My Dearie Pal

My dearie Pal Whiskers, why did you go away in Auntie Brenda Biscuits’ arms, leaving me behind with The Pup (aka Ourai, Ms. Woofington, Double-Wide, Eskielator, The Galloping Ghost), who is no longer a dog child? Your Romany Miri Chi misses the snuggle warmth of you beside me, the prancing melody of your tenor meow, and the security of your protective paw. Without you padding before me, the world is too enormously empty. It echoes with barks from which I hurry to scurry. Two begging bowl are still filled daily, but only I eat, or often don’t eat, thinking of the devouring jaws that must have snapped you up. I am growing narrower while The Pup grows wider. She tells me I’m just a shadow of a whisker and likely to disappear. If I could claw open our Bookroom cupboard, where the Cat Tarots are stored, I’d paw out a spread for the moons and dukker my future without you.

Nights come and go, but my duties continue. In the role of the Collective’s property manager, I’m supposed to record yearly gains and losses. There are now just four of us house members, me, The Pup, and Birdo and Varna Macaws. An insistent backyard visitor, Mirko the Mooch, has been requesting member status. The outside cat vote has come in as negative. Gossip mews he is a swaggering bully of a welfare scammer. If The Pup did a more efficient job of policing, he would never have been permitted access to backyard food and water.

As required, I’ve kept a scratched record of pomegranate, persimmon, and quince tree production. Oranges and grapefruit are still ripening. If trees exceed last year’s harvest they will receive a reward of extra fertilizer. A lazy apricot tree was banished last spring and a similarly fruitless quince may be evicted soon. Every plant must earn its keep, says our Human Collective Manager, who has spent additional hours this spring and summer caring for garden health and happiness. I have a suspicion that several of the potted plants may be bribing yard cats to submit a positive report. These pampered pot dwellers live in trembling trepidation of being made potless.

The Pup has been unusually quiet following a trip to the vet’s in midsummer. It seems that her heart clock has an irregular tick tock and might suddenly stop during one of her high bounces or ear-torturing barks. Her prescription includes no walks except for short sniff-alongs, treat-rationing, positively no strenuous dog games that involve cats, and no bark-harassment of birds or other critters (this last prohibition has been difficult to enforce). Pardon my miri snigger but it’s finally Pup payback time.

Thank you, my dearie Pal, for gifting me your several soft beds, metal begging bowl, and share of Auntie Brenda’s generous lap. Gazing forward into the future of our Collective, I predict a joyfully pregnant spring moon’s arrival, once the last pale whisker of this hungry winter has vanished.

Submitted by Esmeralda Gypsy Cat

Life Is But A Dream

Leap up on morning strong hind legs, bound with assurance, dash through rain wet spring grass, bounce for the thrill of it, bounce to be highly admired, jump up for a full begging bowl, now bounce in thanks for the deliciousness of life.

Mama Ragni taught me this kani woof chant while demonstrating the last bit at breakfasts in our first kitchen on Seventh Street. All the Collective was crowded in there: my two brothers who went away quickly, Mama Ragni, Papa Sunja, who also left too soon, Douglasina Pricklepuss or Miss D for dangerously disagreeable, Malka, briefly my feline puppy-sitter, two more miri, rotund Yotur and gypsy Esmeralda, Baldey Broken-Beak, our resident curmudgeon crow shaman, shy Umalupani pocket parrot, two ring-necked parakeets whose names I’ve misplaced, and those self-proclaimed kitchen-perch kings, Birdo and Varna Macaw. We were a noisy bunch, always tangled up in each other’s doings. Only four of us still possess meat bodies fed by Hilary. Squawk, squawk, yap, and mew.

In those days my eyes saw what my ears heard. The cat that scampered, a peruni child that hissed, my papa proudly prancing although restrained by a leash, caged Birdo declaiming articles of avian law. Flanked by parents, I went for happy-tail walks to grassy places where squirrels quickly abandoned tidbit searching to scurry up trees too branchy tall for us to leap at. In those dashing days my legs obeyed me.

Then you went away, Papa Sunja, to that home where you require only a transparent self, since this best can be carried in cloud, wind, and dream to visit meat body folk. I walked beside Mama Ragni, guarding her as her eyes slowly whitened with loss. Joel Bicycle, who fed me compliments, held one leash, Hilary, who knows human law, held the other. Brenda Biscuit, whom we dogs tasted before accepting her into our Collective, handed us treats for obeying that law.

Lord Sun and I had birthdays. Ragni smelt older. We moved from the capacious kitchen with gated dog room in which I had been born to one on Willis Avenue where wash sink, stove, table, chairs, cupboards, and food holding frig left little space for a dog basket. However we had a huge weed planted yard to explore and roofed dog patio behind the car house, which immediately was used for extra furniture and tubs of things rather than our car. Just one more Ragni birthday and I became an orphan. The sky in my bright eyes began to cloud, my heart to lie down in loneliness even though I was never alone. My dreams began to waken.

When you, young Ourai, ask why I spend hours prone in the pen that protects me from your enthusiastic company, it is because my eyes are closed to the life you see. What is invisible, scentless for you is sun vivid, smelling of gravy-rich memories for me. Dream eyes open, I play again the roll-me-over game with Malka, chase Papa Sunja around a bush, defy Douglasina’s jibes with a snarl, snatch tossed popcorn, juggle down beside soft-coated Mama Ragni. Who wouldn’t choose to stretch out with such dreams when standing erect on four legs has become a tiresome exercise. You, Laihainai Ourai, named for the Spring Wind that blows new energy into our green world and last year’s fur from your back, will, perhaps tomorrow, behold it grip Uli Var, sweeping her seventeen-year-old bones wrapped in age stained white fur off to where my new self will no longer have need of this dream life.

Uli Var

Hello World and Aunties and Uncles

This is a blog created by animals (and birds) for animals (and birds), however, I’d like to extend greetings in this my first ABCD post to my support group of human aunties and uncles, who have so greatly contributed to my education, entertainment, and culinary experiences since I arrived here as a pup. Since my foster grandmother, Uli, prefers a dream existence to a working one, I’ve lacked a guiding paw (or nip). One can’t expect cats to take up the slack. Two of them, Malka (“I hate you forever, dog”) and Yotur, the four-legged tummy, opted out last year. Esmeralda and Whiskers maintain a careful feline policy of “I don’t see you, you don’t see me.” Then there are the two Big Beaks, Birdo and Varna, who make cacophonous and biased comments about my canine habits. I’m not surrounded by animal joy.

Nevertheless, I have managed to keep the upbeat attitude I brought from my birthplace in Southern California. I’m a February pup, who opened eyes on a spring world of entrancing scents and exciting bustle. Hence my name, Laihainai Ourai, Spring Wind. Perhaps that delicious moment of awareness also awoke the poetess in me. Certainly it inspired me to want to communicate my experiences to anyone around me. The bark is a wonderful canine tool, so expressive and impressive. Finally, and it’s about time given I’ve been an ABCD Collective member since April 2017, I’ve been allowed to write a post. So I intend to pack it with a backlog of observations, some of which I have been emailing to my previously mentioned support group. I keep my paws busy pressing keys on Hilary’s iPad.

First of all, this Willis Avenue house is a good location for my dog den. The puppy pen I was first offered simply could not contain my ambitions. Three hours and I had scaled its fencing. The pen now belongs to Uli. I have a gated kitchen with adequate flooring on which to spread out my collection of toys, a table under which I can hide to eat forbidden snacks, and a choice of chairs for sleeping. Nowadays I can stretch myself tall enough to view what is happening on the tabletop and, sometimes, to borrow something from it.

It was obvious I had been hired to fill the Collective’s vacant position of Protection Agency officer since Uli definitely considered herself retired from duty. Perhaps the Collective members (naming no names) expected me to fit the stereotype of a toy-sized American Eskimo. I am not a toy, being a nice hefty weight and about twice Uli’s height and bark capability. True, she has a cute, fluffy coat, but that’s rather a disadvantage in sunny San Jose. We have discussed these differences during moments she’s been awake.

I love to bark and I love to bounce. Life is full of thrilling encounters, such as visits from my puppy godmother, Auntie Linda, or catching sight of one of our backyard feline members scooting away to the safety of the cats patio, or scenting a fresh bag of treats brought by Uncle Jim. Yes, best of all, I love to sniff. This neighborhood is ripe with tantalizing smells. A walk is an olfactory tour of poles, fencing, sidewalks, front yards when my leash reaches, and discarded trash. There’s a good spread of the latter around here. I insist on examining each interesting odor in order to process and store its information. A dog, says Uli, is an encyclopedia of smells. Unfortunately, her edition is out-of-date.

What new adventures will my second spring bring? (Hint, my birthday is February 11). I expect to help again with garden pruning, to take longer walks as days lengthen, perhaps to be introduced to some dog friends (preferably the male kind), to roll around the idea of puppies, and to enjoy being such an attractive, clever, and creative canine. Look for another post very soon.

Laihainai Ourai

Autobiography of an Expansive Tom Cat

I am proud to state that I, Yotur na’Atira, have sampled life to my fullest. Despite criticism to the contrary, I have always considered my tummy’s appetite and paws’ begging talent to be special gifts from our miri moon mother, Uma. I’ve an extensive menu of ABCD memories, beginning with appetizer yard scraps, moving on indoors to heaped plates of choice Friskies entrees. Dessert is usually a variety of kitty treats, served by Auntie Brenda. I think I could have had a distinguished career as a feline food columnist. Malka scoffs and labels me an epicurean, whatever that is. He is, sorry, he was determined not to be governed by his appetites for food and attention. I miss those reproving looks he gave me from eyes, glowing golden with conviction. My creed is that of the saintly beggar: Ask and you will receive. A full begging bowl, a tidbit of chicken, a head rub, a tongue scrub. Instructed by our receptive whiskers, we beggars devoutly believe in the world’s charity, so, raising our tail banners, we pad on with cheerful meows. Oh, yes, I also have an appetite for love.

Unrequited love. A bulging stomach, oh, but a heart craving to be filled by affection. As a probationary ABCD Collective member, I discovered a love for Ragni Ourai and her pup, Uli. No joy. They were a tight family unit, and now years later, after Ragni has died, Miss Uli still ignores my obvious attempts at friendship, turning away from soft nudges and murmured compliments. It’s this traditional hrana antipathy for miri. I should feel the same way about dogs, but I don’t. A mouse in the house won’t move me to hunt it. The sight of a caged bird only tempts me to ask it how is life behind bars. The new pup, Laihainai Ourai, rolls me over to chew my ears and paws as if I were one of her cloth toys. This is not how I imagined being a dog’s companion. Fini with the two-species-as-pals fantasy.

I adored Miss Douglasina Prickle Puss, my Collective instructress. Her soft midnight pelt and haughty glare were entrancing. Again, no joy. Miss D. was bewitched by herself. Malka and I commiserated over this realization. So I offered him my devotion. There are, again sorry, were conditions to being his favorite friend. Sometimes we shared a cat bed. Sometimes I cleaned his ears and face. Sometimes he would let me taste a bit of his breakfast. Other times, I was permitted none of these. Then he would stalk by me, imperious tail switching impatiently, while I swayed behind encumbered by my huge insignificance. And now he has left me without a meow of goodbye or here’s where you can write me. Perhaps you will read this post, Malka, wherever you are. My appetite for love and food departed with you.

Diabetes has replaced my several desires with an obsessive craving for water, then with a need to immediately void it. My stomach shrinks. My pleasant tenor meow has slid down the scale into querulous hoarseness. I cry to be let outside where I can pee into grass instead of kitty litter. I am insatiably thirsty for the water of life, even as it drains out of me. Beyond the screen door, sky clouds are dropping water on our thirsty garden. Is this a promise that my thirst, too, will be quenched, my appetites finally satisfied forever?

Posted for our late ABCD member Yotur by Esmeralda

Hora de Partir

Dear friends and neighbors, this will be my last post. To quote Birdo, translating from his native Spanish, “It is time to depart.” Parrots squawk this when taking off for breakfast and when returning to their sleeping perches. I have eaten my breakfast of life and am preparing now to journey on. It is time for my transformation from corporal cat into transparent Malka Ilka who can appear as thought or dream. When these, too, have finally dissolved, then I will be seeded into another body, be given another name. This is our miri Karma. Today, I am exhausted from marshaling unsteady hind paws, attempting to chew offerings, even having to open my gloriously glowing eyes. I’ve gazed at enough waxing and waning moons, into enough animal orbs.

My story began as a backyard kitten on Olive Street. Grabbed by Fortune’s hand, I was selected to join the Seventh Street ABCD Collective. What a tormenting tease I was to that senior miri, Miss Douglasina Prickle Puss, when during my kitten days we shared the kitchen with a pair of American Eskimo dogs, two macaws, Baldey Crow, and three small unimportant birdies. Miss D., you never forgave me my transgressions despite my obvious admiration for your plushy black coat and witch bright eyes. “Little Crumb,” you sneered, whiskers aquiver. Although my Kani name Malka Ilka or “Last Crumb” lacks regal resonance, I felt myself to be a sable prince until Yotur, Esmeralda, and finally Whiskers mewed their way into the Collective. Any title I had was then paw batted into the trash. Nevertheless, I have continued to conduct myself as a noble personage of Siamese heritage should among commoners, cultivating aristocratic manners, subtle taste, and erudite conversation in consequence of which I am always assigned to welcome our Collective’s guests. Upon how many laps have I graciously bestowed a royal purr? How many compliments have stroked my fur sleek? How many felted souvenir balls have been made from my excess hair?

In the role of property manager, a cat requires free access to all rooms, closets, and drawers. Hilary’s workroom and bedroom have always been the contended exceptions. An employed miri does not need Collective permission to move property about or to alter its appearance. View the handsome red wing armchair residing in the living room as an example of my decorative clawwork. I’ve left my signature clawprint on sheepskin bed covers, bookcases, chair seats, the kitchen bench and table. In the future, my two trainees, Yotur and Esmeralda, should maintain this standard of care.

To sum up those fabled nine miri lives I’ve experienced: I’ve loved Miss D. (unrequited), Uli dog while she was tiny enough to be pounced upon, bedspreads (any variety), the taste of fresh catnip, Brenda Biscuit’s lap, gloved grooming, a full begging bowl not licked by Yotur. I’ve learned to loath cat carriers with their stink of a vet office, flea treatments, pills, needle punctures, claw clipping, closed doors or gates, and mini American Eskimo puppies and I feared the fangs of the Great Devourer. Despite being deprived in kittenhood of a mother, I have acquired wisdom by taming my claw instincts and developing my mind’s eye.

I’ve no reproaches for past decisions you collective members have made, even though the recent introduction of a gargantuan hooligan of a juvenile hrana (canine) to our house has forced me, once a respected resident of the kitchen, to sleep in the cramped gated territory of the narrow back hallway and to request a safe conduct pass when wishing to visit the similarly gated front hallway and Brenda Biscuit’s room. My complaints are on file, but today I prefer to leave a legacy of forgiveness for you my Collective comrades. You will suffer enough retribution while continuing the necessary but unrewarding strugggle of puppy training.

Finally, I would like to make a few bequests to you who remain on Willis Avenue.

To you, Yotur, my rotund friend, I leave my two begging bowls from which countless times you have snatched tidbits. Now you may expand into the rest of the cat bed we shared. It was a tight fit. You may also have my new leather collar if it can go round your chubby neck.

Esmeralda, I will no longer dispute ownership of the back hallway catbox. The smell is yours. Let Yotur ask permission to use it as did. Sharpen those sweet scimitar claws on him when he protests.

Whiskers, my quota of minutes allowed on Brenda Biscuit’s are yours. So is my quota of acceptable complaint minutes. You run out of yours by noon. I believe your persistent nasal meerow should be heard.

Uli dog, I promise you dreams of our tussles together when I was your puppy-sitter. As you remember, I always landed on top. Sadly, you never learned cat skills. Additionally, since you will be the senior four-paws, I wish you best of luck in teaching the pup to quietly snooze away her afternoons.

Well, Old Birdo, you can congratulate yourself for having outlived another miri. Chomp another notch in your perch while you are gloating. Sorry, it’s a steel one that’s replaced all the wooden ones you ate. Whispered gossip hints you arrived in San Jose a humble parrot sans tailfeathers. Since humility is considered a primary virtue even for birds, may you re-earn it by loosening all your flight equipment as a result of continuous squawking.

Varna Macaw,I’ll just hope you crack a upper beak as Baldey Crow did (actually it was broken when trespassing). This too, can be a humbling experience. Remember, during a lifetime you issued only one nut-cracking, seed-scooping beak set. Silent vocalization is my advice.

At last I’ve arrived at the bottom of my bowl of bequests. Laihainai Ourai, the spring wind who has whirled us creatures around until, like exhausted leaves, we dropped from a previous pleasurable existence onto the cold tile of our present reality, what appropriately just gift shall I leave you, pup? I think I must bequeath you the sum of my many misdeeds multiplied by your own (and that’s a lot, believe me), the total to be commandeered by General Malka into an army of haunts that will charge yowling into your sleep dreams for as many suns and moons as you will continue wearing your white hair coat. Happy naps!

It is well known that we midnight miri are especially dear to Moon Mother Uma, who governs the ebb and low of our life water. She quickens this water so we prance a lifetime in the green world. When our earth-heavy forms have worn away, she draws up our water like a moonbeam, so we can again dance in her honor as we did in our youthful bone bodies at cat neighborhood full moon socials. Clothed in soft sky pelts, shaking silver whiskers, pirouetting on cloud paws, star bright eyes wide, we thrash our night wind tails in joyous rhythms that thrill living creatures. While it is true that in daytime I may only appear as a transparent moon miri memory, during your sleep dreams, I will forever be Malka wearing midnight heaven’s fur.

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