It’s Feline Friday. But….
We’re in San Francisco. The felines are in Honolulu.
So what to do?

How about a “Throwback” feline friday? Good idea, Ian!

So I browsed around a bit in the tens of thousands of photos that I’ve archived using Amazon Photos, and decided to do another introduction to Silverman, The Cat That Just Moved In.

Here’s what I had to say about his arrival at our home in Kaaawa back in September 1999.

eight. noun. 1. See NUMBER, Table. 2. Something having as an essential feature eight units or members, as a playing card with eight pips. 3. Very nearly a demented number of cats.

We returned from a trip to Chicago in September 1999 to find that this guy, formerly seen slinking around the edges of the yard, had taken up more permanent residence under and around our house. It isn’t clear who issued the invitation, or if he crashed the party on his own. He was “intact” and maybe failed to notice that our girls aren’t. In any case, in short order, he has been fed, “fixed”, and named. He finally allows himself to be petted, but still gets a bit slinky if we persist.

A word on his name. “Stray cat” is the fifth tiger of the gray variety to take up residence with us. He is distinguished by his silvery-gray coat, so I started referring to him as the silver cat, or silver guy, Mr. Silver, or a similar label. Stray Cat has a nice, blue-sy sound, but didn’t seem wholly adequate. Then one afternoon, right after he returned from the big snip, I looked over and said, “silver man…Silverman!” That was it. On a recent trip back east, we had a great time in a little Alexandria, Va., antique shop owned by Maurice Silverman. Went back on a later trip as well to say “hi”. So Silverman it is.

He turned out to be quite an extraordinary cat with personality to spare. Silverman died in 2013 after an extended battle with various maladies.

I grabbed a few of the photos that show him in his best light. Click below to view them all.