Wednesday Morning Wanderings

"There are no spirits or gods in the cat, don't look for them, Shed.  A cat is the picture of the eternal machinery, like the sea.  You don't pet the sea because it's pretty, but you pet a cat-why?-ONLY BECAUSE HE'LL LET YOU.  And a cat never knows fear-finally- he only winds up into the spring of the sea and the rock, and even in a death-fight he does not think of anything but the majesty of darkness." - Charles Bukowski


Perhaps that last bit is why cats were deemed evil in some places during the Middle Ages.  Cats know their place in the Universe, they walk with confident ease, making self-doubt ridden  humans feel too much like prey.
Perhaps this sense of the "majesty of darkness" is part of what makes "Vincent" in th 1987 TV program "Beauty and the Beast" so compelling.  In Mr. Perlman's portrayal of him we can see the duality of the uncertain, uncomfortable human and the majestic, certain, graceful, but often merciless beast.
A cat, an apex predator, more secure in that role, especially as a protector of what is his, than any human could ever be.
Yet, he has all those human frailties we are all faced with - he knows fear, knows the feeling of longing to belong, but feeling that he does not, knows a fear of a part of himself that seems alien to the rest of humanity, but is it really?  Isn't it only a matter of degree?
In every human heart is the instinct to protect that which we love from harm, and that which we need to survive from being lost.  The major difference is that humans think we need to temper this instinct, and are apologetic about it, at least most of the time.
Cats have no such self-doubts.  They know what they are, they accept the gifts of their strength and grace, and protect what is theirs with compelling ferocity.
It is to Mr. Perlman's and the show's writers great credit that we could see this conflict in Vincent's character.  After all, he is a symbol for what is ultimately a very human struggle:  how to learn to love and accept all of ourselves.  Vincent makes definite progress in this area, but, like most of us, never fully achieves that acceptance of his more instinctual nature.
This question of the duality of his nature has been discussed quite often in fan fiction, and often is handled very well, giving us even more to ponder about the nature of what it really means to be "human."

Trying Another Story

Madame Skye, our own Opera Cat

Yesterday, I posted a video of myself reading my very favorite children's book. 
I decided to try another story today.  This one is called Opera Cat, written by Tess Weaver and illustrated by Andrea Wesson. 
The book is one I became very fond of once I realized I had an Opera Cat.  Though our Madame Skye couldn't sing, she enjoyed hearing me sing opera, and would appear, and make commentary or faces depending upon what and how I sang.  The song featured in this story is by Verdi, but Madame preferred Mozart.  In fact, she would only respond to a summons if it was the song "Deh Viene Non Tardar" from Marriage of Figaro.  And usually, only if I sang it.  I still miss her when I practice, because she was there for every one.  She'd come in and sit on a chair or table close to me, and offer her opinion. 
Our Opera Cat is very much missed.

I cannot imagine what she'd make of me singing the "Queen of the Night" aria.  If ever a temper tantrum were put into song, this is it.

Anyway, without further ado, I give you Opera Cat

Fall Has Fallen, Or Autumn Comes Tumbling In

There are a few sure signs that the seasons have changed around here.  Oh, yeah, the obvious ones like leaves turning colors and falling, and cooler nights, but there are other things that really mark the change for me.
This evening I put the heated mattress pad on the bed.  A major ordeal, and only undertaken after a night when crawling into bed was like getting into an icebox because of cold sheets.  (Our room is on the north end of the house, we really need to re-do the attic insulation.  SOON.)  Last night was one such night.  I was so cold at first, I couldn't get comfortable.  (Then, of course, the first hot flash of the night hit, and I threw all the covers off, but I digress...)
So, tonight, I decided I didn't want that shock when getting into bed.  The process of putting this mattress pad on the bed is not as straightforward as one might think.  It involves threading electrical cords under our bed, where some large flat items are stored, and always, without fail, I forget about the center support legs for the bed frame, and have to re-thread the cords around it or one of us won't be able to reach the controller on our side of the bed.
I managed to manhandle the mattress pad onto the bed itself, top it with another mattress pad to protect it, put the regular bedding back in place, and get the stupid thing all hooked up and working without resorting to any of my Pop's "magic words".  (Those that would work for him, but backfire bigtime if any of us kids used them. )
Doing this really made me miss our cat, Madame Skye.  She used to LOVE that heated mattress pad.  She'd crawl up on the bed as soon as I turned it on each evening, and snuggle between the pillows we pile on top of the bed to heat the top sheet as well. 

 

This is the sight I am missing tonight.  No Madame curled up on the foot of the bed, soaking in the warmth.  

I have also dug out the cold weather clothes, and wore my tweed coat for the first time today.  I have yet to haul out the big green wool coat that I have had since 1990, but the day isn't far off.  I've gotten the turtleneck sweaters out, and the sweats and warmup pants for my workouts.  Our electric bills will go down, and our gas bill is on the way up.  (Though we keep it about 66 in here during the day, 61 at night because we don't mind the cold when we're asleep.  Once we get warm, that is.) We wear sweaters and have lots of throws around the house to snuggle up in.  (And my Nook e-reader has the added bonus of producing a little bit of heat, so when I curl up to read, I stay warm and toasty!)

I love being able to wear my sweaters again.  Added bonus this year that since I have lost weight, the nice sweaters that were a little too tight last year fit really well this year.  I am afraid I do have Holiday sweaters, but most of them are not of the gaudy ugly variety.  I can't help myself, I think I taught in the primary grades too long.  

I also have a black and white Fair Isle type sweater that I wore today.  Nice and warm, and sometimes too warm.  Variations on a cardigan, and you know library ladies just can't resist cardigans.  We need them.  Too warm for a sweater in the back when moving books around, too cold without one when seated at a desk for a long time.  Yes, the cardigan is the library lady's best friend.

Just be glad I cut all my hair off.  I no longer put my braid up in a bun and stick a pencil in it.  (Oh, yes, I used to do that.  Thank God there are no pictures!)

The begonias on the front porch have finally been frost bit enough to wilt.  So soon the Autumn yard clean up will have to begin, and we'll let the oak and pecan leaves fill the herb and flower beds to provide free mulch.  Works every year so far.  

Time for me to end this post.  Another sign of cooler weather.  My body protests sitting still too long.  I get cold, joints get stiff and sore. Time for some herb tea before bed.

 

Our House Is Now Catless

Once again our house is without cats.  Our friends have found a place to rent while their house is rebuilt, and our little refugees went home with their rightful owners this evening.  I will miss them.  I will NOT miss cleaning up the litter  box five or six times a day. I will miss Peabody "talking" to us, and Lulu telling us it's time to go to bed already, but I will NOT miss being walked on all night, and awakened at 4 am every single day for some reason known only to Lulu.

There's Lulu in the window in my office.  I will miss seeing a kitty in my window once in a while.
They have really been pretty good house guests.  They have entertained us, and challenged us, and given us a precious gift.  A way to help our friends out in a tough situation.  Knowing the cats were safe and happy with us meant a lot, I know, while Ralph and Julie were looking for a place to live. 

Here's Mr. Peabody lounging on our bed.  That's a queen-size bed, by the way.  And he isn't even really stretched out.  Imagine sharing that bed with him, another human, and Lulu, and you will see why I haven't been sleeping too well lately.  (Not just the excess Diet Coke I've been consuming.)

I really will miss them, but the good news is, I can go visit them.  And I don't have to clean the litter box.  Maybe some day there will be another kitty that needs to be ours, but not just yet.  We know we will never have a dog as good as Bear, and it hurts too much still to think about another dog, but another cat might be okay.  Someday.  Still won't be Skye, but might still like Opera.  Mr. Peabody does.  He came running for almost any Mozart I sang, not just the one aria Skye always loved.
Well, it's late, and even though Lulu isn't here telling me so, I know it's time to head for bed.
Hope all is well and happy in your worlds tonight.
As Ever,
Katie

Life With Cats or How Soon We Forget

We have had a cat in our house for our entire married life, almost 29 years.  There have been a few months off between the last two, and the last one left us about a month and a half ago.  You'd think we would be used to cats and their behavior, right?

Well, right now we are learning that cats all have different personalities, and that cats under stress have even more quirks.  We are fostering our friends' cats while they deal with tornado damage and finding a temporary place to live, etc.  These are cats I have met before, they are sweethearts.  They also miss their own people and tell us so.  Yes, we are good cat servants, and they like us a lot, but we are not THEIR people.

As you may know, if you know me in "real life", or have read previous blog posts, our own cat, Madame Skye, died last month.  We had been owned by that cat for almost 10 years.  Before that, we had been owned by various cats, most notably Tazzer, who lived to be 17 years old.  We are NOT inexperienced in the ways of cats.

This did not prepare us for suddenly finding ourselves responsible for TWO cats, though we have had multiple cats in the past.  These two are fully as spoiled as any we have been owned by.  Lulu, who is regal and dignified despite her name, is fairly quiet, and pretty well behaved.  She is 16 years old, and has the presence and dignity befitting her age.  She has relaxed to the point where she will get on the bed with us at night, and even sleep on me if I lie still long enough.  She has taken over my wing back chair in the living room, just as Skye used to. 

This is Lulu snoozing in the wing back chair. 

Mr.  Peabody is a burly cat. He is BIG.  He has the deepest chest I have ever seen on a cat, and shoulders like a linebacker.  He is overweight, but a lot of his bulk is muscle.  He is very elegant, with his all black coat and his white feet, white bib, and white whiskers.  Quite a smashingly well turned out gent, he is.  He is also talkative and very opinionated, which is why they named him Mr. Peabody. 

This is the only picture I've gotten of Mr. Peabody so far. He is enjoying the view out my office window.  That is a rather large window, by the way.  I am surprised that Mr. Peabody was able to fit on the sill. 
Mr. Peabody woke us up at 3 the other morning simply to tell us he really, really wanted HIS staff to come back.  Ralph and Julie had come by earlier that evening, and he had watched them leave through the front door. I guess he thought they'd been gone long enough.  He started crying and crying and when we went to see what all the noise was about, we found him in the front hall, staring at the door, as if to tell us to open it so he could find his people.  We finally convinced him to settle down and let the rest of us sleep. 
Mr. Peabody could moonlight as a backhoe.  He excavates the litter box, he doesn't just dig.  He sometimes removes almost half the litter onto the laundry room floor simply because he can.  Lulu gets a bit upset with the mess, and will come find me and "tell" on him.  She meows insistently and when I follow her, she leads me to the mess in question. 
Both of these cats are really appreciative of catnip.  They get really enthusiastic about it.  I have a few of Skye's toys still, and so I got them out to help these two amuse themselves.   Then I bought fresh catnip and filled the little zipper pouch in the "plat mat".  Oh, boy.  They both roll on it and pounce on it and rub their faces in it, and then they lie around kinda glassy eyed acting like they can feel the rotation of the Earth. 
It has been great fun to watch them get used to being here, and relaxing.  They are good house guests, and considering all the stress they have been under (they were in the closet with Ralph, Julie, and the dog, Melvin when the tornado hit their house), they have been surprisingly relaxed around here.
They even came out and made friends with our friends Mike and Nancy when they came over Monday evening. 
We all got a full night's sleep last night, I hope we do tonight as well.  Mr. Peabody seems to have decided that the staff will return when they will, and for the meanwhile, he'll make do with us. Lulu has decided that we are just FINE as staff, and seems perfectly happy here.  She sometimes looks at Mr. Peabody as if to tell him to behave, and not ruin a good thing.  (If we couldn't keep them, they'd have to go to Ralph and Julie's son's house with them and Melvin, and the son's dog Cloven.  Cloven is very large, and thinks cats enjoy rough-housing.  The cats are not fans of his.)
Honestly, we are happy to do this for our friends, and we are enjoying the heck out of having the cats around.  It is nice to have somebody here when we get home again, somebody to demand I get up in the morning.  No more being lazy for me!  (Which is a good thing, I get more done when I get up when I'm supposed to...)

Life continues to find it's "new normal" for everyone here in Moore.  It is going to take a long time before we are back to normal, but we are working our way toward it every day.  For the folks like Ralph and Julie who have to sift through years and years of memories and belongings trying to decide what's salvageable, and who have to find a temporary place to live, and deal with insurance companies and what they decide about replacing the house and the lost household goods, the return to normalcy takes even longer.  I cannot even imagine how difficult it is to deal with such a loss.  The disruption would be devastating to me.   I need order and I need my own space, where I can be alone and write.  It would be hard to do without it even for a little while. 

I hope having our place to retreat to when they need to, and to have their cats cared for by someone who loves them, helps Ralph and Julie be better able to deal with their disruptions and losses.  They have keys, and I have told them to feel free to come over for a kitty fix whenever they need one.  I think the kitties would really like that, too.
Better go get stuff ready for tomorrow and get ready for bed before Lulu comes looking for me.  She has started taking over Skye's duties of telling us that it's TIME TO GO TO BED, Silly humans!

For Madame Skye

This is a picture of Madame on the back of the settee in my office.  Made a few years ago.

As I write this, our Madame Skye cat is still with us, but barely.  She is sleeping on the settee in my office, a favorite spot of hers, but her breathing is labored.  She won't be with us much longer, I know, even if we make it to the vet tomorrow and he is able to do something for her.  We have seen the x-rays.  There is cancer everywhere inside this poor kitty.  Yet, until very recently, she has had a pretty normal quality of life for an eleven year old cat with cancer.  As recently as last evening, she was chasing a string and following us around as we did things.  She got in my face as I was settling in to watch Doctor Who.  This morning, she was having trouble breathing, but we heard no congestion.  Still no congestion, just hard for her to breathe.  (Something inside in the way, I suspect.) 

This kitty is one who chose us.  We went to a PetSmart adoption event, and asked if they had any short-haired cats.  Madame was the only one left.  They had named her Skye, and as her coloring reminded me of the rock of the isles, I decided the name Skye could be kept.  Her attitude and bearing made us call her "Madame", however.  They told us she was "kinda standoffish."  As soon as Matt reached toward the cage when the girl opened the door, Skye got up, walked right into Matt's arms, reached for me, looked up at the girl and meowed, as if to say :  "Write up my release papers.  My staff has FINALLY showed up to bail me out." 
Skye is the cat who cannot resist a piece of string.  She must chase it, try to take it somewhere, hide it for later.  She loves her toy mice, plays with them excitedly, has tried to "drown" them in her water bowl. 

Madame loves Mozart.  She always listens to my voice practice, coming from wherever she has settled into the dining room to supervise.  Mozart is her favorite.  She loves "Deh viene non tardar, o gioja bella!" (from Nozze di Figaro) that it is what I must use to call her.  She will NOT come unless I sing that aria.  If Matt wants to call her, he has to flip the drawer pull on his desk drawer where he keeps the string. 

This cat will be SO missed.  She is the Regulator of the Household Daily Liturgy.  She it is who tells us when we should get up, when we should (she thinks, anyway) go to bed, when she should be fed, when we should go to work.  There have been rituals involved in all these things.  She MUST help me make the bed every morning, even if lately, that has been a very half-hearted attempt to grab the blanket when I spread it back on the bed to tuck it back in.  Every night for a long time, she had to have ice cubes put in her water dish.  I don't know why.  I get ice for my tumbler of water every night, and she started loudly demanding that she get some too.  This has stopped since she has been ill, but for awhile, it was part of the nightly ritual.  She always had to sit at the foot of the bed and watch Matt put on his lip balm before he retires for the night.  She also demands to be brushed if either of us gets out a hairbrush.  She hides from the doorbell, but if our friends the Rogerses come over, she demands that Michael sit down on the couch so she can trap his arm and go to sleep.  She is in heaven when Nancy also sits on the couch.  She traps them both.

I know we will soon be seeing her off to wait at the Rainbow Bridge with Taz and Dougal, and of course, Bear (HER dog).  I don't want to let her go, but if she is ready, I will send her off to keep Mr. Bear company until we get there.  He grumped at her a lot, but he let her sleep with him if she behaved. (She tried to bite him, which he did NOT appreciate.) 
Here are some pictures of Skye trapping Mike and Nancy:

And here is a picture of her snoozing on my settee today:

I will add more when we know more. 
We have just returned from a rushed trip to the emergency vet.  Madame Skye passed away on the way up there.  She had severe problems breathing, and was vomiting, so we rushed her up there, but it was already too late.  We knew she would go soon.  I miss her already.  My Opera Cat.


Here is a picture of her just last night, she climbed up on me to watch Doctor Who with me.

Sorry.  Crying too much to type any more.

Too Many Distractions

Writing every day is a discipline  that eludes me quite often.  There are simply too many other bright and shiny things going on that do not involve staring at the blank screen and trying to find something worthwhile to write.
There are also worries to distract.  The cat is not behaving normally, and is not eating as she should.  This is troubling, not only because it could be the sign of a very serious problem, but because that cat has always been the routine, the one demanding that household order MUST continue no matter what the silly humans involved believe.  She has always been a motivating force, our Madame.  The vet wants to see her again, and we are to call if anything new is going on before then, but my husband does not want to wait.  He thinks we should get the x-rays now, so we know what we're up against.  Poor kitty Skye is napping and pestering, but not as much pestering or playing as usual. 
The economy in general going to you know where in a handbasket because of our demented Congress isn't helping. 
My husband has been bitten by a spider of some sort, and has an infection from it.  This involves antibiotics and also a small bit of wound care.  (Which he can't do himself, so I get to do it.  He's a very brave man to let my squeamish self take care of him.  I can handle it, usually,quite calmly and efficiently, but on the inside, I am cringing and saying "Eeeek!")

There is a vague sense of doom overlying a lot of life these days. Or maybe we just feel that way because we've been rehearsing two Requiems since January.  The music is beautiful, but the subject is a bit depressing.  Tomorrow is the concert, and we can bid farewell to Mr. Rutter's Requiem, and the arrangement he did of the Faure Requiem.   Next on the concert agenda for Master Chorale is Opera choruses and arias.  Matt and I are pretty good at a few arias and duets.  My voice seems to like Mozart.  Opera at least should be fun and diverting in a good way. 
Also, it IS Lent, after all.  A somber season for those of us in the more Liturgical Christian denominations.  That is why the two Requiems are very appropriate to sing right now.  Rest eternal grant them.   Light eternal shine upon them, and give them peace.  We have lost many in this country lately to disaster and tragic acts.  For me, tomorrows concert will be a chance to ask for peace for those who were lost in hurricane Sandy, in Sandy Hook, and others we have lost in more common ways. 

I also have a newer version of the Nook reader to play with.  It is more of a tablet than the Nook Color ever was, and I have been having fun getting to know it.  The latest of the Psalm 23 Mysteries is out, and I devoured that on my new Nook in a couple of hours.  I do that to find out what's going to happen, and then I go back and really enjoy it, soaking in more detail.   I am now hoping the next one comes out on time, because I really, really want to know what happens now.  
I have worked a little with the Bodhran, trying to find a way to get it tuned right so it isn't so strident.  (It involves figuring out just how much to dampen the drum head with a moist paper towel to get the desired mellower tone.  It has been very dry lately, and the skin on the drum head is very taut. Too much so.) Figuring out how to strike the drum correctly with the tipper is also proving a challenge.  Going to have to spend a lot more time with the dvd going over that.
So, as the birthday vacation draws to a close, I have had the chance to have at least a little fun, and I have learned a little something.  All in all, it's been a pretty good week, on balance.