important things

We live in a place where loud machines zoom over head and where the roads are dangerous. 

We have trees and spaces outside. 

 Inside is a large space, and places for each of us to snooze,

places away from rain and wind where 

the two legged kind to admire and love us.

She was sad and worried tonight.

We gathered around her. Our life is simple.

We like to have our biscuits in the morning times, the biscuits who live in a big box.

We eat we eat, we munch. Stanley and Balanchine go into the box to eat voluptuously.

Then, in early morning, the door is opened and we run outside into the weather.

If it is light, we run into light. If it rains, we live on the back verandah and sometimes in the laundry..

We have the roof to play upon. 

(If it's windy, we argue sometimes. That Grace, she thinks she's better than us.)

We have a big yard too.

Some of us hide inside. Usually Lucibelle, Stanley and Baby.

She feels she has to clean our wee's and sometimes she gets cross.

We have to mark our places.

Then She gets smelly things which she says are cleaning things.

We fight this and she still feeds us and she cleans our trays.

We like to go inside when the sun goes down. We eat our food, sometimes from a tin.

Sometimes there is fish. Sometimes fresh chicken.

We like fresh food. It makes us growl like the tigers we are.

We sat on her lap tonight and purred.

Easter and Rebirth

Stan says:

We almost ran out of fud.

Then lovely Anna came by. She brought cans and fresh fud with her!

She spends all her time here with Princess mostly.

We knew she'd been by, we had chicken wings.

She sez  there's no money yet, she sez & She sez she doesn't want to get even more used to that.

But She gets lonely and She goes over the road to have some laughs with Roscoe and Markey and Tom and Glen and Herman The German and then She comes home in a good mood because they are fine people and they like Us.

We purr and we swish around and we say how much we like She and the Fud she brings.

On what She said was Good Friday, She brought a Seafud Tray, that's what They call it.

There was oysters She said. She offered us one. it was stickey and She didn't mind to eat the rest of them.

She puts oyster shells outside where she hopes we will not pee, but Princess pees anywhere she likes and then She yells that She lost the Valerian and the Tansey and She's finding the Calendula to be sat upon. 

What's that, we ask?

We are cats, we are necessary.

What we miss is Catnip. That Aphex found Catnip really something and then it was all gone.

Aphex has gone and so did catnip even before Aphex left us behind.

We got some new neighbours.

This week and before this week, she cried, she even had some of those smokes she gave up.

It was all right tonight, we got a lot of new food as well as cans.

Pork chops, She said and we said, All Right.

There is chocolate in this house She says and She likes that.

She says:

Things are getting stretched and the simple life gets more complicated all the time.

My paper work is still confused but at last I found the novel I began in 1994.

Hard copy, Bondi dreams.

Worked on it all last week, cats made no appearance in that novel yet.

The Princess was a youngster living in Melbourne in those days.  

Ah, our little friends, the little personalities who share our lives....

I'm glad I have these whiskery friends around right now.

They are so much more charming, more honest and sincere that most people are.

So many Easter pomes I wrote back then, it was always an intense time.

Last week I walked up the road for milk for tea.

I stopt at the pub to read the newspaper over a glass of water.

I came back home preparing to Blog again, it's our new challenge here in this old place with its vast old garden and orchard.

I re-live the instant of being on the wrong side of the road.

A speeding car, a horrid crunch, a beloved small shitzu in my arms who I pick up crying.

My  blue blazer, my clean clothes all pee'd upon. I leave my rucksack.

Maggi across the road who's already been through more grief than I can comprehend rushes toward me. 

The vet I don't like is across the road.

"Take him to the vet!" I say, quickly.

He's in Maggi's arms. I ring Anna who advises that I wash more than my hands when something so awful has happened.

I grab the Rescue Remedy and I run to Maggi's place to say O, is the little lively whiskery face who peeked out from under the fence and ran into the pub to talk to Roscoe who all animals love, I asked, is he OK?

It was his first birthday only three days previous and he's gone.

That night, I kept waking up with a little one in my arms who couldn't understand that he'd passed away.

Roscoe is a spiritualist, he has traced the pathways of his lost pets previous to all this.

I was sceptical about all this except that some of Roscoe's insights have had strong resonances with my situations in terms of his understandings.

The little prancing light hearted one I finally awoke feeling sure that he found his happy hunting ground.

After a very disturbed night, and a peaceful resolution, I asked Roscoe if I should tell Maggi that I think her little one is at peace and he said no, she doesn't believe that.

I gave her the Bach remedy, the Rescue Remedy and she did calm down, she's back on cigarettes and I admit that I had one or two myself, after being off them for many long months.

Our street is too straight, cars dash downwards very fast and this isn't right in a place where there are pets and kids and old folks, we should have signs up saying, "SLOW DOWN"!!!

Of course if Maggi is so very careful about keeping her street gate closed and it was opened that day, and there's more to the story and maybe I'll say this story down the track.

In the meantime, we bless the spirit of a little chap who was very much loved in this entire neighbourhood!

news flash

We are all inside excepting Tabs.

Excepting Scrap.

(Scrap moved over the road and only says hello if She brings a fish tray from the raffles at The Pub!)

That Princess, the people in the street are calling her The Singing Cat because she says and sings so much!

Tabs doesn't like hanging out with the crowds.

Much has changed round Our Place in the recent times.

Backflat man moved, nice laughing boys moved, strangers approach.

She is telling us that she's not going to ring up those kinds who would put us in cages.

They are saying that our beautiful house might be knocked down for stupid flats so ugly.

She is looking at places in the country.

She says She got caught up with lies and She don't need the city no more.

We need loving friends who are not greedy or stupid!

Relief

Princess Relaxes Despite Heat

She has to say,

It's so hot and Anna is away on holiday, bless her. We all miss her.

We have been looking closely at the forecasted weather and the forecasts were for much more  worsening hotness.

She went down the road too far for comfort to buy some cat milk after we all requested milk when She had Her morning cup of tea.

On that day it was 41 degrees and that was much too much but all the same She went out and bought Our Special Cat Milk which helps us feel cool.

She is working with the compost bin which Anna brought because much goes Off in this weather.

The new herbs and vegetables are being watered from the washing machine.

We heard her groaning, the forecast was for more hotness and we aren't allowed to water our gardens very much these days.

Then Tabs saw Her standing out front.

'Ants,' She said, 'There are a lot of ants,' she said.

'That says it will rain,' she said.

Late in this afternoon it began to rain.

It's still raining.

It's not cool rain.

The heavens are weeping for all the injustices of our land.

We have to cry on Australia Day, Invasion Day, the day of an eclipse.

Our fancy Astrologer said, 'Look to the heavens and if you see the eclipse there will be luck!'

She looked with us all to the heavens. It was grey but we felt good all the same because some of our garden will survive a bit longer..

Princess didn't even step onto the verandah to get away from the rain.

She lay on the footpath and her fur got wet.

Then She brought our Princess inside and Princess complained but later went to sleep on the cool bathroom tiles.

January Daze

Stanley Discovers New Privet Seedlings

She's been hunting and it was a good catch.

We have had fresh fish and prawns.

One time we had chicken necks.

There's a new fur cleaner. Less scratching.

The floor roarer is roaring every day.

They keep cleaning our smells.

The garden smells different. There are new smells and some new plants.

She's been weeding, not enough.

It was raining, not enough.

One day was hot so hot we couldn't go anywhere cool enough.

Shifts

No spare room cats, we are all out back now where the television hums sometimes.

To aid tranquility, She hotmops the floor with lavender oil and we nod off.

Lots of different foods, She won the Fish tray tonight and our tummies are all right.

Yesterday them two legs, they sweltered and we took no notice, we all found our coolest places and we spread our fur over the coolest places and we snoozed and She said that we were like molten lumps of cat.

Until that sharp cold wind came out of nowhere.

The floor roarer is roaring again,

Tabs is inside.

We had fish tonight and it was good.

She talks about the big de-flea tomorrow, she's been brushing us all a lot.

Some of us like it, some of us don't. I like it. 

Grace likes it too. Grace had annointments under her ear tonight.

I like being brushed.

She let some of us sleep inside in the hot of yesterday.

She didn't see that I edged a box of biscuits on the floor and ate as much as I like.

It was good outside in the cold wind today and last night there was thunder and lightning and then it rained.

We smelt it when we got outside today.

They give me a collar, I adapt to style.

When will They upgrade my collar?

I am Stanley.

Summer Daze

Itching & Scratching

It's steaming hot and most of us are scratching.

The floor roarer has been going every day and She is brushing us more than usual .

We don't sit on Her feet any more.

She wears her Gum Boots inside.

Usually she wears them in the garden when it rains.

She says She's gonna fix these fleas.

For now they have us fixed.

Except that Princess who rules our front yard and her bathroom, she's not scratching!

Christmas Crazies

Jos Caresses Princess

The heat is on and so is Christmas madness here in Sydney.

Another dental run yesterday and the first crown improves my smile.

So warm yesterday, Princess wanted to be out and about and I took her across the road before I set out. Now late in the evening the following day, I've only just retrieved her after she spent some time on Jos's roof wailing.

I'm tired. Mr Rudd's Christmas present for pensioners means that I can buy a much needed computer programme, it means bills will be paid and I also wandered off to China Books to discover which healing manuals I can afford.

I talked to Jos. She's been over here several times since Princess began to spend more time here just to call on her Fi Fi. This flat is so long,  I don't hear the front door.

I think Christmas could maybe be saner in a colder place. The cars, the anxieties, the angers. At least I don't have Rex The Ex's annual Christmas smashups these days!

I promised Jos the Mobile number.

Steamy Evening

A troubled week is predicted in the heavens, so some folk say.

I am concentrating on peaceful resolutions and safeties.

Sylvio's most recent car was closer. You get a fright, that's a good thing.

Anna brought an exquisite Margaret River Camembert, deliciously sloppy by today.

When Grace came inside she tasted it and even when I took barbecue chicken in for her and slimmer Stan, she just said she liked the cheese..

Princess, well I give her herbs when her nose gets dry and her temperature rises,

She spends time inside during daytime and if times weren't so tough, Anna would be taking her to the vet and saying well it LOOKED like Princess was on her last legs last time.

Today, Princess did get expelled to the bathroom after she peed on a library shelf, but Scrap consented to come home last night and.. I guess Princess felt like she needed to make her mark, today, just to say to Scrap, 'Well Sucks, I'm here too!'

O, it's like every other complicated relationship.

I shared my bed with Princess when I was so ill Up River and later.

I adopted Scrap because I thought that she and Princess might bond. I got ill AGAIN etc.

I minded a coupla dogs & Scrap was OK as a kit, but Princess got badly done by in a couple of Dog arguments.

If Marvin weren't bad enough, after Bindi, Princess cleared out back to where I'd sheltered in Col's room for a time.

She bonded with Jos. Then alas, as I described some time ago, she got seriously crook.

Now this elderly girl needs attention and special care. I'd initially imagined that Scrap and Princess might tolerate each other when it all first happened, but there are matters of pride and precedence.

Princess in the daytime means that Scrap can come at night time if she feels like it.

I find I'm having long talks with both.

More fans of the Mobs stopped to talk today.

(Anna says she'll do a card with a pic and this blog number for all the friends we make each day.)

It's a hot spring night, howling cats over toward the northwest, storms threatening and humidity has had us crawling through today. Typical Sydney.

All are inside excepting for Scrap and Tabs and the She is winding up energy to go and call them.

This Little Silver Boy

A Beautiful Sylvio Boy

She worked so hard today at some writing that might sort a few things out.

Ah and She felt it might after talking about it all with Alan and Col earlier this evening.

She came back late, a warm half moon lighted night, but She left some doors ajar and several of the little ones slipped out.

She's now recently talked to most of the neighbours and has explained that she has the nourishing food here and not too many biscuits here please on account of possible later kidney damage and kind friends are saying they will look out for these Special Ones.

We have the fresh food as the biggest part of the diet and well, look at little Princess, she's not too bad for a cat her age. 

Too many of the bikkies are OK for a bit of breakfast, but not too many in the long term.

Princess isn't going to Jos's place too much now.

Scrap, who is in indignation about More Cats! ( We have Aphex from next door as well as one Princess), has moved across the road to flirt with Jos and Col and Mick. She's a sweetie, little Scrap. I tried to explain to her, I even held my hand out for her to scratch if she liked and she did.

Poor hands.

Tonight, exhausted after a full day at the computer in which I tried some Fine Writing, I came home after my break at the Pub so tired and I left some doors ajar. I'm even tireder right now because I just came inside after trawling outside with the torch.

Stanley said he wanted to stay outside and be a hunter. Bally is outside too. All the others came inside to my coaxing, little darlings.

One little one has me worried, one Sylvio...

After a very long stint on Computer and satisfying writing, this afternoon, I went to the Front Verandah.

Sylvio across the road, saw me with delight and rushed to meet.

That speeding car screeched to a halt and only just missed him and She is not yet recovered.

Yes, She's met most of the neighbours, good folk, good big back yards.

I, She spells out that even if they are accidents, She has very lovely little pussy cats.

I've now put out the word that if anyone would like a highly intelligent light hearted little silver mackerell tabby who is desexed and immunised and microchipped, that if they live in a casual place without too many cars and desire a small companion, why this one has so far only risked two of his little precious lives.

Sylvio is a beautiful boy.

Oh, Oh, both Scrap and Princess mind their journeys across the road. Sylvio sees She and he runs without thought and O dear one, No.

I held him tight, I said to him, you aren't allowed to be run over.

This time though, he was scared, his little heart beat fast!

Dear God from whom he is descended, Please Protect him!