Baby And The Stranger Cat

A Hiding Baby

Recently, Anna helped me with a big clean up of the kitchen. We moved stuff around and a mirror which had sat on the bench for some time, was shifted to rest against a book case until such time as it finds a new place. 

I hadn't realised that this would make such an impact on one Baby silver mackerel tabby cat.

The camera wasn't even to hand when Baby discovered that there was Another Cat staring at her full faced in aggressive mode from the mirror. Such an insult was not to be tolerated, and brave baby as she is, she launched herself at the offending feline. 

She was alarmed to meet cold glass and immediately investigated behind the mirror in order to deal with the the situation properly.

To her mystification, there were no cats of any description behind the glass. She emerged and again she saw That Cat and again she attacked and again the slippery feline had got away.

I was laughing so much that I was a bit helpless about it all for awhile.

Eventually I found the camera and was in time to catch a picture of a small Baby Cat safely in her hutch hiding from the intruder. 

Update

They are all inside tonight, the sudden dose of snow in the alps meant that they were at back and front doors crying to come into the sheltering warmth of this place.

She, more root canal therapy yesterday and more to come.

Yesterday, I forgot to take my acupuncture needles with me and today I felt so lousy I had to cancel the Counselling Session.

OK, I got up late today after yesterday's dentals. Why have I been dreaming about Brad and Angelina so often? OK, it was a joke when the quiz asked should they adopt more kids, I said, well I'm a grown up kid, they could adopt me if they like.

When I was a small person, I adopted all the thrown out dolls I found. They all had their beds and I attended to them every day, even when they were legless.

I think of this as I clean the trays and feed the little ones.

Tabs has consented to sleep closer to Balanchine tonight. They loved each other so much before the nightmare crap. The vet was inside the pub buying more whiskey tonight.

It's kitten season again. Roscoe says he's prepared to adopt any that come by his way.

If they are young enough to cope with his dogs,

Updates

Checking The Back Yard: Our Roof, Our Tabs, 

I was too tired to go looking for Tabs last night. She hides out in a shed at the end of Daigon Alley if she's having second thoughts about coming inside with the mobs. Sometimes second thoughts are caused by one Black Tom. Not allowed inside at night himself, he'll sometimes prevent Tabs and Scrap from coming inside here. Maybe it's company he's after! Scrap and he have been friends since they were kittens and he also likes Tabs.

I had counselling again on Wednesday. Although the place I go is a short distance, I was worried about being late and RAN for the bus. Not far. The pain knifed into my joints immediately and I was reduced to a hobble. Yes, I've run a few times lately, when the Big Wind came and I had to fetch frightened cats, and every so often I run a bit or dance for the joy of this beautiful place. (Odd, dancing doesn't cause as much pain as running, though both usually demand some recovery time.)

Anyway, one of the boys from the White Goods Store next to the bus stop held the bus for me as I hobbled the last few yards and the physical effort that followed has ensured a few days of pain and limitation.

Not having the wherewithall to look for Tabs and Scrap bothers me much more than the lack of movement at home and round about the place. After all, I have the computering and I have the writing and study work and I can always catch up on the house work later.

Yesterday I pushed a bit more physical effort as I dug out an infestation of Onion Weed which is amost awful weed. Every bulb sends out a multitude of smaller bulbs and one has to try to get each tiny bulblet out as well as the major plants now getting to the flowering stage.

(In times past, when I worked at Bush Regeneration Up The River, a major annoyance was the number of gardeners who'd drive up our way to secretly dump a Ute Load of Onion Weed from their gardens! You can imagine what that feels like after you've carefully and gradually worked around areas with most natural growth so that the most determined weeds such as Farmer's 'Friend', Compton Weed, Privet, Lantana, Morning Glory, Erhata, Paspalum, Tradescantia, Flea Bane, Turkey Rhubarb and so on are finished off bit by bit, only to find an onion stinking pile of That Weed, which is The Worst because it's so difficult!)

(Bush Regeneration is odd work. You can work for years on your various patches but if you speak of the work, people are puzzled. It all happens so gradually that they honestly don't see the difference. Successful Bush Regeneration means that eventually, your place will look as if no other hand but God's has ever touched the place. For the educated eye, it might be compared to cleaning layers of dust from an old landscape painting. Suddenly, after much work, the Bush reality is crystalline, pure!)

Because last night was the night for the Green Bin, I also trimmed back the Marguerite Daisy which has become so large that it's reduced the space available for the two different Lavenders growing on either side.

As I trimmed, there was a light furry slap on my wrist. I looked down to see Stanley's little quizzical face.

'Excuse me, but WHY are you messing with my hidey hole?' he said quite plainly.

I tried to tell him that with thicker Lavender, the hidey hole will be eventually much improved and that made me realise I'll have to harvest the Lavender blossoms for those bushes to grow thicker quick enough for the little ones to maintain their secret spot where they can examine the street and watch for their friends.

Stanley was very gruff with me last night.

I didn't have a camera in the Bush Regeneration days and I haven't yet got into the habit of photographing my work here yet. I must say though, that if anyone has an Onion Weed Problem, then dig it out gradually and persistently and throw it into the Green Bin, not into the Bush or the garden next door. An application of Roundup early in the growth phase will help, but it must be remembered that Onion Weed Bulbs grow very deep and the poisoning may spread to more delicate flowers. I lost a season of Heartsease that way!

Princess reports that even if she needs a little more rest than she needed in the past, she likes to get out and about as often as she can. OK, so She has to carry a Princess to and fro across the street but any suggestion that Princess can no longer climb the Mulberry Tree is a lie. Princess has an obligation to Mick because Mick's been in Hospital and needs company so it is the duty of a Princess such as she to keep him company as he sits and recovers on the back veranda! Princess remembers Hospital and even if it helped her Get Better, Mick has her sympathy.

Too Much

Plotting The Escape

It's too much to have too many cats when resources are so short.

At least I have the space and Anna helps so much.

Last night, Tabs mounted an escape strategy. First of all, all the darlings were inside and fed. Then Tabs got the lounge room door open and slipped into the front where she teased the front window open. I didn't even see it as she led Balanchine and Baby outside. 

Tonight I left the front light on. Bally had come inside from the back door and I welcomed him after his characteristic yowling at the back door.

Baby had been the first to accept her food in the afternoon. Much purring.

The routines, the cleanings fell onto place.

Truth is, I'm worrying about us all. I want good homes for the little ones. 

Sylvio, Grace and Stanley usually come inside early. The other Greys also come in early.

When they are out, I worry about dogs and cars and cruel people.

Just as I  sit down to write, there's a cry at the font door. It's Tabs, she who I take the torch to the streets to search when she hasn't turned up for her tucker.  Tonight she's rolling and purring and saying that she's sorry she got out last night, Saturday night when there's drunken whooping in the street and when dogs bark. (A most beautiful and gorgeous tabby cat, she's had her troubles). 

I feed her in the hallway and then I put in the kitchen/dining area with the Greys and Bally.

Tabs was one of the cats who was very boyish. I was horribly ill when the dental infections hit my sinuses last year and that's another story, why those delays happened. With the infection deep in the sinus, with a great deal of general physical pain, I wasn't holding them on my lap for awhile. Any touch especially loud noise was unbearable. They'd stand on the kitchen table for a purry pat and that was that.

It never occurred to me that I might have got my readings wrong.

I took Tabs to the vet, I thought when that fatal dewdrop shape happened,  they might say how many kits there may be?

Bally, well he obviously had to be de-sexed and they were a most loving couple. Tabs looked like a boy, I said, Gay cats, how charming. The vet interpreted the consultation to be not just the de-sexing of Balanchine but also a very late term abortion for Tabs.

Well there was this tooth that should have been fixed in about 1997 and the Dentist was trying to save it because OK, I'd been to bad Dentists before, there'd been delays and I was trying for a partial plate.  The tooth had got very bad. I was half way through root canal therapy that Friday when I took Tabs in for the check up and Bally in for the de-sex.

The Saturday morning I turned up to pick up both cats it turned out to be one of those mornings full of huge dogs and loud people.

My head was splitting. I apologised, 'I am only over the road,' I said. 'Can I come back just before midday when your work is done and pick up my cats in quietness?'

The slutty vet said, 'Sure.'

I got a call, she had to go out, but she had to come back to complete work later, she said, and she would call me and could I pick up the cats then, a bit later in the day?

I asked what time, she said she didn't know. It seemed strange, but I said 'OK'

Three hours it was I sat by the phone and eventually I went out back to make a cup of tea.

I got back to my office. The call had come five minutes before. (Dammit with the Dentals, my brain wasn't working well enough to make sure they had the mobile number as well as the home number in my room and I'd made sure I had the Mobile with me out back.)

I dashed across the road bare foot. Noone there.

'?' I said. The Vet said she had half an hour's work to complete and would call me the minute she got back to the Surgery! I'd missed her call by exactly five minutes!

On Monday morning I was there first thing. My little ones were grateful to see me, but that Vet who'd done the operation screamed at me for neglecting my cats when that gal had come back 'especially' so that I could pick up the cats on Saturday afternoon!

I was so upset I was late for the Dentist on that Monday morning, it was a long time before I could stop crying and both cats were crying also. The weekend of non-charming people continued, the Dentist told me the notice was too short and that I shouldn't attend his Surgery again. I lost the tooth eventually.

That gal vet, I've seen her with many partners since. Once I saw her with a boyfriend. They were carrying a cat in for a treatment on a Sunday afternoon. More extracurricular activity, I guessed.

There was a time when I said to Anna, 'I've met some horror Doctors, but I never met a bad Vet.'

She said, 'Well Doctors have a career, but Vets love animals and that's why they do what they do.'

OK, Vets may have too much to deal with, they may become irritated by irresponsibility, but if a Vet can leave traumatised cats unfed and untended in cages for a whole weekend when I only lived across the road and it was she who postponed the meeting...

And the outcome of all that is that Tabs will pick locks and open windows and doors as often as she can.

That's why we catch a cab to a vet in another suburb these days.

I do Acupressure and Massage, I do tender work with poor traumatised little Tabs, but we don't go to the closer Vet any more, I've seen how much whiskey is consumed by that lot.

Anyway, my Tabby gal came inside tonight. I fed her. I cuddled her, and I can't let her in my room because wherever she is, she's always trying to escape. I think of her in pain and grief alone in a cage unfed and crying for two days.....

I encountered that gal vet in the street not long ago with a fifth or so boyfriend.

She said, 'Hi'

I said, 'You!'

A question in a recent counselling session was

'Is there anyone in a social situation who you glare at across a room?'

At first I said No. I've had a few annoying quarrels with people, not many. Most were with those who offer porn solutions to assist my single status who then become horrid when I say No Thanks. (A bit too traumatised still by what happened with Rex the deadly ex to even contemplate a social life with a NICE man at present, let alone a creepy type!) (Besides, I have to concentrate on my dentals and on getting myself some paid work in order to make sure that I don't end up with another situation where proper valid work is destroyed by someone else.)

Then I remembered that I see that Vet at the pub on occasions.

'Yes,' I said, 'In fact I glare at a person whose passion for self indulgence created fear and trauma for two of my beloved companions.'

I don't think that counts as obsession altogether, it counts as wariness, as not forgetting any of this, even though it's been very hard to write of.

Both Tabs and Greyling (AKA Greyboy) were very masculine looking and behaving kittens.

I was horrified when having carefully left both inside at nights that they'd still got pregnant.

Greyling was the one who I'd decided to take for the operation because I felt that she'd cope better. Not as far gone, less intense emotionally than little Tabs.

The horror of that weekend affected us all. I couldn't take Greyling to Those People. That's how our population increased by five, that's how Sylvio and company arrived one Autumn day.

In the meantime, Anna had also had a bad experience with the closer Vet and one of her cats. So she found a new Vet who's terse and uncommunicative but who loves cats. If this Vet gives her word she keeps it. She'll talk more to the cat than the owner in a consultation and I like that.

This new Vet is more like the Vets we knew in the past.

Ch-ch-changes...

Valerian: For Nervous Disposition.

She Says,  

Times are a-changing, & it's hard to keep up. 

Donated a poem to a mag & they accepted straight up. 

When the writing worked before, it was in radio and there were many who called & wrote good things to me about that work. There were criticisms too of course, most valid and most from me. They only made me more determined. 

 

Realisation of Asperger's would have helped back then, but it was really That Awful Dentistry which set me back in terms of paid writing work. Bad dentistry jars the mind, the tool required for proficient writing. Then, even after the most essential treatments have calmed the mind and improved the writing, you find yr words are out of fashion. And the then the dentals get delayed, although some symptoms of psyche and relationship improve.  

Even when everything has changed, the work has gone on. It's been a constant.  

I have to keep going, after all, I have felines to support.  

Most of all,it's the weather which has been changing constantly. Bright searing heat on Monday, then suddenly,a sheet of black hail cloud is approaching fast from the North East.

She runs to fetch Princess from Jos's verandah. The wind is starting as she's running, Princess in arms toward the gate, scared cats approach and run inside with no attempt to play hard to get. 

The sun glaring and blaring against the blackness is startling. Cats inside, I do my rituals, I turn, I secure most windows, leaving vents for pressure change, I light incense, run outside with camera and trip over the netting for the sweet peas which has blown across the verandah. Stunned for a moment, a blessing is muttered, the sensitive trees stroked, then inside to place the net more tidily, misplace the camera and while looking for it, comes the dragon roar while icy coldness whistles into our shelter. The cats eat OK, & cleaning's OK, then as the noise intensifies, the cats are alarmed, edgy, snapping at each other. 

Princess is howling in the bathroom. I pull out Valerian root, a sedative. A pack goes onto Princess's bed above the electric blanket, which, (switched off when heat assumed the day), is now on again and earthy Valerian scent arises. 

Then, back in the lounge room, Valerian is placed in a wrap beneath the cover of the couch and she sits to get the smell alerted. 

Cats huddle close and gradually relax. Little Tabs asks for extra caress and contact. The nerviest of all, she's soon sound asleep.  

Big she waits for the other edge of the storm, but the dragon has moved on fast to land, as we later hear, on Campbelltown where it takes some roofs and kicks down some trees and makes for some blackouts, but noone is hurt, thankfully.  

The days turned beautiful warm with scent quickened by ice cold shadows and sharp breeze. There's been some rain, some heavy but not drenching. The Quince blossoms blew away but the Pear Tree is only recently begun to blossom, so that will happen soon. Girl and boy Gingkoes have put forth leaves and Elder is blossoming.  

NB, Princess wishes to add that she's feeling quite well and also much younger and that she goes to Jos's verandah more often than described previously.

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!