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"CONVERSE"

Country's fourth best cat is livin' large
in Williamsburg
Converse and owner Sandi Patrick of Williamsburg.
HYUNSOO LEO KIM PHOTOS / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
By DIANE TENNANT, The Virginian-Pilot
© January 30, 2007

WILLIAMSBURG -- Converse has eaten his fill, had a drink, played around and is now asleep in a blue bed, surrounded by hot babes.

This is pretty much the American dream, the real American dream, as seen on American TV, which is playing in the next room on a big screen.

The babes are calling to him, luring him, but Converse doesn't answer. Later, baby. Daddy's tired.

It is hard to tell, since cats sleep most of the time, whether globe-trotting has wearied him, but it has certainly taken its toll on the people he lives with.

Harlee Patrick is stretched out in a leather recliner, somewhat jet-lagged, keeping an eye on a muted "Entertainment Tonight." His wife, Sandi, eases her feet into pink fuzzy slippers propped on a chestlike coffee table subtly decorated with a brown-tinted map of the world. She has a cat on her lap. He has a cat on his lap. A kitten perches on the chest and watches the ceiling fan. Converse sleeps.

This is how dreams begin.



At only 19 months old, Charleval's A Little Less Conversation - call him Converse - is successful. He is at the moment the fourth best cat in the United States, based on points won in shows. He is famous; he is working on fortune. He is the highest-ranking Chartreux cat in the Cat Fanciers Association.

Chartreux - what is the plural of Chartreux, anyway? - are cheerfully called the "smiling blue cats of France." They are gray, any shade between ash and slate. Cat fanciers call gray blue.

Converse is blue, with orange eyes that are called copper. They are half-lidded as Sandi pulls him from the blue bed and exhorts him to perk up for company. Harlee dangles a cat toy made of white feathers and pink fluff, and Converse eschews the Tough Guy act to swat at it. Since Harlee is standing next to the cat tree, a floor-to-ceiling arrangement of perches and climbing posts, four other cats are also able to swat at the toy. The cat on the lowest perch cannot reach and settles for swatting Converse's tail, which dangles below the crook of Sandi's arm.

Sandi is not a cat person. When she married Harlee in 1991 she told him that right up front. His hobby, at that moment, was breeding and showing Abyssinian cats, which his wife describes as the sort of cat that sits on refrigerators and pounces on people. Sandi couldn't think of anything more horrible than a room full of cat people and a house full of Abyssinians.

Harlee agreed to give it up, but after five years or so he was moping a little, and he told his wife she could choose the breed if he could have some cats. His only stipulation was no long hair.

Sandi didn't want to be selfish, so she did her research and selected Chartreux, a breed called the "dog cat" - content to lie beside instead of on a leg, devoted to the point of following the owner from room to room, even willing to play fetch.

That Chartreux are somewhat scarce outside of France - even inside of France - she found out the hard way. But eventually a smiling blue cat was living with the Patricks, and, although that first one wasn't show material, eventually the number and the quality grew until the Charleval Cattery was established, taking its name from a small town northwest of Paris.

They did the usual hobby cat things - local shows, a few regional shows - and they kept their day jobs, he as an asphalt plant manager and she as a high school secretary. Then Converse came along.
Converse is the highest-ranking Chartreux cat in the Cat Fanciers Association.
Champions are born, like royalty, and Converse was a blue-blooded blue dogcat with impeccable lineage. When Converse came into the world, on June 13, 2005, he was everything a Chartreux should be as described in the breed profile of the Cat Fanciers. He was "calmly attentive to the world," he was "tolerant and gentle with strangers," he did "play in short spurts" and he did "appreciate courtesy from others." More to the point, Converse had a beautiful double coat, a massive body lightly balanced on short, fine legs, and chubby cheeks. On the cat show 100-point scale that coat was worth 15 points for texture alone, and Converse had texture right up to his ears, which are, happily, "medium in height and width, set high on the head" as though Converse had followed the breed standard to the letter, which is ridiculous, because everyone knows cats can't read.

Kittens compete between the ages of 4 and 8 months. Converse, in his first four months of showing, was able to add the initials "RW" to his registered name: Regional winner - eighth best kitten in the Southern Region, the Cat Fanciers Association's largest and most competitive. By the time Converse was nearly 1 year old, he was the CFA's second best cat in the country on points, and Harlee suggested going for "NW" - National Winner.

"I said, 'Oh, no!'" Sandi recalls. "It costs thousands and thousands of dollars to get a national winner."

Sandi calls the Charleval Cattery a hobby, and she says they work to pay for the cat food. But a prodigy will not be denied.

The Patricks decided to campaign Converse, to start competing in shows all around the country in hopes of ramping up his winner's points in a single cat show season, which runs from May 1 to April 30. A cat earns points for each competitor it defeats in a show ring, and most shows have six rings. Bigger shows draw more cats and are thus likely to yield bigger point totals, but that has to be balanced against distance and cost of travel.

The Patricks had never campaigned a cat before. They had laughed about people campaigning cats. They had poked fun at people spending all that money. They made plans for shows in San Francisco and St. Louis.

The American dream - success and fame and fortune - could be only a plane fare away, although the Patricks prefer to take their motor home so the cats don't have to be caged as they do in hotel rooms. As Harlee says, you can find some scary things under hotel beds, and Converse might eat them because, hey, he's a cat, and cats don't know any better.

On Jan. 11, they packed their bags and, as Sandi puts it, "everything Converse could ever possibly need" and headed for Germany.

The Patricks went there because the American dream was born in the Old World and, besides, a judge was scheduled to be there who just a few weeks before had chosen Converse as Best Cat. That's how cold, hard reality makes the dream real: You compete in shows where the judges are judges who know you and love you and most likely will keep those Best Cat titles coming.

At a Pennsylvania show, that judge had said of Converse, as Sandi remembers it: "Once in a while a cat comes along that you look back and say, 'That cat wrote the standard for this breed.'"

About halfway through the 11-hour trip, Sandi and Harlee started dreaming about getting off the plane, but that is not how national winners are made.

However, when Converse arrived in Germany, after visiting two American airports and Paris, the judge was not there. Emergency surgery or something. So only one judge was there who had previously handled Converse, not two, but that judge came through handsomely. Converse was Best Cat in his ring, beating 130 other champions to add 130 more points to his stash.

This time, the accolade was "This is the most wonderful Chartreux I've ever had the privilege to hold in my hands," and Sandi again felt tears rolling down her cheeks and goosebumps on her arms, just as she does every time someone praises her baby.

Converse curls up just like ordinary cats, resting his perfect head on his perfect paws. He does not seem to mind being separated from the bevy of beautiful women on the cat tree.

Downstairs, his sire, Elvis, is still in the building, solo in the stud room because his famous son is upstairs for an interview. Elvis and Converse usually bunk together, which is how the American dream translates for most of us: Scoot over.

Converse is not just a pretty face, although Sandi says judges love his big, fat jowls. They also love his "potato on a toothpick" body, as described in the breed profile, and his plush woolly coat, both of which are attributes that in centuries past led hunters to prize the Chartreux for their meat and pelts.

Still intact, they helped Converse win big. "We're just not used to that," Sandi says, crossing her pink-slippered feet. The lower part of the slippers is thick and plushy - like a Chartreux cat - and the part around the ankles is longer and silky - like a Birman cat. The Patricks started breeding Birmans in 1997, a year after they took up Chartreux. Remember, Sandi is not a cat person. But when she got to her first show and saw her first Birman, she had to have one.

The Chartreux and the Birmans mix amicably in the Patrick household - a melting pot of France and Burma and Virginia, blue and brown and cream and lilac - a state of let's-all-get-along that the wider world should envy. Converse, of course, lives in a closed society because, although the babes would very much like to meet him, his bloodlines are closely guarded, as is their virtue, and only arranged marriages are allowed.

In the living room, two puffy little cat houses flank the fireplace. They hold a tangle of ears and tails, noses and feet. It is hard to tell how many cats are in each. Periodically, a minor quake occurs. Half a kitten will sprawl out. A rangy adolescent will pop out and stalk away like a seething teenager. This is the reality of the American dream - once you get the house, it is always too small.

Converse was asleep in his private bed, in his private house. A single wide-eyed kitten, his half-sister, bounced onto the coffee table and gazed around. As she looked up, Harlee pointed out the upturned corners of her mouth that give the illusion of a smile.

Her name is Bossa Nova Baby, and she is potentially the Next Big Thing in the Charleval Cattery because she is so beautiful. She is blue. She looks gray. All the cats look gray, but there is gray and there is blue and there is perfection, and it's all packaged nicely into just a few ounces here on the table.

While she grows, Converse must keep adding to his 8,377 points to maintain his ranking in the Top 10. The No. 1 cat in the country has around 10,000 points, Sandi says. The Patricks figure Converse will need at least 10 more shows between now and April 30, including one Saturday in Chesapeake.

They hope to fly in June to the awards banquet in Texas - coach, because only the cat gets first-class treatment, baby - and then to have some weekends free for a change.



After Converse retires from the ring, in May, he'll have to work for a living. Hot babes from all over will be allowed, one by one, and for a fee, to visit the downstairs stud room. Success begets success.

In the meantime, fame is tiring. On the TV, the American dream flashes past in celebrity snapshots, the announcer's lips move, but no sound comes out. James Brown appears in his casket, stretched out peacefully. Harlee in the recliner is in pretty much the same position, minus the white lilies. Sandi recrosses her feet in the pink slippers. Converse sleeps, smiling.

Perhaps he dreams.



Reach Diane Tennant at (757) 446-2478 or diane.tennant@pilotonline.com.

Want to see Converse and about 225 other show cats?
Click into the Local Events guide for the 16th annual Cat Fanciers Association cat show, sponsored by Pawprints In The Sand Inc.

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