The feline in the photo above is Ginny, the oldest of our three cats and also – by a considerable margin – the smallest in stature.
Ginny (named after Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter series) joined our family nine years ago this month. According to one online source I found, this makes her about 52 in human years.
Not a senior citizen, by any means, but a lot closer to old-cathood than she is to kittenhood.
Yet I still often think of Ginny as our youngest simply because she's so small. She just seems very kitten-like.
By the way, it's commonly thought that calico cats like Ginny are smaller than other cats simply by reason of being calicos. That's not true, though. It turns out calicos can range from small to large. The reason calicos tend to be smaller is that 99.9% of them are females, and female cats are naturally smaller than males.
Whatever the reason, Ginny will seem forever young any time she is near her two siblings: fat floofy Molly and svelte-yet-undeniably-masculine Cheddar.
When those three are physically close to one another (which isn't often, given their mutual distrust), Ginny always looks like the little kid tagging along with the big kids.
We are in a period of relatively good cat health in our house right now. We lost three of our kitties in one 16-month period between February 2022 and June 2023, so it's nice to have everyone looking and feeling good, especially when I realize how much we pay in vet bills when they're not looking or feeling good.
Still, whenever I see Ginny and realize she's going to be a decade old next fall, I remember what it's like when they start going downhill.
Not at all fun.
Which is why I choose to continue fooling myself and believing Ginny is in fact a kitten who will live forever.
It's better that way.
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