Appreciating Black Cats: Caturday Art and Sunday Selfies with Trixie

Greetings, Effurrybody! Isn't this cool? It just happens to be MY Turn to lead the J-Cats on this weekend's blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by the Delightful and Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet - and it falls pat on Black Cat Appreciation Day!

Furrst of all, however, I want to thank effurrybody for their birthday greetings last week. We had a lovely picnic and barbecue up in the Enchanted Forest - and this afternoon, in honour of this Special Day, We shall be having another one, at 6pm, Israel time.

But before We do any of that, We want to take a few minutes to remember a Sweet Ginger Kitty, who, sadly, was called to the Rainbow Bridge on Friday - Opie, from It's A Wonderpurr Life, whom We knew mostly from Fursbook. Many of you will have known him and his fursibs, Dori, Rabbit and the others, as well as  his pawrents, Kimberley and Ray. Opie had what Mummy's Grandma used to call "a Good Innings". He was 18 when he received his Angel Wings, but it is neffur, effur long enough for those of Us who are left grieving on this earth, is it?

We know Opie and his Earthly Family will meet again, some day - just as We will all be re-united, in the fullness of days, with those We have loved and who have loved Us - but that doesn't take away the pain We feel right now. All We can do is hug Our Loved Ones, hold them close and enjoy the Precious Moments that are given to Us, before it is too late.

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And now that Mummy has pulled herself together again and wiped her Leaky Eyes and can see propurrly, We can get on with the blog hops - because that is an impawtant part of enjoying those Precious Moments We spoke about, especially when Oceans lie between Us.

So, as I said, today is Black Cat Appreciation Day - and I, as you know, am a Panfur Princess, as well as being Queen-Empurress of the Entire Middle East and all that. Black kitties are often discriminated against, because of some Silly Superstitions some humans have about Us bringing Bad Luck. That is, of course, Utter Nonsense.  In many Asian countries, such as Japan and China, black cats are considered to bring Good Luck and Prosperity! Besides which - We are BEAUTIFUL!

So, here are three of My Best Selfies from the past week, all of which were framed and artified with LunaPic.

In this furrst one, I was still pretty much zonked-out from the heat. I am happy to say that as of yesterday, tempurratures are more or less back to normal - 30 degrees Celsius, which is about right for August, and a considerable improvement from last week's 41 degrees!

And here is the same picture, artified with the Dark effect, at 73%.

The next selfie shows Me in My Tunnel. This one suffered from all the difficulties inherent in photographing a Black Cat against a dark background, but at least you can see My Eyes clearly. Mummy says they are one of My Most Beautiful Features (of many)!

And here is the artified version, using a combination of Beauty, at 55% and Sketch2 at 17%.

Finally, here I am on the coffee table. In this one, you get to see two of Me, as I am reflected in the glass.

We kept the artification quite simple here, with the Skeletor filter at a mere 21%.

Next, here are the blog hop badges:

        

Before We go, We would just like to note that Mummy posted a new article on her own blog last Thursday, for those who are interested.

Oh - and We just had another Missile Alert!

15 minutes later: All Clear!

Now, it is time to start hopping. We hope to see you all again next week, COD willing - same Cat Time, same Cat Channel. Till then, be well. Be safe. We love you all.