Friday

Inside Cats

The cats are introducing me to more people and especially to more children.

The cats act charming, they curl up under the flowering bushes looking graceful and whiskery and they accept praise and worship from us all.

Princess doesn't come out of her bathroom nest very often, but every few days she's restless and wanders around with her characteristic cry which sounds like a hoarse Wowwr!! Wowr. On those days I take her across the road to visit Jos and Mick and to assume her old place on the verandah where she has watched the street go by these last eight years or so.

Not every day. A day out, then two day's rest.

Even though the vet said that her kidneys are remarkably good for a cat her age, she sometimes pees in her bed.  More work for she but Princess still does her cat work, slipping out from her curtained bed, saying hello, lip marking the red shelf in the bathroom, accepting caress and praise, then slipping back to bed.

She's eating well and her arthritic back legs are less shaky than they were a few weeks ago.

She can still leap onto my lap. She can still run nimbly up Jos's front steps although I'm not sure that she still ascends the mulberry tree to get to Jos's roof.

She said she wanted to go out in yesterday's blistering heat. As I carried her past our front gate, she had the energy to hiss at Scrap, who looked  surprised.

Me, I didn't do much at all, a bit of study, a walk to the Post Office to pay bills, some kitchen work and so on.

I collected Princess in the evening. As I chatted with Jos, Sylvio dashed across the road to talk to us. Friday evening's traffic is always dense. Jos and I were frozen with horror. Sylvio timed his run well. I brought him back first. Usually Sylvio, Grace and Stanley are inside by evening time being the first of all the cats to enquire about dinner....

Next time I'll make sure he's in before I cross the road. He's too daring, that small silver boy.

So all are inside and fed except for Greyling. I try to fetch her a few times, but she dances away. 

I go outside to look for her and notice fine drops of rain.

Too tired, too hot to bring the washing in earlier, I get the basket and fetch the washing, not even bothering to fold it.

When I return to our small back yard, the garden is full of silver whiskery faces, mischievous and mysterious.  I'd closed the door without locking it and it must have been Zorro who teased the door open.

They've had their dinner and now they aren't going to come inside, thanks all the same!

I go to get the camera. The pattern of the little faces among the flowering silvery mauve heliotrope and the silver dragon shapes of the artichoke is lovely. They are all in the wilderness by the time I return to the garden and No, when I call, they will not come.

I give up and go inside.

The rain gradually gets heavier and pretty soon there are faces at the kitchen window.

"Can we come inside now please?"

"Oh, all right," she growls.

But Lucibelle and Balanchine didn't escape. They knew the rain to be on its way.

She Sings

Three Green Men

In the beginning of this blog, I mention that I've studied dreams for many years.

I include a recent dream here because the cats are present and also eventually, it includes She, (the cat’s ‘mother’).

(As a youngster, I decided to write out my dreams in order to disprove Jungian Theory.)

I gave up on certain disputations in my mid twenties although the habit of recording dreams remained. Looking at the underworld helps us understand the world above, (the dream world of course, being a weird and surreal looking glass reality). 

That’s what I conclude after three decades of keeping such records as explicated by my subconscious and the subconscious of many people who've shared their dreams with me at different times.

This is from a few days ago: 

Me and Rex the Ex are at SBS. (Sydney’s Multicultural Media Channel with whom Rex and me at one stage had much trouble in terms of a Voluntary Project). 

SBS is exactly as I saw it back then, a collection of warring shanties after the move of Radio from Bondi Junction, who had somewhat helped us, to the new site at Artarmon over on the north side of Sydney.

Me and Rex, we had to sleep there. There was a sort of soft surface room and a few blankets which we had to divide among many diverse people.

I'm so tired that I look for a blanket and find a spot as quick as I can. Then Rex the Ex says,

"Oh no, there are cockroaches in this blanket," and I say, 

“So What?" (I am that tired.)

He pulls it away, saying, 

"We will not sleep here!"

OK, the room is full of people about to bed down. Among them I see iconic sports commentators, Rampaging Roy Slaven and HG Nelson. They're OK, they are dealing with the madnesses and eventually they go somewhere else.

Rex finds a good blanket and at last we sleep, lying crosswise from the spot that Roy and HG had recently slept.

It’s a clean blanket and a good sleep.

The next morning we wake and there are things to sort out. I'm doing the business as I did back then and I travel through various Departments. At one time I discover people discussing Our Project (which in the Wake World came to naught). They're saying,

"If they don’t work with us, they will work their project through the ABC!" 

(The ABC being Australia’s Other Public Broadcaster.)

They're being very disparaging about us. 

It's time to gather our energies.

There are an awful lot of cats outside in this hilly countryside region. I recognise my little cats with whom I'm living at present.

There are people there who are clothed in the aura of Religion saying that all the cats must be killed.

"No way", I say.

Rex and I have a very nice new white van.

I collect all my little ones (which is a very complicated process).

You know how it is, you put one cat in the van and another escapes, and so on, but eventually all our cats are inside and we set out.

There’s a phase where we're going through a tricky part of the road, quite deadly. A narrow path, and it seems that there are spikes on the railing beside the road. As a driver, I look at these spikes more closely. They are little iron horses. Suddenly, I'm by myself, working my way down spiral staircases and various narrow opportunities to get to the road. I clutch an iron peg to help me descend at one point.

I cling to bits of iron to help that descent. Somehow I’m not separated from our van because that's how realities can go in that instance.

Rex is still in the passenger seat and all the cats are with us and suddenly it eases up so that we're driving along the highway and I'm singing a song whose major lyrics are She Says, She Says, She says, and we are going very good.

WOW

So busy at this time with many many things.

The tutoring work is in the foundation phase here.

I've got the new card thanks to Anna.

(Much cheaper than when I first got the camera.)

We all hang on the weather.

A recent stinking hot day, a chilly change.

Then a warm day with marbled cloud.

With kids in the place I took Princess across the road this morning.

We went to the park, returning when the thick clouds came.

A long walk & I rested while Lucy slept.

Lucy is a little gal who's visiting lately with her big sister Mina.

I'm so glad that I have kids in my life again.

When I returned to the upright world after my rest, it was freezing cold.

I picked up Princess, she was trembling, shuddering, poor old gal.

She's had her tucker, she's had her medicine and now she's warm again.

Sylvio's Mystery

We all welcome a delicious day like this. She even skips a bit, arms wide, heart singing. All of the little felines are a-hunting, whisker-quivering, they raise the left front paw and move inside through wide open doors. They tease the inside doors to investigate all the biscuit bowls for stray biscuits, they check the hallway to see if there's something in the can to scoop before the can is binned. The block of wood is still wedged against the fridge door, but it's worth a try because the fridge is a most delectable place for one Zorro, even if he got stuck inside for a good ten minutes once during kittentime. She has recently placed a bigger block of wood against the fridge door and phooey, it won't move, but what's this in the kitchen corner?  It's a cupboard ajar, a cupboard with the big big pack of biscuits. Lucibelle helps Zorro, but then there's something of more interest, the busy buzzing of a blowfly at the kitchen window above the sink. (The Blowfly is the surest sign of Springtime!)  Crash goes a plate and everyone flees.  Cautiously they come back.  The cupboard door is closed, the plate swept up, the finger is shaken, Naughty, NAUGHTY!! And they all run off to chase the butterflies except for Stanley who settles on the verandah in order to closely watch the street.  She is cooking again, but clumsy after her illness spills some food on the track suit pants which are rinsed and hung on the line still dripping. Sylvio is entranced.  (He loves water, he tastes it and teases it and wets his ears and paws with it and he's the only cat who danced around in last week's warm rain, enjoying wetness.)  They have all accompanied She to the clothes line in next door's yard and they run up and down the loquat tree and do some chasing, when Sylvio discovers that water is dripping from above.He wriggles his ears, he licks the drops, then he sets off to examine every inch of lawn to see if dripping water comes from above anywhere else. It's very confusing sometimes for a cat who knows what he likes.

Fresh Stuff

Which one was that ancient Greek Philosopher who claimed that illness is good because recovery is bliss?

Phew.

Anna came by yesterday & met our new gorgeous neighbours.

I did some cleaning, well quite a lot compared to when I was ill....

O it's still so smelly in some places.

Phooey, I've only been doing the most basic work since the illness hit me.

I can do the Dyson, the dishes and the surfaces, but!

I been only doing essentials and I haven't been sociable enough with my little crowd.

They are 'marking' to protest.

My sense of smell is only recently returning.

They hit the cushioned chair.

They hit my smart new rucksack (by the way, thanx Leeton for a great rucksack!)

(Sorry I dropped in on Roscoe with my rucksack ponging!)

As smell returned, I realised that the spraying process even hit certain spots in the kitchen.

(Which yesterday I scrubbed with diluted lavender oil!)

The couch is a write-off but I'll air the covers tomorrow.

I got younger folks visiting next week. I have to conquer some smells.

Truly, I do want to be further down the track, but my little critturs are saying, 

'Where have you been?' (PS, 'We could go even more feral if you like!')

Blissfully warmer weather, sunlight on back verandah in the mornings, ah, this place is a good place. Great light. Books keep coming in and with fabulous neighbours I'm doing some gardening at least.

I've got books to add as promised, and I have music to add as promised.

That's because Jez helped me.

I thank Brendan, Jez, Lucy, Mina, and we don't forget Aphex!

I thought I had too many cats until I checked the following site.

The Pussies Galore post on http://littlecatdiaries.blogspot.com/

WOW!

New Bits

Need a new card for the camera.

Lotsa stuff ready to roll.

New books, new note book writings, new possibilities.

Just to say, thanx to everyone who's stayed in touch.

A new level is happening mostly thanx for the counseling, I guess.

I am awed by those blogs I list & by new things I've not had time to indicate.

Check my new books and music etc tomorrow!!!

Love,

Health Problems

Zorro: Why you wakes me up?

It's very hard to take a pic of Zorro because he's very shy. 

Soon after he was born, a mean Tomcat came round and tried to kill him. (One reason to take responsibility for kitty cats is that Toms will try to kill them off so that the little females go on heat again!)

I rescued Zorro as a shrieking terrified kitten and he doesn't really trust very much ever since. He is a cute lad though and he is definately Mama Greyling's favourite fellow feline. She's gentle and wise, he's an affectionate sook with big brimming eyes and a very hoarse miouw, possibly from shrieking while Greyling gripped him by the scruff as she tried to face off one mean mean Tomcat!

His name came because when all the kits ran in a bunch, he'd leap over all of them and streak ahead. Even when tiny he could leap to my shoulder height and I'm not short! He seemed to be so brave and daring. Finally when most of the previous litters found homes, the grey kits could be brought inside from the laundry. 

I didn't see Zorro for four days. He went into hiding. His apparent daring I think was the fear from his early trauma. The early bravado which earned him his name was all gone by the time he crept out from behind the clothes rack.

It was hard enough to take pictures of modest Greyling. It's been even more difficult to take a good shot of Zorro. When I get the card for my camera, I'll try again!  When he suddenly appears from under the flowering bushes, his eyes wide and ready to run, he looks amazing, but I've not been quick enough yet.

So much to read, so much to understand.

My persistent fluey head cold has been very sticky. I keep getting about on certain days. Then even that keeps on being too much for me. I worked out a few herbs that have me feeling better today. It's easier to treat other people/ animals than myself. I miss my brilliant Acupuncturist, Gabi.

There's a lot in my notebooks which I'm editing for my blogs. Yeh, I had another go at the first blog I tried & I'm writing more about my studies there. I'll include it on my list, OK?

In the meantime, Princess, Ariel, Little Cat, the Old Cat of the Tribe has become ill again. It worried me that Jos didn't want to provide her with an electric blanket or a hot water bottle when Princess, now nearly Nineteen is so much bothered by arthritis. 

After her recent illness, although I went over the road to say hello to the little one every few days, it wasn't until Jos called to say Princess again seemed unwell that I went over for a closer look. The fur shaved for her hospital drips & tests hasn't even grown back yet, and the serene one was uncharacteristically in a very bad mood indeed.

So I brought her back here. There were early signs of dehydration,  little elasticity in the scruff of her neck, and now I'm feeding her a diluted herbal mixture with an eyedropper. Thankfully she's looking and sounding and walking much better.

I put her electric blanket in a nest in the bathroom, giving her privacy with a towel for a screen.

Initially, she stopped trusting this place when I cared for Marvin, a nice enough dog who needed a temporary place, but then he chased Princess and terrified her. Princess then endured until I cared for the second dog. (There have been a lot of people 'between homes' in Sydney recently with this rental crisis and pet owners are most seriously hit).

The second dog, Bindi, wasn't aggressive, but Princess decided that enough was enough and she departed. At present there are no dogs here, although there's a rather bad tempered little chap across the road who's chased Scrap once or twice. 

(Last time he engaged in cat chasing, Scrap and the younger cats disappeared into the Wilderness which he can't access and His Dogness went back to the tree which the cats like to sharpen their claws upon. He was sniffing and marking as I crept up toward him. One sharp handclap above his head and he was off, not seen since.)

Princess's eyes are failing. It seems as if I may take her over to Jos's place on sunny days at times, but perhaps she will have to be an inside cat mostly. I'd hate Dogness to attack her while she's so weak and he does get out since his folks have been renovating. 

I had thought that she should spend more time here when she was ill before, but Jos missed her and she missed Jos and Mick and Col and so on and so again she crossed the road...

Yeh, maybe this little cat, a companion for so long doesn't have much time left. While her fur is shiny and while she can enjoy her food, enjoy company and purr, I'll do my best for her.

When I lived Up The River, I was horribly, hideously ill for a long time. I could raise myself on pillows, I could reach for my books and I studied a lot. There were several good essays yet to be copied from notebooks and I never felt entirely functionless.

My Uncanny Ex Man was nuts. He became cruel and horrible and it would have been a totally isolating time except for one companion, a small cat by name of Princess.

Even when I was in the worst pain, she lay close to the pain and for a very long time she was my only friend, even when Ex Man smashed everything up including me.

Somehow Princess and self  both survived. Somehow I owe her much. She likes her nest in the bathroom pretty fine. It's a lovely big bathroom and a good private space.

Small Queen Scrap likes to stay in my room of an evening. Then Scrap ventures forth early each morning when then I bring Princess back to my bed. I've thought of trying her here in the room with Scrap. It's a big space and Scrap is a gentle girl. I guess I just worry that Princess would worry too much with failing vision, & that maybe Scrap could get frightened and attack her.

Besides, I have to prove to Princess that I'm not hiding another dog somewhere.

Greyling

Formerly known as Grey Boy, Greyling is a small cat with a big soul.

She's not just spoken to me in my dreams, she's even visited friends locally in their sleep, especially since she became a Mum. (Fred is the only one of her kittens who has found a home so far. Is she looking for homes for the others?)

(She likes Zorro best, big sooky gentle Zorro.)

Sometimes Greyling comes in for dinner later than the rest. Usually I feed the latecomers separately in the Bathroom or in the Hall because, of course, those already fed will all just keep eating. 

Greyling won't touch any food  until she can share it with the rest of the tribe. 

She's not a cat you'll meet out front. She's shy. She hides in the Wilderness behind the place.

Once Greyling decides that she loves a person or a fellow cat, she is the most loving sweet-natured affectionate little feline I ever met. (And I have met some very special ones in my time!)

Most of my cats are very figurative if I dream of them, they may have fluffy blue or green fur or polka dot markings or even pony tails. If they talk, they say they like their food and they don't like dogs, they say they like this plant or that, and, (apart from Sylvio),  they don't much like rain. Sometimes they tell me what they feel some people really are like in their terms.

When Greyling arrives in a dream, she is always her own self and she makes unusual sense.

'I like this place. I want to stay around here,' she said before visiting another local friend in his dream. He was so convinced she was in the house, he got up to look for her, but that was when we all thought she was a boy on account of the size of her balls.

Stanley is spending more time inside recently, the only one not precisely tempted by the odours of Spring. I think he's enjoying the pats and the cuddles as I work out back in Kitchen Dining and Lounge Rooms. (Possibly also he's looking for food handouts when I cook!)

chillouts

Lucibelle Loves Dyson

No choice about chilling out when icy winds and rain returned these last few days.

The Clan has various shelters outside, particularly a small dry back verandah with a few handy boxes to protect fur from nasty wind gusts.

I've wanted to clean, but this Flu has insisted that I can't quite manage that.

Vacuuming with flaming sinusses and more dentals until some basic problems are sorted?

No, not really.

Anyone who has cats and carpet is reliant on a good vacuum cleaner, and when Anna gave me a Dyson for my birthday, it made the whole business a lot easier.

In good health, while I vacuum, I play music, I put on my glasses and I'm so fascinated by the freshening of the air as well as the sharp cleanliness of the floor, I can cope with a low flying jet type scream of sound necessary to re-create a clean floor. 

The Dyson is much more high pitched than other vacuum cleaners on account of it's somewhat Super Sonic whatevers.  

(No, with a lingering Flu, I'm not even going to try and find the handbook describing the ultra technology of the Dyson though, hey, I can add a link!)

Yeh, if I'm headachy I find the Dyson a bit shrill. The strange thing is that even though the cats hated the former vacuum cleaner, they don't mind the Dyson at all.

There's one unfortunate side-effect of their tolerance to the cleansing noise. If they are all inside, then I have to keep shifting cats as well as shifting furniture as I clean.

I couldn't leave them outside on those cold days. The piteous cries from the back verandah as I trawled the kitchen for various human fuelings was simply too much for me.

They ended up in the lounge room with the heater while I went back to bed with a hot water bottle. 

The heater quietened them down. Heavens, if there are half a dozen cats in a small space, then they are going to chase each other around and quarrel after two days, little so and so's. I almost said, worse than kids before I remembered that's not quite so.

The first priority as I began to recover had to be the kitchen after several days of staggering out, preparing Instant Food, (the kinds of things I always scorned!). The room spun. I managed some thiss's and that's until I just gave up and only rinsed and put away.

Last night, I finally did the proper job on proper hot dishwashing, cleaning surfaces & floor. A bit more this AM. Overwhelmed somewhat.

I'm procrastinating by working here, but it's been nice to have done my explorations and the communications while the sun blissfully colours the room bright.

I went outside to eat my noodles and had a conversation with neighbour Ron about the garden. The first ranuncula is in bloom. A cheerful blossom, cats running, playing as we talked.

Seeya

Spring Begins

And This Is Why I Got My Camera!

I’ve recently resumed a blog whose intention is to focus on my studies and the factors comprising my real work. I hit a few misunderstandings back in the nineties and probably even earlier than that and well the work is more interesting than those misunderstandings I hope.

 

I tried blogging soon after I got the computer. It’s taken quite a long time to know where to look and to understand what this acronym or that means.  Oh yes, I’d read all the early cyber philosophy books back in the seventies. I dreamed of computers back then and Science Fiction had strong imaginings about what they would be and how they might change things.

But nothing is ever quite as we dream or imagine it will be.

 

It's disappointing that Computer Media can be so incredibly trivial. Celebrity sagas aren’t simply an occasional curiosity concerning the notable and more. They seem to have become the entire imaginative content of some people’s lives.  Even some of the trivial people who become celebs believe they are doing something more than their vacuity would suggest.

 

I’m just glad that I was brought up with a grounding in Literature, History and Real Life and so on.

 

Yes, computers were an essential part of several of my former workplaces from the eighties onwards. I fell in love with them then (as it were).  No longer did I have to re-type an entire manuscript sometimes several times in order to create the perfect essay or radio script. I remember my Seventies seminar paper for Philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein arguing with Bertrand Russell, his former mentor:

 

I wrote out all the relevant quotes from both parties, cut up each quote separately and spent a long time sorting and rewriting before I literally pasted onto blank paper. Yes, if something complex needs to be said, it’s far better to cook it on the computer than to write and rewrite where there is the need to correct.

 

Many great writers simply wrote and rarely corrected. That's not me at all. My first draft is inevitably raw clay requiring much work and considerable time.

 

Some of my essays and works have succeeded and the best ones developed  from notebook stage and then via much correction and polish.

 

This business with blogs and websites is thoroughly exciting.

 

Yeah, I worked on that old blog on Saturday and I’ve decided that some of the strange things that have prevented my work as well as some of what I’ve had to learn since I first became ill will go there. I’m building up to post some essays, a process I first thought might be simple.

 

(Local friend John Butcher suggested I advertise my writing on ebay!!!

 

 

Oh yes? Would people really buy an essay or a poem on ebay? I said I want to keep copyright of my work & he reckons there are so many people hitting ebay that some would just love to have and interesting essay just faxed or posted to them. Is the world that strange? I explained that I want to find a publisher who’ll push my work, and my one nibble feels pretty good.)

 

Today I have a streaming cold, not helped I suspect, by Saturday and twelve hours straight stuck at the computer. Possibly eyestrain didn’t help much…the cold seems to be going round capturing friend after friend and I’ve got to the point of conceding that I probably need some rest.

 

I’ve just returned from sitting in the front garden with a cup of tea, sunglasses and a big hat. Even with my blocked nose, Jasmine, Violets and Freesia’s were bliss (though I wish last year’s Boronia had survived). The sunshine was divine, cats were basking beneath geranium and daisy bushes purring while I thought about how I’ve managed to learn some computering a little sooner than Anna expected.

 

I liked Macintosh from our very first encounter and I especially like its visual capacity. I also did some work with my collection of photographs on the weekend.

 

I’d have loved to include some garden pics here, but the camera needs a new card and that is that, so my only new pictures are today to be detected within these words.

 

(Blossom, beautiful, beautiful blossom has begun with firstly the cherry tree down the road and today, the first plum blossom in the big yard. Come to think of it, this must mark the anniversary of my camera because it was last year’s first plum blossoms inspired me to get the camera in the first place….)

 

I’ve wanted to properly introduce the Grey Cats and to tell their story for some time.

 

While I was still trying to work out the bits and whatnots about blogging, I began a Word Manuscript about them all.  A quick look today revealed that I have a considerable editing session to complete before I post and I don’t feel up to a major editing session, O No.

 

So I’ll just include the kitty pics as a teaser for now. My head is spinning and the eyes are swimming and I’m feeling as if a lie down might be nice. So glad I rarely get a cold, I hate them. (‘Scuse me, AChoo!)  Thank Goodness Anna brought extra tissues yesterday!

__________________________

Grey Kits: From Left, Clock Wise, Grace, Sylvio, Fred, Baby, Zorro.