“There’s a Cat Hair in My Mask: How Cats Helped Me through Unprecedented Times” is next level. I was so absorbed in reading her life experience during the 2020 pandemic that I read the book straight through in one day.  ~Verified reader, 5-Star Review

I’ve been so excited to see the response to my new memoir! It’s so different from my usual fictional writing that I didn’t know what to expect. People have been kind and thoughtful with their reviews, but they’ve also told me that they were surprised, amazed, and moved by the book. What more can a writer ask for?

Unlike my cozies, the people, places, and things in this book are real, so why not show you what some of them look like. This is Part 1 of a multi-part post consisting of pictures and a bit of the story.

Meet Jaimz, the cat who saved my life.

There’s a Cat Hair in My Mask: How Cats Helped Me through Unprecedented Times

Blissfully ignorant in Cabo San Lucas – February of 2020

Chapter 1. In the Beginning

When the coronavirus COVID-19 hit the world like a blistering shitstorm, I was living in an old house in Portland, Oregon with my husband and three cats. It was the beginning of February 2020, and Jim and I had just returned from our annual vacation in Mexico. I don’t remember hearing anything about a pandemic as we watched the glorious sunrises and sunsets from our beachfront suite on Cabo San Lucas. The only American horror story I knew of was our explosive political situation. Even with the devious mind of a mystery writer, I would never have imagined what was to come.

Chapter 2. The Cats

Tyler

Jim and I had three cats in our care: Tyler, Blaze, and Ginchan. Tyler had been with us the longest, a rescue brought as a stray to the Oregon Humane Society where I volunteered. The OHS medical team estimated the big brown tabby to be around eighteen years old, and I just couldn’t allow a super-senior to languish in a shelter, even one I knew to be giving him great care and attention. It wasn’t the same as home. Nothing was the same as home.

Blaze

A year later, we adopted Blaze, a fragile ten-year-old tuxie with a heart murmur who had been with me as a foster for several months. He’d been hit by a car, shattering his front leg, and for some reason the healing was slow. Over the hours of tending his wounds and medical needs, we’d formed a love-bond, and there was no way I could let him go. Once he got the pins out of his leg, I adopted him myself, welcoming him home to stay.

Ginchan

Then came Ginchan. Ginchan was a sad and special case. Jim and I had taken him in when our son Josh died unexpectedly. How could we not? We’d known the big Maine Coon mix since he was a kitten, some seventeen years before.

Chapter 3. When We Got Sick

After a week of being pampered at the Cabo resort, it was understandable that I would feel tired and a bit rundown pursuing my daily grind again. But when the tiredness became exhaustion, and the rundown feeling exploded into an inability to move, I began to wonder if something was wrong.

Ginchan at nap

Chapter 4. Sick but Busy

Suddenly new words began to pop up in our everyday speech. Lockdown, quarantine, shelter in place, social distancing, isolate, the new normal. In every newscast, we heard the term unprecedented, which, according to the dictionary, meant never done or known before.

More Illustrated Posts coming soon!