A Tsunami of a Property Problem

Esmeralda, Property Mistress. (Take that smirk off your puss, Malka, or someone will swipe it off.) Seems a thousand moons ago, I was thrilled to get this title. Yotur became Property Manager about the same time, but he’s always assumed his duties to consist of keeping an eye on our food supplies. I say eye, because if he lifts a paw, he’s likely to unbalance. Easiest for him to work lying down. Now I’m nimble on my paws and have no problem lifting one up to whack a runaway spoon. I like to keep my claws sharpened on the kitchen table or window bench, stolid wooden things that can’t easily avoid me. Originally from Mexico, they still haven’t learned to speak proper Kani (animal lingo). Which brings me to today’s Tsunami of a property problem (we cats watch such thriller movies with Brenda Biscuit).

It’s caused by authentication papers. Who’d have thought that, after all the traveling to and fro of property, a moon should come when a respectable item of kitchenware such as a stainless steel tea kettle should be asked for proof of its origin and legal entry into San Jose. This requirement of provenance receipts and sales documents has set our Willis Street house into as devastating a tremor as might an earthquake (according to Birdo who shook through one). Every few minutes, some plate or bowl is desperately requesting I turn them over to find a trademark. Hey, my paws aren’t meant to heft pottery. Slap it around a bit if it doesn’t move out of my way, yes. Our antique Chinese brass wares are particularly disturbed, “We come with august family on ship to Seattle port, thousands and thousands of suns ago. No papers needed. Or if papers, they are now dust.” The Russian samovar in the living room has been groaning about revolutionary edicts and pograms, but only a couple of Russian books can make any sense of its mutterings. Several Turkish plates hanging up in the kitchen have requested we affix them permanently to the wall. A carpet on a chest in the bedroom keeps repeating it is Oriental not Iranian. No papers for that rug, either, just a safety-pinned tag reading “hang out on clothesline once a year and beat to get rid of dust and moths.” Those two wooly German Christmas socks befriended by my predecessor, Property Mistress Douglasina, have snuck into hiding in our garage.

The fur in our animal ears is getting flattened by the barrage of questions, cries for help, shrieks of protest. I’ve no adequate answers to stop the noise jam. Soon I’ll have only ear holes like Birdo and Varna. Imagine what chaos will occur when the Property Police raid our Collective and our, mostly useful, things get taken away to be shipped back to where they were born! No Made-in-India begging bowl for us, cats and dogs. Birdo and Varna will lose their Chinese manufactured metal homes (they say this might be okay). Our shelves would be bare of knickknacks and books (no more scratchable, chewable book spines). Even chairs constructed out of genuine American tree wood are creaking nervously. Yotur is scrutinizing the small print on Friskies cans to determine if they are U.S. products. It’s a horrific scenario.

We members of the Willis Street ABCD Collective believe that only a widespread, organized protest by animal households will cause the authorities to pause in implementing whatever unjust laws are creating such devastatingly disruptive social turmoil. Voice your indignation at this cruel treatment of our necessary and legitimately employed property, animal citizens of San Jose!

Reported by Esmeralda, Property Mistress

These Winter Visits from Ancestors

The trouble with dead relatives is that they don’t really vanish. True, they have become transparent, meat bodies dissolving, drifting away like clouds, but like clouds their spirit selves can reappear. For example, here is my mama, Ragni Ourai. Comfortably settled in a plastic basket we used to share when she was alive, her nose is resting on its rim. If I had outward looking eyes, I would be able to see the back curve of this basket through her head. However transparent, Mama Ragni’s voice isn’t a wind’s whisper. She barks her instructions quite distinctly into my ears. I’m blind but not deaf. She’s tells me how her foster parents, Mama Zeida Patitas and Papa Maruka insisted on lingering around to school her and my papa, Sunja Oura. Traditional hrana (our kani name for dog) tales and entertaining accounts of the couple’s adventures in Mexico were welcome, but their advice for the youngsters, Ragni and Sunja, was not. Although a bit shy, my mother definitely believes she knows everything she needs to know, without any more information, thank you. I feel the same way.

My Papa Sunja is more mellow. He can listen with one ear awake, the other snoozing. My parents’ most pleasurable moments during ancestor visits were those when Zedai’s adopted adult kitten, bossy Miss D. (for Douglasina or Dreadful) received a maaki (ghost spirit in kani) scolding. Seasons later, while stretched out scentless and transparent on our doghouse roof, Grandma Zeidai insisted on educating me, too. Mama Ragni would pace around grumble growling that spirit wisdom was nonsense, but I appreciated hearing about adventures so different from the events of my San Jose days. Oh, to sit on a beach by something called ocean, and be offered fresh fish! My fishie in the dishie was always cooked and shaped into kibble. ”I once nearly tumbled down into a very huge hole in the ground called a canyon,” says Grandma Zeidai. “And you prickled that long nose of yours snuffing Mexican cactus,” chuckles Grandpa Maru. “Remember how you decided to guard our print shop by lying on a bed there.” He prefers to tell me about legendary hrana heroes, such as black-coated Eskan, who stole back Lord Sun’s eye from the monster Swallower, only to be burned white as ash and sun-blinded in both eyes. Papa Sunja recites stories about dogs who in their first or second lives were reborn as a bear, a boar, an elephant, or even as a cat (a punishment, he suspects).

Some mid winter evenings the Willis Avenue kitchen is crowded with transparent guests, nosing and nudging each other for a spot to stretch out. It’s easier now to recognize them since I see with my mind eyes. I’d prefer a peaceful nap, but, as Grandpa Maru reminds me, I will soon have a great deal of time to sleep. I ask him if he returns to our house on Seventh Street. I know he loved its garden and the neighboring streets where he and Grandma Zeidai would take walks.” Much changed outside,” he says, “but the grapefruit tree and smelly bay remain as evergreen as I remember.” Occasionally, translucent Fred, once a human member of Seventh Street Collective, darts into our yard in the shape of a hummingbird for a sweet sip of news from our Willis Avenue garden flowers. He says it’s easier to flit around as a live creature when visiting San Jose family. Humans have difficulty recognizing maaki relatives.

Soon Lord Sun will wake earlier. Dozing seeds will stretch shoots eagerly up through the warming soil to begin new lives. Spring winds will sweep up our troublesome but mostly welcome ancestor maaki into the restless clouds, hurrying them away to a summer land where they can hunt and play until our winter memories recall them.

By the way, which too-solid maaki is eating the dog kibble in my begging bowl? I think I can smell a living cat.

Contributed by Uli Var 

A Fruitful Year in Retrospect

This is Malka, senior cat, putting paws to keyboard. Yes, the Collective has taken an irresponsibly long time to add a post, but we have had an eventful year (oops, several years, but I am reporting on 2016). Several of us required special vet visits because of certain internal problems that can develop as we age. In the case of one of us, the problem might be identified rather as over indulgence in pleasures of the palate. No name is being mentioned although I could point a paw toward a stomach.

Last winter our garden finally received enough of a drenching to satisfy thirsty trees and plants. Backyard Pelagiamiru, our outside Collective members ignored the damp to keep up their duties of catching trespassers and thieves. Possums and hummingbirds have been granted special shopping passes, albeit with reluctance. They are reputed not to pay their food bills. The ABCD Collective has been very generous to the neighborhood hungry, but if we are to survive, our labors must produce an income. Which reminds me that I proposed restoring the sign that stated no admittance to our house without at least one appropriate treat per Collective member. Note, human animals consider it impolite not to bring the host or hostess a gift when making a visit. There are seven of us, excluding humans. Please, no toys. We are no longer kittens, puppies, or bald birdie babies, and our tummies have grown up, too. I’m not sure if the macaws agree, but as they napping, I’ve chosen not to get their opinion.

It was a lovely, sunny summer. Too hot for us to hustle about governing our household property. Naturally things scuttled about, got muddled or dirty, when the flick of a tail should have swept detritus away to reestablish order. Esmeralda is the spriest of us, yet she settled for chasing us about with her fierce eyes and a show of unclipped claw. Escaping a swipe was the most exercise Whiskers, Yotur and I could manage.

Grapes and apples ripened first. A glorious crop of all the varieties we grow, except for Cox Orange Pippin apples. Perhaps San Jose’s warm climate inhibits them. Figs were a complete disappointment, nothing but dried drops, despite repeated threats that unproductive trees could be subject to removal, final destination not described. Birdo was pleased with the pomegranate crop count. Not a single pom disappeared before harvest. The pruned persimmon tree has outdone itself. Enough fruit for a bountiful share to go to Collective friends with some tip-top persimmons left for the tweeties. Personally, I’m not a fruit fancier. Catnip, now that’s worth the effort to cultivate.

Enough news for you? Then I’ll close with our holiday festivities. A satisfying solstice banquet was provided. We, miri, prefer to hold our own lunar party for Mother Uma, but dogs and birds love Lord Sun, so, coats groomed, feathers fluffed and straightened, we creatures obligingly raised our voices in semi-harmonious tribute to the author of our fate. After which hymn or because of which, begging bowls were topped with favorite tidbits and Willis Avenue settled down to enjoy the peace we all deserve. In the darkening evening of the year we respectfully remembered our mentor, Grandpa, sire of the front yard Tatamiru family, who returned to his ancestors on a night this past mid-summer.

New Year's Carol
(use any appropriate tune or melodic collection of sounds)

"Meow, meow, woof, woof, and squawk

Sing we among the catnip leaves.

Our wassail bowls brim with broth

And heartily we feed on fish

(or beefy bits, pecans and fruit).

To all our furred and feathered friends

We carol out good wishes for

More food filled days and comfy beds (or perches)

In this New Year we celebrate."

I forgot to record that Moritz of the Max and Moritz act, has reappeared without his partner brother. He didn’t rate a rousing welcome, gave no account of missing Max, but space for an extra bowl was assigned him in the back patio. Like a typical traveling showman, he arrives, brags of important engagements, and disappears again to a whisker waving of relief.

Tail up, whiskers alert, claws polished, I am prepared to swagger forward into the future.  

Submitted by Malka Ilka