I have a really crazy story for y’all! My friend Stephanie and I went to a local business called Painting with a Twist this week, to participate in a Paint Your Pet session. This is my third experience with a paint-your-pet class, and her second. I was there to paint Nimi, using the portrait there at the right.

About an hour or so into the class, we took a break. There were five of us there, and one of the women sitting opposite of me was also painting a cat. I looked at her picture, which looked to be a Russian Blue cat, and asked her if it was. She told me yes, and we got to talking, and it turned out she’d gotten her cat at the SA Cat Cafe that was open briefly in 2018, where Stephanie and I used to do Yoga With Cats, and from where Jojo was adopted. She asked to see the cat I was painting, and I introduced her to Stephanie. During the introduction, my brain made a sudden connection.

Cat Cafe. Russian Blue. Goose.

I asked the woman what her cat (now named Wheatley) went by at the Cafe, and she said it was Goose. Stephanie and I both lit up. We both knew Goose. Furthermore, Jason LOVED Goose. If Goose hadn’t been a cat who preferred a calm, quiet household with no or few other cats, we may have adopted him. Jason loved him so much that I literally have a picture of him holding Goose (pic from Feb 2018). I had to pull up the photo to show Goose’s mom. (And no, somehow we never exchanged names. Even though I texted her the photo and the person she was with took a photo of the two of us with Wheatley’s completed painting. Heh.)

What a small world, right?

The rest of the night was fun. Nimi was a hard one to paint, being a tortie, and I definitely could have used more time to define the shape of her face more. (One of her eyes looks smaller than I’d like, and she needs more line to define her ears, so her face doesn’t look so flat.) But it was already ten past when the class was over, and it was a three-hour class…so yeah. It’s the best I could do in the time, if not my best PyP result. Nimi’s portrait joins those of Christabel, Ash (by 10-year-old Laurence), and Gavroche in our hallway. Only five more cats to paint (ha!).