Out in my weedy backyard Shamu comes to join me. Looking over the clover patch I see a matted-out nest he’s he made, a secret fort for his daily business: spying on all the yard’s prey. I decide to get into the hollow myself and kneel down, a little surprised he would follow me there. We are both overjoyed by this mutual coziness. He purrs, circles and settles down, contentedly close to my side. After we bond a little while, I step back, and feeling like Jane Goodall, take few photos my resident wild beast in his natural habitat.

The lion roars…

The nest…

Photographs by Paula McLean

Next: The Leaves I didn’t Rake and On Not Mowing Your Grass

After resignedly accepting the inevitable debacle of actually doing the dirty deed (no pun intended), undaunted by the fact that we clearly were too small an armada to defeat the enemy, Sancho and I formalized our battle plans.  Following well-established animal bathing traditions, we never uttered the “B” word, never let him see the bottle of shampoo, the enormous piles of towels – so  essentially to our meager minds anyway, we seemingly gave him no indication that he would soon be snatched and humiliated.

Thinking to throw PK a curve ball (hope springs eternal), Sancho and I go into my wee bathroom, shut the door and begin disassembling the shower doors.  A necessary exercise we had previously learned (painfully) that trying to work around the doors, leaning over an exceedingly unforgiving metal track (despite layers of towels) with me squashed into the itty-bitty space between the toilet and the tub with limited mobility was not a highly effective, nor as the situation clearly necessitates, quick way to go about accomplishing the task at hand.  We also concluded there was no way to adequately control the removable shower head which exhibits snake-like qualities when pulsing with water and no one is securing holding it.  However, if you wish to quickly wet the walls of the entire bathroom to wipe them down, it is highly effective.

Now while one would think that a very large 20 pound cat would find it difficult to get into small spaces. Think again.  PK is extremely resourceful (and as a side note, quite persistent as well) and  was not going to go “quietly into that good night”  This being the case, my trusty amigo Sancho and I began to block off escape routes.  PK is one very, very smart cat.  Oh, he’s got a few insane quirks, like jumping the door railings for instance (I think his best was 4 1/2 feet) but other than that and activities that lead us to believe he might have been dropped on his head before we adopted him, such as suddenly jumping around the room as if a particularly sadistic flea was biting him or he needs an exorcism (problematic as we aren’t Catholic,  we are short on available priests for an exorcism), PK has proven to be exceedingly clever. 

This diversion, of course, had the exact opposite effect on PK.  Humans, it must be admitted, are notoriously the lesser species when it comes to giving animals baths. Now he KNEW the chase was on.  He began to yowl in the most piteous way, signaling, I suppose, the outside world of  his imminent humiliation in the hope of being rescued.

When the first door was closed, PK went into what Sancho and I term “armadillo-mode” – a position where he lowers himself as close to the floor as mammalianly possible, his fir forming a shell-like protective coating and tail flat to the floor, only looking up, very leerily, out of the corners of his lowered eyes as he contemplates how out to out fox us or possibly scar us for life for making him suffer through this degrading activity.  For such a large cat, despite crouching he can move at the speed of light.  This sight is actually quite hilarious if it were not for the fact that is an unofficial declaration of war. 

Two Lunatics v. Armadillo has officially begun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of Part 2

“Insanity is when you keep doing the same things expecting different results.”  Variously attributed to Albert Einstein or Rita Mae Brown. 

I met my March goal–by the skin of my teeth.  Things became more interesting in the second chapter when I paused, looked it over, and went back to the start and re-wrote one of the main characters as the arrogant asshole he can sometimes be.  I’d started out with him calm and professional and that was, let’s face it, dull.  I’m going back through the chapters polishing them up.  The follow chapter is substantially written already.   It was one of the first parts of the story to be written.  It needs some heavy editing though.

I am also  contending with a large brown girl cat who keeps walking back and forth across the desk.  When she pauses, it’s right in front of the monitor.  A squeak tells me it’s time for dinner.  I’d really rather her uncle get on the desk.  He at least will settle down on the corner with his feet tucked under him and stare at me calmly and patiently.  I don’t want her brother up here because, at 23 pounds, he takes up more than his share of space.  He likes to sprawl…

Pen of the day:  Waterman Charleston (ivory)

Ink:  Waterman Blue-Black

.

“Where did she come from!”

Peekers, more formally, PK, is my cat.  At least I think he is a cat; he thinks he is a dog.  I discovered this the day we adopted him.  Since our other cat was named Sushi, we initially were going to name him Kenchi (symmetry you see).  I’m sure this won’t come as news to any pet owner, but pets have a way of naming themselves.  I started calling him puppy cat or PC for short but given the connotation of PC, well, he quickly became PK.  While the adoption people told me to put in him the bathroom for several hours to “acclimate himself” (code for not freaking out) to his new surroundings, he instead walked in the door, claimed the house for himself and never looked back.  So much for the cat ladies at the adoption center.

When we brought PK home we did not know he was a Maine Coon and would grow into a ginormous cat. He is not fat, Maine Coons are naturally large cats.  With four kinds of fur. Fur. Lots and lots and lots of fur.  This earned him a nickname:  Fuzzbutt, which will give you a hint as to why anyone in their right mind would try to wash a cat, let alone a 20 lb. cat.  I should mention here that once before I had taken him to a groomer for a bath.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  I’ll skip the somewhat gory details, but let’s put it this way, it was not a good idea.  The groomer got a huge tip.

Well, the day we dreaded finally came.  The day came when despite his constant washing (resulting in numerous presents, aka hairballs) that we discovered what we call a “poo butt.” I think I’ll skip any descriptive here and rely on the fact that your imagination is sufficient to grasp the meaning.  Sancho Panza (my younger son, 24) and I realized we were going to have to wash him.  I should digress here a minute and tell you that Sancho is strong as an ox.  Of course, this still in no way qualifies him to wrangle a 20 pound angry wet cat, but is certainly in his favor.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of Part 1  

In our next episode my stalwart companion, Sancho Panza and I begin laying plans for an ambush.

“All will come out in the washing.”  Don Quixote (I, 20)

Spencie recovering from a car accident. She broke everything but her cute as a button nose. Every week for eight weeks, we brought her to have her new  casts  applied and every week they changed the color of her cast cover.  Here she is resting with her brother Joshua He’s since passed over to Rainbow Bridge, but Spencie is still with us.. just eleven years older.

Our Maine coon kitties.. Spencie & Joshua

What is a Maine Coon? Dante is a Maine Coon!!!
He lives with his parents Sanjay and Greg and his siblings, another kitty and two Corgis in Asheville, NC. Maybe Sanjay will write and fill us in on some of the Bio details of Dante. I remember he came from a breeder and the he is still growing!!! He has such a sweet personality and loved being around people!
Is that a handful or what? you’d really have to be a cat lover to sign up for this!!!! (sign me up!)

Wikipedia says:
Maine Coons are very large and energetic cats, sometimes weighing up to around 11-12 kilograms (25 pounds); the average weight is 6 to 9 kilograms (13-20 pounds) for adult males and less (7-11 pounds) for females. Males may grow to a length in excess of 1 meter (40 inches); as of 2006, the longest cat on record is a male Maine Coon measuring 122cm (48 inches) in length.[9] Growth to full size often takes longer than for most cats, with Maine Coons usually reaching full size at age four or five

Maine Coons are a breed distinguished by high intelligence, dexterity, and playfulness. They have a tendency to use their front paws extensively (often curling the paw round to pick objects up) and as a consequence will easily learn to open cabinet doors, turn on water faucets, flush toilets, or pick up small objects. Some Maine Coons will eat, or even drink, from their paws, rather than from the bowl itself.

I still can’t get over the size of the paws! Wonder how much these cats eat, can you imagine???

Due to their above-average intelligence, Maine Coons are known to be one of the easiest cat breeds to train. Maine Coons are noted for their ability to trill their meows, which sounds like a combination of a purr and a meow, and they tend to make this sound when happy or startled. When they do meow, it tends to be very high in pitch, in comparison to other breeds. They are noted for rarely eating alone, preferring to eat in the company of other cats or humans. Maine Coons are not known to be “lap cats” but of course, this may depend on the individual cat and some may prefer laps. (can you imagine? you’d be trapped!!!!)

Check out Greg’s AMAZING candle line, Mystic Masala Candles, just in time for Christmas!!!

I stopped by my parents’ house on the way home from work and while I’m there, I like to see McGonnigle, the cat, if I can.  He enjoys the scratchies that I give him and usually rolls on the ground for them.  It’s great.  He’s a good cat–always glad to see me and it is nice because it kind of bothers me that I can’t have him where I live; but I understand that he’s most happy where he is.

Anyway, today, I immediately notice that his left whiskers are short.  A few inches has been taken off the ends, as if someone took a scissor to them.  Male Maine Coons have incredble, long whiskers, so they are not close cropped, but clearly, they are altered.

I went in the house and told my mother that the cat’s whiskers were cut, I thought, and she said that yes, Pumpkin’s whiskers were cut.  “I’m talking about McGonnigle, not Pumpkin”, I said.

“Oh, McGonnigle’s too?!”, she asked.

So we have the two cats there and both of their left side whiskers have been cut by humans, apparently and we are annoyed, shocked, scared, disturbed, puzzled, you name it.  WHO would do such a dopey thing?  Who would cut a cat’s whiskers?  Kids?  I hope so, because when they get bored, they’ll move on to some other dopey pursuit.  A deranged neighbor?  Disgruntled?  One who thinks that the big male, McGonnigle, is beating on their darling cat?  Hmm…dunno.

Pumpkin is an old female Manx and we could see her getting fooled into holding still, but the trouble is, she doesn’t go more than 50 yards from their house!  McGonnigle, on the other hand, goes up to a quarter mile away, as male cats do, but he is soooo careful and circmspect, that we are just beside ourselves to think that someone could fool him into holding still for the cutting.  Chances are, he put up a fuss, and that’s why Pumpkin’s whiskers are cut close and McGonnigle’s are not so close.

If I saw someone hurting McGonnigle, I do not know how much control I could muster.  Hopefully, Gonnigle is now on the alert and will not be fooled again.

If anyone knows of any kind of ritual, or kids’ scavenger hunt or dare contest that might involve this, leave a comment.  At least then, we would have a compass to judge this by.  Thanks.  Fog

Last night I stayed up real late with my owner while he read and watched TV. Nash was sleeping in his son’s room, Scruff was in his daughter’s room. It’s just us two. Everyone else is in bed.

I hear something.

OMG, It’s one of the cats, AND IT’S HEADED STRAIGHT FOR ME!

Wrigley climbed up on the couch and proceeded to lie down next to my owner. I was freaked out! I tried to get as far away on the couch as I could. I was afraid to jump down, fearing a chase and attack…

Surprisingly, the cat made no move to kill me. He just sat there. Curiosity got the better of me and I proceeded to apply the sniff test to see if everything was going to be ok.

I determined that he actually didn’t mind me being there! Somehow he knew that deep down I didn’t really hate cats; I was influenced by what Nash and Scruff told me about them, none of it good.

We both settled in for a wonderful snooze. Cats really are alright, even cool. Who knew?!

To all of you who were wondering, after yesterday’s post, what pets we have at our house, here’s what we got animal-wise:

2 Caridgan Welsh Corgis

1 long-haired Chihuahua

2 Maine Coon cats

2 house rabbits

1 eclectus parrot

1 orange-wing amazon parrot

1 cockatiel

2 parakeets

3 goldfish

1 panda hamster

I added it up and got 36 pets, but my owner says it’s only 16. They all live inside. My owner calls our house The Farm. He says we have so many pets because 1) he loves animals and has no sense, 2) his kids love animals and want every pet imaginable, 3) his wife loves animals but wasn’t allowed to have any pets while growing up; she’s making up for lost time. It adds up to lots of noise and fun! As you can imagine, our vet and pet supply store love us as customers.

Look what my owner came up with while playing with some photos of me on his computer:

It represents the Three Stages of Cardigan Silliness. It starts at the ears, inhabits the area behind my eyes, and is carried out by the rest of my body! How about that !?

My owner’s wife bought some catnip for the evil Maine Coons who live in the basement. My owner went downstairs to put some in their scratching box. I’m no fool, I stayed upstairs.

That’s Wrigley on the left, eating the cardboard. Chiara is on the box. They get real wacky and unpredictable when they smell catnip.

All of the sudden, Nash goes downstairs to see what’s up.

I’m thinking, “Nash, you must be out of your mind! Evil cats and catnip add up to no good!”

Then, the unthinkable. Nash goes right up to them and sniffs around!

And somehow, they did not slice him to shreds! They must have been stunned by his audacity (and the catnip). Nash barked twice and beat a hasty retreat. The cats just looked at him, then went back to the catnip.

Nash is either the bravest or the stupidest dog I’ve ever known!

This is McGonnigle, the cat some years ago.  I was going through the archives for prints for the new art website and came across this.  He is mostly Maine Coon but I have no papers.  The Maine Coon post I did on the rag a year ago, is getting 300 hits per day and drawing comments from all over the world–amazing legs, that post.  So here’s another one.  Gonnicle (as I call him), has a strange property.  Certain whiskers of his grow in different colors.  Sometimes white and then they cut over and turn black and the back to white again.  The largest whisker at the top left in the photo (Gonnicle’s right) exhibits this behavior.

Although he is orange all the way, there are a few black spots inside his mouth.  When he was a kitten and before his stripper mom, who lived in the apartment next door to me, abandoned him, I saw his brother who was completely silver.  I believe that a dame can have a litter of kittens from two (or more) different Toms.  So it’s possible that Gonnicle had a different father than the other cat.  Anyway, now I’m confused.  The point is, his whiskers grow in changing colors–kind of like John McCain’s “Conservatism”–it changes when it’s convienient.  Scientifically, I’m not sure what is going on but I think you would have cells coding for proteins that look white and make up the whisker, and then BAM!, they all switch over to coding for different proteins so that the whisker is then growing out black.  Later on, like McCain, they switch back to white.  Go figure.  Is there a molecular biologist in the house?  Or maybe just Roger Clemens’ lawyers?  They seem to know alot of medical stuff right from the git-go.

In an unrelated note, Curt Schilling’s blog will be renamed this year to 38stitches (I wanted to be the first to get that out there…).  Good luck Curt.  Thanks for the bloody sock and moiderin dose Yanks. 

Things were a little slow today, so to liven things up, I decided to sneak down to the basement to see the cats. I was pretty nervous! I actually saw one of them. Her name is Chiara, a Maine Coon cat:

She was regal, mysterious, and , to tell you the truth, a little bit bored with me. Of course I knew to keep my distance; Nash told me she has knives instead of claws on the ends of her toes! He said he got slashed on the nose by Chiara a couple of times. I did not see her brother, Wrigley. He was probably napping. My owner calls her Chiara the Huntress. He says that because of her, you never see mice in the house.

Today our owner went to the basement to do laundry. Since the basement stairs has no door to close it off, he uses a baby gate to keep us from going down there and getting in trouble. But today he left the gate open! Nash, Scruff and I went right to the edge of the stairs, but we were too scared to go down (there are two big Maine Coon cats that nap somewhere in the basement). So we sat at the top of the stairs and waited for him to return. Click the thumbnail to see us cooling our jets. Someday we will get the nerve up to go down there and see where the cats hang out, but not today!

I really like the Clarinet (Bassinet) that Mrs. Pinetar bought (or was given) for the Tomster. It has these little controls on the side and it will play a little music (something they played at our wedding but I didn’t know that-was told) and it has a little “activity center” for Tommy’s “activity time”.

Anyway, it has these bears that hang on a little dry-cleaning rack and you press a button and the bears spin around over Tommy.

But you have to swing it into position first.

 So I’m admiring the thing and we put him down and I swing the thing into position and Mrs. Pinetar says, “…Wait! You can’t do that yet.”

“Why?”, I say.

“You’ll overstimulate him. It’s too much for him”, She replied.

“Oh”, I said.

How cute is it, that the three little flying stuffed bears will overstimulate him?

***

This clarinet has one other thing that I really, really love. The vibration button. You can even adjust the frequency (although not as low as I would like, but I’ll take it). It is like Tommy is at the belly of a big cat that is purring. It’s very soothing and pacifying.

There is some newer research that indicates that the vibrations that cats produce is very, very healing and beneficial to the cats themselves. They actually have been shown to HEAL faster from wounds for purring. This is verifiable data, not the global warming hooey that you see on CNN.

I went through a phase a few years ago where I read anything I could get my hands on re ‘after death experiences’ or, NDE (Near Death Experiences). They have gone on for all history but are more prevalent now due to advancing medical technology (the same amazing medical discovery and technology that Al Gore and Hillary say isn’t fair and needs to be curtailed by government intervention). What’s even more true today is that with medical tech being what it is, people are simply more inclined to entertain the POSSIBILITY that these folks come by some information that they really don’t or shouldn’t have access to, if you discount the “experience”.

The books are fascinating reading and they make you think plenty, especially about some of our downright silly religious customs and institutionalized hokum. The book, “Embraced by the Light” by Betty J. Eadie, is by far, the best book I’ve ever read in my life. I’ve read it over 10 times and it has influenced me far more than any other book, no question. There is a bookend book to it that is also amazing: “Beyond the Darkness” by Angie Fenimore. They compliment each other and should be read together, and read in the order listed. They are quite different so don’t assume…

Anyway, in the dozens of books I’ve read on this topic, one of the things that strikes you about these experiences is their diversity. All are different and highly personal. However, there are still many similarities. One is that many of these folks report on the “music” or “vibrations” that run through and permeate EVERYTHING on the spiritual side. Everything vibrates and resonates and all things are in vibrational/musical harmony “over there”. In this other dimension, these vibrations are described as “healing” and “loving” and “containing great intelligence”.

It is interesting that we are finding out that cats’ purring heals wounds. I predict that in the future, more money and effort will be spent looking into the effect of vibrations on living tissue. I don’t think enough is being done but the vibration gizmo on the clarinet is a good start.

***

We had Tommy outside a lot yesterday and like rookie parents, got him a little too warm in his fleece swaddling blanket. But on day 4, the jaundice is at maximun, so I insisted that we get him some light (indirect) to break down that bad old Billy Rueben. I also decided it was time to fly the Bunker Hill flag. You don’t see many outside of New England.

And this morning he was opening his eyes more than usual. I used a no-flash setting and it was dark so don’t worry about his color there. He is looking great. It’s just hard to get him to open the eyes. A lot of the time, he just opens one eye. It’s funny to see him fall off the feeding spout and then get mad. Unfortunately, it’s a family trait to quickly get pretty mad at something very simple in the scheme of things. Oh well.

We are baptizing him at about 1 month. This shocked the church down the street. They grilled my wife about it. That’s how it was done in the old days (25 years ago and before) but now it is wigging them out. Almost any time I have “official dealings” of any sort with a member of the church, I walk away shaking my head. I’m trying.

Since Mrs. Pinetar may not be able to make the baptism class, I will have to go alone. I told Mrs. Pinetar, “…wait until they get a load of me…”

And she basically said, “Don’t get excommunicated again!”

And that would be the second time this year! The odds on excommunication are currently running about 7-1. We’ll see.

***

For the record, Julio Franco is now 1 for 12 with the Atlanta Braves. I’ll say it again: Somewhere out there, there is a golf-course missing a guy. –fog

This is the exact instant that McGonnigle the cat, met Tommy. McGonnigle took it well. Just like in this photo actually.  I think he was hungry and was just looking for some food so he was hanging around the kitchen.

Below is our “Meet the Beatles”, half light, half shadow effort. He’s almost twice as old as yesterday’s photos and he hasn’t cut up at all really. He did have his procedure yesterday and they tell us that that will make him sleepy and it sure seemed to but today, he is pretty calm as well. He’s home now and we are showing him the house. He likes it. So far, he likes to hang around wherever there are breasts. –fog

What a different kind of day it shaped up to be.  Leaving work earlyish, I approached the Tappan Zee bridge only to see a really dark, scary storm right over the bridge.  To my right as I approached (North) I saw an unbelievable amount of tan colored dust blown up off the ground and into the air until it merged with the low clouds.

“Tornado?”, I thought.

It wouldn’t have been a big surprise at that point and having never seen one (I’ve seen a total lunar and solar eclipse, Gegenshine, Northern Lights and a volcano erupting, but never a tornado), I was kind of driving badly, with one eye to the north, looking at all this dust and activitiy.  Big bolts of lightning were coming down right over the bridge, it seemed, and I wondered what it might like to be on the main span when THAT happened (it didn’t).  I even considered pulling off in Tarrytown and waiting it out but with rush hour building, I figured that it was worth whatever risk there was.  It wasn’t too bad.

But when I got over to the Jersey side, it was clear that a huge wind had come through and just leveled a lot of trees.  Big, old, solid trees were totally horizontal, over roads, into houses, you name it.  Detours were frequent.  Getting home became a chore and I wondered about MY trees, as there are some big ones (and my house was hit by a falling tree 3 years ago and it did 15 G’s worth of damage).  Some traffic lights were out.

We had relatives up from Florida and were supposed to eat at a place in Oakland that my dad had picked but they had no power and just closed on our 8 man reservation.  I suggested the Chef’s Table in Franklin Lakes.  A foody guru of my wife and I’s, had suggested that this was one of the best restaurants in the area, bar none!  And it sits in a non-descript strip-mall, where you would least expect it.  But the people who have been touting this place were right because the French food was blow-your-hair-back-good.

My sister didn’t go even though she hadn’t seen these relatives in a long while and that was because she is really just very upset that her cat, Pumpkin, had disappeared two days before.  It’s rough.  I can’t say I blame her.  You get attached.

So we come back from the restaurant and I go around the back and call for McGonnigle the cat, and don’t you know that Pumpkin the cat comes out of the bushes to me!  Dishevelled and soaked, she was fine.  And here we thought that a cyote had killed her and now I’m worried that McGonnigle will be eaten next.  I’m telling my dad, “…look, if you see a cy-ote, just gut-shoot him with the .22 and he’ll run off and die somewhere else and no one will know you shot him…”

His reply of course, is, “you never see them!”

Apparently, while my sister told the cops of her missing cat, they detailed for her the location of several “known” cyotes in the area.  Some only a half mile away.  Who knew?  And they usually are only out at night and no, you don’t see them.  In Tuxedo Park, I used to hear them at night every 6 or 10 months or so.  They’d be in a pack and howling like straight out of a bad “B” movie.  So phony sounding, you’d swear it was fake.  One time I saw one in the full daylight and I’m pretty sure that he was rabid (or I wouldn’t have seen him in the daytime–and he looked it too, you know?).

Then my brother and his family came over to grandma’s to spend the night because their power was out and their electrical service was ripped out of the side of the house and the wires are on the ground!  Max and I spent the next hour on the computer looking at our fantasy baseball teams.  He and I are matched up this week.  He is now beating me after a brutal start.  We researched some moves and everyone had a good time.  And McGonnigle the cat even showed up.  –fog