And So On...

An Exquisite Greyling!

Did I say all that before?

I'm struggling at present.

What's new?

My little ones struggle less on account of Anna's help.

I applied to a pet mag for help in terms of monitoring ads. They never answered.

Dear Google, thanx.

I dunno about bein' cast into the depths of poverty by projection. Hell, that happened when I got tangled up with Muso's and I was believing that since I learned to wreak scorn on them I may get BEYOND poverty!

That being said, I watched Australian Idol when I read that Cyndi Lauper was a consultant and wow, it's been more exceptional than expected.

I've got so much in my folders and notebooks to post, but I'm working on income and I'm pretty amazed by the preventative processes.

Sorry guys, I know there's great new photo's, I've just been trying to catch up on me novel and also obsessed by styles of writing.

I realise my little camera is OK for portraits & am planning a portrait blog, but the little ones with the light coloured eyes don't show so good.

Therefore I present our exquisite Greyling as I catch the shine in her sweet eyes!

Over The Road

Queen Scrap with Feather & Stanley:

'No-one told me that Kittehs could be tedious!'

I had a good day, long lunch with Mike, I was so unrelentingly positive I exhausted meself.

Truth is, I'm scared. When will I earn?

Later I stopped and talked to Jos.

She was worried. Seems like Scrap is breakfasting Over The Road these days!

Scrap didn't appear on That Verandah this morning.

As we spoke of the little one, the small pirate face peeked over Maggie's fence.

Scrap, AKA Caprice, had heard her name.

She came dancing across the road to greet Jos, ignoring me.

She wouldn't let me clean that divinely fluffy tail of hers even though she's accumulated a few weed seeds.

Has there been a transfer in Catland?

Oh, it's all too complicated.

Anna thinks of adopting Stanley. With White Feather and Delicate Fred, Stanley is a good clean inside cat and Anna and her partner leave their cats inside in daytimes while at work.

I'll find Stanley's early pomes one day.

Possibly Anna will provide some channelling in times to come.

Jos still loves Princess AKA Fi Fi.

Princess Fi likes to spend days across the road sometimes.

She is so old, so old. Strange when I remember her as a kitten so long ago.

She didn't even want to come into my room to watch the street today.

Time Wise

She realises that She's not mentioning Stanley as often as a lordly cat deserves, but Stanley is doing very well. He sleeps in the Spare Room with Sylvio and Grace and none of them have participated in the mass breakouts through the broken window this past week.

Worried that I don't give them enough attention in the evenings, I went in with the brush to offer them some quality time. Sure, traipsing through the house and garden doing bits of work between computering, I meet and I greet and so on.

Until I was in the room I hadn't quite realised how clean the three cats are. They carefully use the tray, even tearing newspaper for extra coverage. They don't spray to mark their nightly possession of the place and none of them required the brushing which is applied to all the other cats as they shed their winter coats.

Last night only the basics were carried out  because as it turned out, it was one of those eventful evenings.

Firstly I found some tacks and nailed cardboard covering to the window both inside and out.

Lucibelle and The Greys were astonished.

Princess had demanded release and for the second night she disappeared. The previous night she'd not only escaped by herself but she made it across the road. With diminished hearing and sight, she probably felt the vibrations of the traffic times and the quiet times.

Yesterday was warm and I'd carried her across the road after their breakfast and my first cuppa. With the fussing around the window and other processes it was late when I went to bring her back here. She wasn't on the verandah or inside with Jos. Black Tom, invisible in the darkness, had mounted guard on Jos's verandah. I patted him and we had a conversation. Scrap was  with him and flitted into Jos's place as Jos and I spoke. Scrap visits Jos, but doesn't stay.

I went with the torch tccch tcching, the evening signal to call the cats. No sign, though Scrap came back with me and with an air of conferring enormous honour, accompanied me into my room to eat her dinner. She hissed and swore when I tried to pat her.

Why do we put up with such insults when cats begin to own us?

Back to the spare room to feed Stan, Grace and Sylvio.

A knocking at the door. Jos says Princess has turned up out of her hiding place and so I fetch her, wrapped carefully in her old blanket from Jos's place.

No complaints. 

Two late nights, she's tired, old thing. It's clear that when the medicine is working, she remembers being a young cat and even if she was never particularly brave, she likes to recall her ancestral heritage.

On balmy spring nights it can be understood why the little ones like to run free.

But a gap in household safety is like a gap to the spirit of all of us. When the window was agape, none of us were getting on very well. I thought of calling the Agent, but the window is my responsibility in this case. The handyman should be here this weekend. Last week the leaking roof and the dodgy electricals were fixed by the Agent and all feels good and getting better maybe.

(OK, in the old ten room house I rented way back when, with a window blown in by a gale, I could have called the owner in, but hard to believe, I was paying $10 per week rental for that place so generally, I sorted out repairs myself. It was good. Even car repairs were carried out by a neighbour in exchange for tutoring a daughter! Life was kinder there in those times. I'd leave the doors unlocked when I went to the city for study just in case any friends dropped by in need of a cup of tea.)

The back garden is delectable right now, a mass of pink Evening Primrose and the mauve Heliotrope is still blooming. The Elder is a mass of white flower and yesterday, to my amazement, I discovered that the Comfrey has begun to put out its Ashes of Roses coloured blooms.

It wasn't so long ago that Princess arrived unwell and unsteady on her feet, refused her tablets utterly and I had to dig out the just sprouting Comfrey from an almost bare winter garden for her medicine.

Another large house with good neighbours close by and an adult Anna to help with problems is a very good thing. Last week there were nightmares and restlessness everywhere. More recently the dreams are good and there's more hope in the world somehow.

My Poem is Published! Now for the Novel which is already written and boring to transcribe from hard copy, but there it is and here we are!

She Now Has Weight

The old order is rapidly changing.

After the delay to my dentals, deep work on the teeth is a necessity. Sometimes recovery can take quite a few days.

Frequently after treatments I get claustrophobic or horribly sick or lonesome.

On one such day last week, when I was behind in house work and self care and worried about how slowly my writing was proceeding, I packed my pen and my note book into the rucksack, changed my coat, applied lipstick and set out to the pub to try to get my straggling thoughts in order. 

(If I'm writing, I then may increase my potential to earn from work at home, or at least that's what I'm hoping!)

No point in saying I should have stopped to think things through. When I'm close to panic, there's no room for such an option in the hurrying brain.

At least the rush to an alternative universe worked some. 

I filled several pages of the blue notebook my mother gave me long ago which I'd previously used to note my work in music.

These days the blue book contains streams of consciousness, fragments of dream, literature and poetry while most work recalling music has become somewhat disbelieving.

Feeling calmer with a few words under my belt, I returned, as I believed to the computer, only to discover that I'd left my keys behind as I fled after inspiration.

Therefore I took the alternative option of access through the kitchen window, which is where I found that my bodily self is larger than it was.

I'd noticed that the boobs are a bit bigger. The kitchen window is narrow. Thankful for the small private backyard I took off bra and shirt as well as coat. The access previously was to curl and tuck in the bottom as I squeezed through to the bench inside. Once on the kitchen floor, I would then shut the window and return to the back verandah amid astonished cats to recover shoes, coat, bag, underwear or whatever else had had to be shed in order to gain the tricky access.

As I did the little turn necessary to bring the legs into the equation, there was suddenly more bottom than previous. The expected slide against the window glass didn't occur. The glass broke and the cats scattered. A small cut on the tummy meridean in front of the ankle was luckily my only injury. 

That cut healed fast, but the window is still broken and all our routines and procedures have been severely damaged ever since.

I now carry the spare key in my purse when I go out.

Anna has plans to bring a handyman in soon for some essential repairs, for some shifting of older furniture, much from the Daigon alley throwouts, to be replaced by newer things.

I've taped cardboard to the window. I've tacked cardboard to the window. I've piled planks and heavy obstacles against the window and every night since I inadvertently broke the window, my cats, so carefully shut inside each night have managed to escape into the warm spring evenings.

In a former place, where Anna spent much of her childhood, a window broke one stormy night. I measured the pane, I jumped into my car and drove to the hardware store where the friendly chap cut the glass to the right size and gave instructions on how to fix windows. He provided other necessities such as putty and linseed oil. 

That was a very old place, older even than this one. In those days, we were close enough to the ocean to get the full force of South Australia's Southerly gales from Antarctica. When I checked the other windows, it became apparent that the putty holding the glass in most of the windows had weathered to almost nothing, so I spent a few weeks cheerfully re-puttying all of the windows and the best thing about all that was that our windows ceased that terrifying storm rattle.

As to this situation, I have no car and I have no means and I broke the window so I have to wait.

I'm not much good at waiting (obviously). If I can't wait for my words to come back of their own accord and must hurry forth to find them, then that obviously shows a degree of intolerable impatience.

I remind myself that I'm still waiting to earn after all, and once I can earn again, perhaps there'll be less waiting for ordinary things like essential repairs and that new pair of black jeans I've been thinking of for awhile. 

I guess said jeans will have to be in a larger size by then and that is a surprising thought.

Slimmer Stanley

This Collar Needs More Work!

(PS, Is that really Allan Stivell on the mantle piece?)

Gossip

A Princess Relaxing On Her Couch.

Stan Says:

Cats are everywhere. She isn't feeding me as much. I tried to get rid of the pesky collar and the collar is still with me. Lately, we don't see so much of some cats. It was cold and then it was warm. Things can be strange. I don't mind while I get my food.

PS, She has been talking to people in the street.

Suddenly there is not so much food.

She says:

The little ones will come inside when the weather is cold.

Recently, warm weather has returned and Bally and Tabs haven't come inside so often.

I worry about our local birds, but we can't protect everyone. The sad heap of pidgeon feathers on the lawn across the road are the result of a magpie who I saw bringing the pidgeon down. My cats may get the blame.

Oh dear, things get too complicated sometimes.

Princess finds that her mixture of herbs and medications are doing her well. She's spent time with Jos again.

On the other hand, Scrap is a bit outraged about having another cat in the place.

Yesterday I went over the road to talk to Jos and pick up Princess. 

Jos says that the Scrapling has been over there charming everyone.

I told Anna.

She said,

'Well Scrap thinks that since you've taken Princess from her Person, maybe Scrap thinks that she should adopt Princess's Person!'

Now, how do I explain that to Scrap?

Uncharacteristically, Scrap has been peeing in my room since Princess arrived in distress and in need of care.

In the meantime, Baby has concluded that sweet soft gentle Grace was secretly The Cat In The Mirror who frightened her and whenever she sees Grace she attacks her.

Yes, times can become difficult.

Anna cleaned up the bathroom where Princess dwells.

Princess spent the weekend previous with Jos, but was weak, her back legs failing when I picked her up.

At home with her medicines she's OK but she once got bullied by another cat, a runt I guess, like Baby. Princess doesn't trust Other Cats at all, so it's a relief for her to be taken to her friends over the road.

Princess lived here when I first moved in. I thought she'd relate to tiny kitten Scrap AKA Caprice, but she didn't.

Jos loves both, and Princess is special to her. She's named our Princess Fi Fi. Yesterday as I held Princess in my arms, Scrap slipped into Jos's house. Jos is kind. She laughed. I feel that Scrap may have ran inside to make her mark, but I didn't say that and I hope she didn't.

Every time I see people talking to my cats, I talk to them. Little blighters are communicating homelessness. If someone wants to adopt them, OK, but I am saying to people, these cats are well fed and it doesn't help to feed them because then they don't come inside!

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.