I am working, at the moment, with a big black cat who used to be an overly-long-yet-still-skinny black kitten asleep in my lap. He has utterly ruined me for the rest of the cat world.

I'm in love with black cats.

His fur is silky beyond compare and shines in lamplight. He has tiny tufts of white fur at the epicenter of his little ears. Even his nose is black, so when he closes his eyes and curls up on a black blanket, he disappears.

He has the power of invisibility.

We were at PetSmart buying ridiculously expensive prescription cat food for this little black cat who almost died last year of urinary blockage (remember that??), and they had four little black kittens of varying sizes in one of those stand-up adoption cages.

We swooned. Even Beloved, who says NO every time I ask if we can get Kizzy a friend. (And I don't really argue that hard, because there is peace in my home now and I'm not sure if peace would reign if we challenged Kizzy's ownership of Chateau Travolta.)

But the three of us stood for ten minutes before the four little black kittens and poked our fingers through the wire to touch their little furry black toes and fawned over their perfect black noses and noticed how when they curled up on top of each other and closed their eyes, they disappeared into a pillow of silky black fur.

I wanted THEM ALL.

How cool is it that while all cats are gray in the dark, black cats can actually disappear? Who else among us has such superpowers?