OMG, it's been another year already!

My little girl, (Princess) Daphne Laurel turned FOUR on Tuesday! I swear I just posted mention of her THIRD birthday just a short time ago! My baby is growing up. Soon she'll be leaving for college and then she'll get married and have babies of her own and I'll be a grandmother and...

Oh wait. Daphne is not only a cat, but a "fixed" cat at that.

Never mind!

In tribute to the little monster (who I love dearly), I shall relate the story of how she came to be named Daphne Laurel...

First you must understand that as a Sagittarian, I enjoy a special relationship with animals. We understand things that most people don't "get", like the fact that if you ask an animal its name, it will tell you.

Daph was a homeless kitten living under a trailer in NJ with her mother and the last living sibling of her litter (the others having been on the wrong end of car accidents) when I found her. After coaxing her out with food and water, I scooped her up and along she came to the home of the friend I was visiting.

When friend and I had to go out later, I told then Nameless Cat before we left that whenever she was ready to tell me her name, I would be ready to listen.

Subsequently, friend and I returned to the house, and as I was walking up the stairs to the bedroom that Kitten and I were sharing, I looked up at the closed door and very distinctly heard "Daphne".

Lest you think I am schizophrenic or just plain crazy, let me assure you that I do not "hear voices" or believe that The Government is monitoring my thoughts through the television (I happen to know that they do it through bugs planted in my apartment and orbiting satellites). On occasion, however, there are things that "come to me" through whatever telepathic medium. (Were I not so damn lazy, I could probably hone this "sixth sense" and put it to better use. But I am so damn lazy, and this post is not about me, so I'll shut up now.)

At any rate, as soon as she named herself, the myth of Daphne and Apollo dusted itself off from some recess of my mind and made explanation of the moniker...

Daphne was a nymph, the daughter of the river god Peneus. She wanted nothing more of life than to remain a chaste huntress like her goddess, Diana. Through a series of typical Greek god mischiefs, the nymph one day found herself being relentlessly pursued through the woods by Apollo. Daphne was terrified, fearing her maidenhood be lost and all with it. She sped through the forest as long as she could, then, feeling the closeness of her pursuer as exhaustion overtook her, raised up her arms and called out, "Father! Please help me!" Even as the words were barely escaping her lips, her limbs turned to branches, her feet rooted themselves in the earth and her body covered itself with bark and there she stood, transformed into a tree. Apollo, deeply saddened by his loss, declared that the tree be called a laurel and would be his tree.

Now all this went through my head in a matter of seconds. By the time I had walked the ten feet to the bedroom, I had already distilled down the essential message and translation of this myth to understand its relationship to the kitten Daphne:

A virgin forever (no sex for my little girl!), Daphne is rescued by a force greater than herself (that'd be me) from a fate worse than death (literally).

Grandiose? Perhaps. But that's the true story behind Daphne Laurel's nomenclature.

In further tribute, here is a recent photo of The Gorgeous One who takes after her mother in laziness (she's the one on the left):

Please forgive the blurriness...I wanted the picture of a few seconds earlier when Phizz had his paw over hers (awww, how cuuuuute!), but as soon as I turned on the camera they both popped up their heads to see what was going on. I had to quick snap this shot before they became camera-aware again.

BTW, those are Mommy's 500 thread-count sheets and raw silk pillows the two of them are happily napping on. If they've learned nothing else, they've learned to appreciate the quality and luxury of the lifestyle Mommy has accustomed them to. And, best of all, since Mommy is the idiot who goes out to work every day, they actually get to enjoy the quality and luxury of the lifestyle than Mommy does.

Exactly WHO is the pet here???

But I love the little squeakers more than almost anything, and wouldn't part with them for the world.

Happy birthday, my sweet one!

*Interesting side note: Sagittarians are depicted by the Greek centaur, descendants of Centaurus, who in some versions of the myth, was the son of Apollo and Stillbe. Stillbe was also a daughter of Peneus, sister of Daphne, and apparently the one that didn't get away!