Cat Lady's View of the World

March 15, 2020

Locked down but not out in Italy

Singing from the balconies! One nice thing about this crisis ... solidarity! “Guess you’re not living like a tourist anymore,” was the funny, truthful and somewhat gut-wrenching message of a friend the day the lockdown in Italy began. Today is day 6. My beloved Italia has been hit hard with the COVID19 epidemic. With the second largest elderly population in the world, the epidemic has meant a disproportionate amount of deaths in the country. So though I haven’t been worried about contracting it myself, this isn’t about me or someone like me who, if contracted it would probably have a sucky couple of weeks and then recover. It is about if someone like me contracted it and then spread it to a person with a complicated health history or an elderly person with a weakened immune system. Eerily orderly: Lines for the grocery store, each person one meter apart In a country with no concept (and no physical room really) for personal space, and in a city with reproachable hygie...

This post will likely brand me as a cat lady for many days to come. However, I have a few arguments to counter that point:

In the two years since I have started this blog, I have only spoken about cats once.
I still only own one cat.
People photograph strangers all the time as part of a city setting, so why not cats?
I coo over all animals, not just cats, as my numerous trips to the National Zoo and my blog post about Squirrel Appreciation Day will witness.

Most importantly, this blog post is an answer to all those times that my sister, or other less-photo crazy friends, would say, "What are you ever going to do with another picture of a cat?"

Ecco! (as they say in Italian) i.e. Here it is, folks! Put on your cat-lady lenses and this is what the world would look like: