash, and presented it to them as a wedding gift.
The house was one of the first on the island to be fitted with indoor plumbing and the first on the island to have an upstairs bathroom with running water, fed from a rain cistern on the roof. Also notable are a built-in fireplace and the first swimming pool in Key West, which was the only pool within 100 miles (160 km) in the late 30s. In November 1936, in an interview with the Key West Citizen, Hemingway showed the reporter the location he had planned for a pool. It was Pauline Hemingway, though, who spent $20,000 (equivalent in 2013 to $330,000) to have the deep well-fed pool built for her husband while he was away as a Spanish Civil War correspondent in 1938. When Hemingway returned, he was unpleasantly surprised by the cost and exclaimed, "Well, you might as well have my last cent," before tossing a penny into the pool. This penny is embedded in concrete today near the pool.
The house was one of the first on the island to be fitted with indoor plumbing and the first on the island to have an upstairs bathroom with running water, fed from a rain cistern on the roof. Also notable are a built-in fireplace and the first swimming pool in Key West, which was the only pool within 100 miles (160 km) in the late 30s. In November 1936, in an interview with the Key West Citizen, Hemingway showed the reporter the location he had planned for a pool. It was Pauline Hemingway, though, who spent $20,000 (equivalent in 2013 to $330,000) to have the deep well-fed pool built for her husband while he was away as a Spanish Civil War correspondent in 1938. When Hemingway returned, he was unpleasantly surprised by the cost and exclaimed, "Well, you might as well have my last cent," before tossing a penny into the pool. This penny is embedded in concrete today near the pool.
In 1937, when Ernest was in Spain, Pauline hired Ernest's friend, driver, and handyman, Toby Bruce, to build the high brick wall that surrounds the house today.
Another of Hemingway's loves was boxing. He set up a ring in his yard and paid local fighters to box with him. He also refereed matches at Blue Heaven, then a saloon but now a restaurant, at 769 Thomas Street.
Hemingway converted a urinal obtained after a renovation at Sloppy Joe's bar into a water fountain in the yard, where it remains a prominent feature at the home, filled with water from the large Cuban jar and serving as one of many water sources for the grounds' cats. The grounds of the house are maintained as a garden, with many tropical plants installed after Hemingway moved to Cuba. In Hemingway's time, the grounds, like the island, were sparse and dry due to lack of water that only came later, with the Navy's installation of a water line from mainland.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Friday, April 12, 2019
Saturday, January 5, 2019
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