I was expecting to go somewhere Friday evening. I hadn't slept much during the week, though, and right about sundown I leaned over into a comfortable position and went to sleepy-land. Woke up a little before midnight, read a bit of the latest chat on the Meow, realized it was Friday night and I was supposed to be coming in from somewhere further away from the screen porch right about now. It had been raining all evening.
The person with whom I was supposed to go somewhere (other than sleepy-land) probably hadn't even tried to drive up the road, with the wet leaves all over it. We've had no frost but some leaves turn yellow and drop when the light changes--and this year we've been losing a lot of leaves to fire blight and intentional, criminal, poison spraying. So the road's leafy and the leaves weren't showing any tracks of any vehicles in which anyone had come up looking for me.
It can take five or ten minutes, but I do wake up if someone's parked on the road, flashing lights and sounding horn regularly. Friends may have to persevere though. This every-gal-her-own-nightwatchman routine does get old.
Animals
1. This is where cat bloggers get our silly memes and holidays:
I did not check in in time to remember that Friday was Feral Cat Day, but my junior cat Silver observed it by wandering around as if she were a feral cat. I've clarified this with some, not all, of the people who might see her stravaiging about. Silver is not feral. She is a pet. In cold weather she's even an indoor pet. She is loved and missed, but even if she can't have kittens, she likes male company. She has a history of bonding with one tomcat at a time, and has outlived three--one who came to the neighborhood old, one who was poisoned, and, I'm told, most recently one who was forcibly removed from the neighborhood by someone whose property he had marked as his own. We have a resident tomcat, Drudge; Drudge is Silver's nephew. Some neighbors have a tomcat who was chased off by their junior tomkitten. The day they told me they'd decided he must be dead, I saw what looked like him in the wood lot below their house. It's possible that Silver was observing Feral Cat Day by trying to make friends with a cat who's gone feral. Anyway, she missed breakfast, but came home for dinner.
One reason why cats go feral is that, although they can like and respect their peers, typical cats tend to feel that each one should have its own territory. Even our Bounce and Pounce, the most affectionate and devoted brother kittens ever seen, reached an age when they decided quite amicably to claim territories of their own--if one stayed with me, the other one would stray off. Fighting, as it was for Drudge and Wild Thyme while WT was around, may be a harmless ritual but each cat seriously wants to claim a separate space.
Anyway it's not true that feral cats never become real pets. They aren't likely to bond with people who trap and neuter them. About that they probably feel very much the way humans would if someone were doing it to us. They do bond with people who feed them consistently, let them go their own way, and may have "tamed" one or more of their kittens. They never become the sort of house pets who totally depend on humans and wouldn't want to stray out of their designated rooms in their humans' homes, but with patience you can hope to be allowed to pet them, pick them up, and help if they're really sick or injured. Each step toward a typical pet/human bond takes a few months...assuming you either don't have pet cats, or have a friendly, encouraging one. If your pet cat tells them to keep their germs and fleas the bleep away from its human, they will. They'll become fond of you but, while that pet cat lives, not come close enough to touch.
If you have a barn you absolutely should adopt feral cats from a shelter that takes them, because otherwise they're likely to be killed. They do not thrive in shelter conditions. And though it may take years to build the kind of trust that can forgive you for taking them in for rabies shots (some people like to designate a visiting villain the cats can associate with this violation of their purrsons), when a feral cat does start to love you, you know you're loved. Fully domesticated cats may see you as just a source of food; feral cats, who depend on their own skills for food, definitely relate to you as friends and will look for ways to show love and gratitude.
2. Short video about elephants...
One of the more human traits that could even be disturbing, about our Founding Queen Cat Black Magic, was that she recognized a friend's bones. Right around the time a local jerk shot Magic's foster daughter, Kitten Number Three, Magic's pet Pogo Possum started sitting in the road snarling at passers-by and was, of course, run over after a few days. (Why possums do that I don't know, but I'm glad Pogo was the only one of ours I saw doing it.) For weeks, when we passed Pogo's bones, Magic would squeak softly and slow down as if remembering and missing Pogo.
Magic was not sentimental about other animals' bones. She left a goodly number of them strewn about the yard as possum treats. But those animals had clearly been in the category "food" for her; Pogo was in the category "friend."
3. Why haven't I done any Cat Sanctuary Interviews lately? Possibly because the Meow's taken over that genre? Author Priscilla Ann Bird (no, I've never met her in real life) has been giving the world its daily dose of behavior-observation-based whimsy this year. Her cat family unfortunately has a senior female who does not seem to have what it takes to be a Queen. I think it'd be interesting to see how Serena might deal with those Bengal Brothers, but it's unlikely to happen.
Thursday afternoon, after doing some damage to the property he's supposed to be managing for a relative, the Bad Neighbor sprayed it thoroughly with the current form of "Roundup," which of course drifted down on the wind. Friday morning, I went out on the porch and Serena ran to meet me as usual, bounding onto the porch and crossing it with one long jump, seeming almost to float through the air as she ran, effortlessly...not quite. The poison in the air affected her ability to breathe just as it did mine. Serena stood panting for breath and letting me pet her for several breaths before recovering her usual interest in kibble and hurrying me to pour out some of it. Serena is now about as old, for a cat, as I am for a human, and "A little slowing down is normal" for some people at our age, no doubt...but ours occurs only after exposure to airborne chemicals that have been used with evil intentions toward us. Do not be deceived. When the air is clean Serena is as bouncy as ever. Bengal cats run bigger and livelier than more domestic breeds, closer to their wild ancestors, so a pair of adolescent Bengals might out-bounce Serena. But I'd expect she'd still be their Queen.
Having a traditional extended family with a Real Patriarch is not always perfect. Oh yes of course we should be kind and generous and take people's word that, if they can't deny they've done something wrong, at least they won't do it again. Remember when some of us sent that stoned driver to jail, and Dad gave him and his wife jobs, when he got out, to encourage him to stay sober? Well, Dad's last few first cousins are fine Christian gentlemen. They are also in mortal danger from being such. There are no "weed" problems in October but some relatives are having a birthday party this weekend...
We need a law. Good wording might be, "Any open-air spraying of volatile chemicals may be prosecuted as a violent crime against any person affected by it." We need to stop thinking "X sneezed because X has allergies" and shift to thinking "X sneezed because Y, that spray poisoner, injured X's nose." And doling out fines, jail terms, and worse, accordingly.
Censorship and Those Who Want It
Apologies for the language...Joe Jackson tells it like it is.
I am sincerely sorry...There's a blogger I follow who used to be an active commenter at lots of web sites, and gradually dropped away from them. She blogs about being old. She's not all that old. I noticed her not visiting here, hoped she was well, have been glad to see her blog staying active. Maybe she just had to cut back on reading time because of eye trouble? I read back and noticed that she'd mentioned feeling appalled by one of the Petfinder Posts. The one about the pet-friendly shelters for victims of domestic abuse. Because, as evidence supporting the claim that abused people might reasonably be afraid to leave their pets alone with their abusers, I mentioned things an abuser had done to the family dogs. I hadn't provided any warnings about the violent content of that post and this sensitive soul has never come back here since.
That is not the kind of "offended" I'm talking about. The purpose of this web site is not to raise cardiovascular patients' blood pressure or make bereaved people cry. It's not always possible to guess what may have those effects; it is easy to guess that some things will. I should have opened that post with a warning about violent content. It won't bring that individual reader back here, but I do apologize to her.
But those who are "offended" by things they read online such as "Trump fans thought the blatantly fake video of Trump tackling the tiger was hilarious," or "Kamala Harris was perceived by other DC lawyers as a lightweight and suspected of having gained promotion from a personal relationship with a married man," or "Democrats need to purge Democratic Socialists out of their party, without pity, and try their very best to reclaim the 'liberal' label no matter how many Trump-haters they have to disown, in order to have a chance of remaining a viable party"...yup. They should loosen up, or stop reading, or both.
Movies
Not a review, but some historical background notes on The Uprising.
Music
Roberto Cacciapaglia.
Vera Lynn.
Booker T.
Franz Schubert.
Elijah Bossenbroek.
Tschaikovsky, rendered on drinking glasses with water in them. (Christmas-associated for some.)
Steve Miller Band.
Clay Aiken.
The Wailers.
Bruce Springsteen.
Mark Knopfler.
Rosanne Cash.
Ludovico Einaudi.
Five contemporary Christian songs about mothers. If you like them you might save them to replay on Mothers Day. I post them when I get to them. I will note, however, that a certain type of hippie mother used to say that displays of filial affection meant more when they did not arrive on the Hallmark Holiday. It is Sunday. If you have that type of mother, you can share these songs with her now.
George Winston.
Marty Robbins.
John Lee Hooker.
"Impromptu piano duet."
Avishai Cohen.
Boogie Belgique.
Poetry
Yet another outlet for the urge to poem: Rallentanda's Senryu Sunday posts at her blog. She posts pictures and invites senryu about one of each week's pictures.
I think: early widowhood
our house, less girly
Details matter; I expect the young woman in the picture has not lost a husband but decided to make her little house, or flat, beautiful without one. But my memories of sitting alone at a pretty little round table, built for four and placed in a corner so that it seats two, in a tidy, cozy kitchen are tearstained ones.
Well, that's a fine cheerful thought to share with a friend. Can I do better?
surf's roar, and sunshine
hot on shoulders; the urge to
lie back, float on tide
She's planning to host a senryu linkup every Sunday for a while.
Politics
Donald Trump can afford whatever security he needs so I'm not terribly concerned about him. I am, however, concerned about the way the Loony Left's hostility spills over onto Trump's relatives and employees. (And would spill over onto his friends, if he had any...few self-made rich men acknowledge any friends, and most 80-year-olds have outlived most if not all the friends they ever had.) Yes, for the safety of the Trump grandchildren, and of ourselves, we must keep the Democratic Socialists from gaining any seats in Congress and we should try to keep them from being elected to any position whatsoever. Even Sergeant-at-Arms (Crossed Mop and Window Pole!) of the High School Band Boosters Club. (The link appeared at a "news" site long enough ago that it's not news, but it never was a news story; it's an opinion piece, still valid.) Real Democrats should be as concerned about this as Republicans are, actually.
