A Girl and her Cats

This is the story of a girl who was rescued by a cat.  Or, I should say more than one cat, as saving me has involved the lifework of more than one cat.

Drowning in life's tough luck is a difficult way to live every day.  And that is where the cat comes in.  Smudge came to me with a different name and a year of life lived elsewhere.  A year is a long time for a cat and it is hard to say what she had been through in that time.  But then I was 27 and that is a long time for a human and I had been through many things in that time.  Many recent events weighed heavily on me when I met Smudge.  Our lives may not have been perfect or perfectly happy, but in each other we were to find safety.

The first time I saw Smudge she was trying to observe as much of her world as possible and, if she could, to escape her small walled prison in the pet store.  I was drawn to her curiosity and she didn't seem to mind that I'd interrupted her great escape with a few strokes of her fur. 

Some people will tell you, from the facts as they see them, that I rescued Smudge.  The truth is that she rescued me.  When I met Smudge I had lost a life that I'd painstakingly built for myself.  Starting over from rock bottom is hard.  This time it felt like the hole I was in was the hopeless sort of deep.  But Smudge was full of life and energy and as she learned how to be an indoor/outdoor cat she brought me back to life as well.

Every night around dusk she demanded that I come outside and play with her.  Roughly 6pm was Smudge time.  We played hide and seek.  She would bound over to a particularly tall weed and "hide" behind it waiting for me to "stalk" her.  I would walk exaggeratedly slowly towards her and she would wait until I ambushed her with an exaggerated jump.  Then she would bound off to another location to "hide" and I would stalk her again.  We would play until it was too dark for me to see her anymore.

Smudge was not your typically distant and aloof cat.  She followed me around in a manner more reminiscent of a dog.  In Smudge I found a place to pour all of my darkest fears.  She would give me a sandpaper kiss in reassurance.  When the life I had built crumbled, I felt that all the dreams, and love and hopes I had for the world had no outlet anymore.  I gave them all to Smudge and she kept them safe for me while I clawed my way back to the surface.

I have no doubt that without the love and attention of this little rescued cat I wouldn't be much of a person.  I would have stayed rather stuck in that dark place.  The kind of dark place that turns one into an empty husk person.  During part of the time that she was with me I started a new job and met people that also helped bring me back to life and back into the world.

I lost Smudge a year and a half ago.  I was entirely lost without her.  I felt as if all the hopes and dreams and love I poured into her for safe keeping had vanished with her.  And this is not to say that my friend's haven't been there for me.  They have been my rock.  In fact two of them, with my own well being in mind, practically forced me to go searching for a new cat in January.  And that is how I ended up with Joe.  He has many names.  He is Jojen, Cat, the SuRB, Shredder, Tinysaur.  And many others.  Mostly I call him Cat with a particular inflection and affection.

Cat came to me due to an error in using Craigslist.  I was looking for a cat in the area, and either improperly used the feature to limit the search radius or Craigslist didn't work as it should have.  Either way, it led me to a posting about Joe the Cat.  He was up in the LA vicinity while I am down in the San Diego area, but whatever the cause I think I was meant to find him.  He needed a new home because he had at the age of six started fighting with his sister cat.  They'd had a traumatic experience with a cat-sitter and they no longer got along.

So, Cat needed a new home and his parents were devastated to have to give him up but hopeful he would do well and be loved in his new home with me.  And he is.  He eats my books, and important papers when unguarded, has chewed some of my photos and random things I could never have imagined a cat to be interested in.  But he sits with me while I work on projects and he likes to follow me through the yard like he's just another one of the dogs.  All three of them come with me and then plop down in the dirt to hang out when I stop to work or contemplate.  I couldn't love him more.

He is a little more independent than Smudge, and he is teaching me to live in the moment.  When it is time for napping or cuddling you just stay present there.  When it is time to be outside you stay present there.  When I go I know he's ok doing his own thing; but when I return I stay present with him where I am.  Smudge and I were more dependent on each other.

Cat is teaching me to be more reliant on my human friends.  He is teaching me that it is safe to be myself out in the world again.  I don't have to hide all my hopes and dreams and love with him.  I can take them out in the world and find my way.  For love will always be waiting for me when I return.  It is for the best.  A person cannot rely solely on the love of a cat and hide from the world forever.  Much as she may want to.  But his love is still vital to my sanity these days.

He is a character, though not in the same way Smudge was.  Smudge liked to, well, Smudge around on things.  She loved to lay on your legs draped over them like a panther.  Sometimes her attitude to draping and trees made her look a bit like a little bear.  She played hide and seek, used me as a ladder or totem pole on occasion and would give me rough little kisses.

Cat, the Shredder is twenty pounds and loves to eat things I had no idea cats would be interested in.  He has eaten, portions of photographs, newspapers, hardcover books, cheap paperbacks, newspapers, a voter's guide, and anything with bits of tape on it.  He loves lying upside down with one leg in the air so that you can check out his belly and his bits.  He is very definitely a man.  He has judged me for staying out, sleeping in, and using lotion.  And if you don't think you can tell when a cat is truly judging you, I doubt you've spent much time with cats.  Let me assure you I was being judged.

However different these cats have been in personality, they have been important to my long recovery from darkness.  Life, circumstances, bad luck, loss, and betrayal have been heavy burdens in my recent years and have cast a weighted darkness across my soul.  Without the tireless efforts of both cats I would still be very lost.

Since it is February, and it is the month when people often reflect upon love and occasionally the loss and lack of it, I thought it appropriate to muse on the way that sometimes the love I needed most came from the cats that taught me how to live again.  I do also love my friends and family but I would be a worse person, and a worse friend, and less capable of love if I had not had the privilege of meeting both Smudge and Joe the Cat.

So, this year I'm thankful for the love I've been shown by such fierce tiny creatures.  I'm going to honour the memory of one and the encouragement of the other by continuing to brave the world and fend off the darkness with hope and love.

Have I stepped into a Western Film?

Boardwalk, train tracks, Town Square complete with gazebo, this is clearly a Western town.

Hello?  Is anybody there?  No?  Fine, I'll just address these queries to the ether then, shall I?  I'm assuming by your silence that you are not in charge of the madness here.  That could be a rash assumption, true, but what else am I to make of it?

Nevertheless I demand an explanation of some sort.

To start with I'd like to know how I ended up in this strange western film.  I don't remember auditioning.  I clearly remember packing my things up in London and traveling across the ocean and then the continent to arrive in California.  I remember that my visa was up and I had no choice but to return home.  I remember that California was drier and less green than I'd recalled.  And then, I remember waking up here in some sort of strange western film without John Wayne in it to lead the action.  I do NOT remember an audition.  When exactly was it that I was selected to play the heroine in a western film?

Again, train tracks, boardwalk, small house from Gold Rush days.  This feels like a film set.  It can't be my life, can it?

So you're choosing not to answer I see.  I am assuming by the protracted silence that you are denying such things are, or could ever be, true.  People do not just wake up in Western films you say with your decided lack of words.

In this dry western desert I struggle to grow any flowers.  Note the overwhelming amount of dry dust around.

And yet, here I am.  I live in an old farm house, parts of which date to the 1880's.  There are chickens running around in my yard and I have to worry about defending them from the coyotes.  I stamp my boots on the mat to get the dry brown desert dust off of them and I have found a hat indispensable in this hot sunny climate.  I had to chase a "bad guy" out of my house the other week as if this were a lawless town where help and the sheriff are several miles ride from here.  I stomped across a board-walk last weekend to listen to the community band play in the town park's gazebo.  And there are lots of little tumbleweeds growing in my yard.

Tumbleweed!!!  I am growing tumbleweed!

Two months ago I was living in London and now I'm chasing criminals out of my house and raising tumbleweed, dust and chickens.  I used to stroll down wrought-iron lined pavements and now I'm stamping along wooden board-walks.  Two months ago I neatly side-stepped inebriates on London's streets and now I listen for the howl of coyotes before I let my cat outside at night.

Sometimes it all feels like a terrible joke.  Except I'm not laughing people.  So, if you happen to be in charge of casting, or you're the director, or some such nonsense, I have a few things to discuss with you.  Firstly, I would like the bad guys to stop visiting my ranch and busting in through my door.  John Wayne isn't here to help out with the brawling and jailing of said nasty individuals.  Until he is I will not stand for any more intruders.  Secondly, I'm not sure why you cast me in a western, but I'd like the plot to change a little.  I'd like a little less madness if you don't mind.  Not to mention fire.  Why is there always fire in a western?  This southern California film has been no exception.  I'd like to request a cessation of fires as well.  And if you happen to throw in a few strokes of good fortune and maybe give me a job or money I won't complain either.

Well, that's about all for now.  I've got to go corral a few chickens and herd some tumbleweed before I sit peaceably on my front porch watching the sun as it sets over the desert hills.  And I need to ponder the acquisition of a horse.  If I'm to continue living in this western film I may need one.

The Case of the Stranger at the Door and the Cowardly Cat

It was early, at least by my standards. Ok, fine, I admit it wasn't early. It was a little after eleven when I heard a loud knock at the door. It had to be loud for me to hear it because I was sound asleep at the time.

I had stayed up late reading and between seven and nine in the morning my cat had tried everything she could think of to make me get up.  She didn't need anything of course, she just enjoys an audience while she eats.  I, however, refuse to wake up so that she may dine a la russe.  So, I tried my best to ignore her and finally, after a two hour battle, (that involved her devilish tricks and muttered curses from my pillow) I convinced her to curl up at the end of the bed and sleep.

I don't know what you're talking about.  I'm totally innocent and all my desires are needs.

So, that's where the two of us were at eleven in the morning, both completely contented and asleep, when someone pounded at the door with enough force to startle us awake and get the blood going.  She looked about wildly while I checked the time.  Mother should still be at Bible study.  Perhaps it was a neighbor, but it was rather loud, much too loud for one of our friendly neighbors.  Wouldn't it be just my luck if the "bad guys" had come calling this morning I thought groggily.  No, it must just be someone here about the bathroom construction.  Maybe they have a quote for the house paint or the window.

I tore myself from my cozy bed to peer out the window and decide if I could reasonably ignore the person at the door or not.  I couldn't see anyone downstairs by the door and thought they'd given up and gone back to their car.  When I tiptoed to another window for a better view of the driveway and their little car I thought I heard another knock.  Clearly, with a normal little four door car instead of a truck this wasn't a construction person, and yet they didn't seem to be leaving either.

I put the nearest coat on over my pjs and resigned myself to greeting whatever neighbor or friend believed that eleven am wasn't too early for a social call.  They would be wrong about this of course, but there is just no stopping some people.  On the way down the stairs I called over my shoulder to the cat, asking if she was coming, since my presence downstairs had been her only goal for two hours that morning.  She was tiptoeing behind me.  That's odd I thought, still half asleep, normally she races down the stairs with me.  Then as I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard a sound that almost made my heart stop.

Who me?  I'm certainly not a coward and I wasn't tiptoeing either.  I was clearly stalking the criminal.  Yes, that's what I was doing two feet behind you.

I had heard this sound before, years earlier when we had a different cat.  Some said she was a devious cat.  I just said she was the devil.  She would wait until I was alone doing work in the kitchen after everyone else had gone to bed.  Then, and only then, would she approach the door from the outside, reach up, and jiggle the doorknob.  It scared me half to death every time she did it and she seemed to know that.  This time the noise was a little louder, but I knew without a doubt that the person who had knocked a few minutes ago was now jiggling the doorknob.  They were trying to get into my house!

I was afraid in that moment.  They clearly didn't know I was home as they had knocked to see if anyone answered and waited some time before trying the door.  I had taken my sweet time to decide if I could ignore them or not.  They had assumed nobody was home and were now trying to get in.  But subconsciously this thought kept my terror in check because I knew they were not trying to hurt me.

There was the briefest of pauses and then I heard the door give.  I knew that they had just shouldered my door open by force, and I had just heard the door jamb break.  The knocker was now inside my kitchen.

There was no doubt as to their intention now.  Thinking the house was empty the would be criminal intended to rob the place.  And yet the moment I heard the door give in I stopped being afraid and I stopped thinking.  I knew they were in my house and I knew with a ferocious certainty that I had to get them out.  I flew around the last corner with rage at their intrusion building in my chest and I shouted at the top of my lungs "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!".

Did she say intruder? Hide!

The intruder was a young man standing about my height (so not very tall) just on the kitchen rug, all of two feet inside my house, his eyes wide with shock as I came running at him, pj's flying, bed hair flying, with rage in my voice.  He immediately turned and with an "oh shit!" ran out of my kitchen and headed for his car.  As I reached my door I shouted "Get out of my house!" one more time before chasing after him across the porch.  He got safely in his car and began to leave before I could catch up to him, which is just as well because I don't know what I would have done with him if I had caught him.  Still full of adrenaline and rage I memorized his license plate numbers as he pulled away picking up hasty speed around my driveway and left my house.

Then I stood there as the adrenaline let-down started to make me shake and the shock of what might have happened set in.  I called mom to let her know I was safe but she insisted on leaving Bible study right away to come home.  The older ladies in the Bible study group were shocked and terrified that I would chase an intruder.  So worried in fact, that one of them drove by the house later to check on us and make sure we were ok because she couldn't get over the idea of me chasing out a robber.  I'm now infamous at church as the "battle daughter," my mother's new term for me, who chased away an intruder.

She is only fierce when she's pretending to be a lioness.

The next thing that had to be done was to call 911 to report the break in.  This led to a long morning of police statements and the dusting of our doorknob for prints.  The police officers were all very kind and offered suggestions and advice for home safety and personal safety.  None of these involved me chasing after criminals in the future I might add.  They assured me that the best thing to do was to trust my instincts.  If you think it's a "bad guy" then call 911 right away.  Don't wait til they break in and don't chase them.

And they are right of course.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be aware of the potential repercussions of my actions.  I was lucky.  In future I'll be pleased to call in support before I need it.  It's far better to let the police chase away the intruders for me so I can stand aloof in the background with my cat while we wear identical expressions of dignified abhorrence.

And despite all my light-hearted joking about the matter, I am serious.  I know I have a rich imagination (evidence found here), but unfortunately this really happened.  My hands shook after the fact and it ruined my day.  And it has made me a bit more cautious.  And if it happens to you, do call the police.  I only joke about this because I am safe and it is over; and I think that often the only choice you have in these situations is whether to laugh or cry.  Personally, I refuse to let somebody else make me the victim.  So, I shall laugh at the comical image of my cowardly cat slinking behind me as I chase out a robber in my pj's.  It did ruin my day, but it will not make me subject to fear.  That's no way to live.  Ok, serious side all dealt with, I shall return to my farcical description of real events.

So, let this be a lesson for all people.  Some of us take our beauty sleep very seriously.  If you have the nerve to awaken me, and my fiendish cat, from our slumber I assure you that you will have awakened the sleeping dragon.  And if you are a would be thieving scum bag, the police will be more than happy to escort you to your new home. 

Rabbit Food and Ruffage

I came home this evening at a quarter past ten in the evening and in sheer desperation I ate two tomatoes.  Yes, two.  I picked up first one baby tomato and then another and chewed them up whole, unceremoniously and completely unmasked by other foods, flavours or tastes.  What has happened to me?

Photo Source: flickr by Swaminathan

Perhaps I should explain that I have always hated vegetables.  And just like everything else in my life it was not a casual dislike and reluctance.  I don't do things by half measures.  I have always hated vegetables with a passion that stemmed deep from my five year old soul.  I declared them rabbit food and refused to eat them.  I am not a rabbit so why should I eat rabbit food? Do people eat dog food or cat food I ask you?  NO.  Nobody would reasonably expect me to eat a dinner comprised of bird food.  I didn't see why the delicacies of rabbits should ever be placed upon my plate.  I wasn't an ambassador to the rabbit population of my town, or any other town for that matter.  I didn't need to improve human rabbit relations by symbolically accepting them and their culture by dining on their foods.  No, I didn't eat rabbit food.  I waged war on it.

Smart cat knows if he waits by the rabbit food the rabbits will come to him.  Cool as a cucumber he waits.  I bet you can't get him to eat rabbit food.      Photo Source: Flickr by Psyberartist

It was ruffage.  Or more properly spelled, roughage, and roughage is defined as "the coarse indigestible constituents of food".  Indigestible!  And you want me to eat it why?  Ick.  No thank you.  Now people will tell you that tomatoes are good for you.  That tomatoes are a fruit.  But they also come from the night shade family and are therefore a nightshade food. Nightshade foods produce these things called alkaloids that can affect the nervous system and digestive system.  You see alkaloids can inhibit this enzyme, cholintesterase, which is found in nerve cells.  If it is very strongly inhibited it can disrupt the nerve-muscle system and cause trembling, twitching, paralyzed breathing or convulsions.  Great, right?  They say that these certain nightshade foods do not block the enzyme to a great enough degree to cause any trouble.  Yet, there is no definitive research on the subject.  Some researchers recommend cutting it out of the diets of those people with arthritis and other joint problems.  And there are many individuals who swear that nightshade foods do cause them joint pain.  

Do you know what foods are nightshade foods?  It may surprise you to find that the list includes:
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Eggplant
Sweet and hot peppers (bell peppers, and cayenne etc.)
Ground cherries (not real cherries, whatever a ground cherry is...)
Tomatillos
*And a few others. This is not an exhaustive list of nightshade foods.

Some researchers claim that the level of alkaloids in nightshade foods are too small to have any real effect.  Yet the alkaloids do exist in these foods and can be shown to inhibit cholintesterase at least to a small degree and cooking only reduces the alkaloids by 40-50%.  So, you can make up your own mind.  Don't believe me, check out more reputable sources and ask your doctor.  But I will argue that these nightshade foods are poison.  So, these "oh so healthy for you" tomatoes could in fact be poisoning my body and ruining my joints.  Why should I trust your health advice after you advocate poison and indigestible foods.  No, thank you, I'll pass. Or at least that is what I used to say to myself.

Look at all those colorful poisons!         Photo Source: flickr by moon angel

Yet desperate times called for desperate measures and there I was standing in my kitchen munching down tomatoes.  What on earth was happening?  I was starving and it was the only food in my house that could be eaten post haste without any cooking, preparation or waiting-time involved. There was no extended longing for that moment of sweet delight when your food is done and you nibble on the first mouthful.  No, immediate gratification was what I needed in order to satisfy the monster growing restless and growling from deep within.  But it did not end there.  The monster demanded a further sacrifice.  It demanded I give up my cause.  It demanded I eat... a salad.  Yes, a salad.  complete with leafy green lettuce and carrots, a rabbit couldn't have been happier.  I, the Madder Hatter, the crusader against people eating indigestible rabbit food, succumbed and ate not only two tomatoes but also an entire salad.

I can almost hear myself, that logical side I try so hard to suppress, saying desperate times luv, in a Yorkshire accent of course.  But this does not excuse my behavior.  It is a mere platitude.  Who I am?  What have I become?  There is no going back from what I have done.  What will happen next?  I may be lead inexorably downward.  Next I could be eating dog food, or bird food.  Why stop there?  I could move on to worm food and just eat dirt.  But there is something else about it that is bothering me deep down.  It is the slippery slope to all things bad.

Not only do I feel like I have abandoned my morals (see my struggle with technology) I feel I have also lost my identity.  I am no longer a rampant ruffage destroying, rabbit food protesting rapscallion.  I'm becoming something else. Dare I suggest it, an adult?  Gasp, the reality of such a concept is too horrible to even contemplate for one instant.  The unadulterated boredom of responsible adult life swept over me for the milisecond I even considered considering that thought. Cringe. No, no, that can't be it.  I'm still five.  I must be turning into a rabbit.  You are what you eat, right? I'm sprouting whiskers and a little bob tail, aren't I?  That is the only logical explanation.  I'd better do some research on rabbits next.

Smart cat guards the rabbit food knowing I must come for it.  He is waiting.  He sees through me.  There is no escape.       Photo Source: flickr by Psyberartist