Here We Go – Again…

The last couple of Wednesdays I have been posting a series of continuing posts about how I acquired my cats, Walli and Stormi. Yesterday I intended to post Part 3, but was simply too tired.

Why, you ask? Well… after I had spent some time crawling around in an old, dusty attic fishing for kittens, taken one to the vet, then bathed and combed and picked fleas off of it for a couple of hours, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

I’ve been hearing kittens in the wall of the old house I work in for a couple of weeks now and suspected the calico Momma who used to hang around there had come back to have another litter. Sometime in the afternoon I heard a swooshy sliding noise, and not long after a kitten started crying. It was déjà vu all over again! I could clearly hear it from inside the wall – the same wall where I found Walli, just a different section this time.

So I grabbed a ladder, kicked my heels off and climbed up into the attic armed with a flash light and a towel. As soon as I got up there and started shining the light around I saw two tiny kittens blinking confused into the beam of my flashlight. One of them acted all tough and put up a big threatening show of hissing and snarling. I lifted an air duct tube and a third scuttled away.

But the crying persisted, and I knew there was a fourth stuck somewhere still. By following the sound, I was able to locate the spot where the little one had fallen in, and when I held the flashlight way down the crevice I could see a little ball of gray fur. It was too far down. I lowered the towel as far as it would go, but it didn’t reach by a long shot. This was in a particularly narrow and obstructed part of the attic, and I had to give up. I grabbed the little feisty one and headed down to call animal control.

Fred from the local animal shelter (the guy who fished out Walli last year) came out with a long flexible pole with a noose and rummaged around for quite some time. After about half an hour he finally emerged with this most adorable little gray/red and white tabby!

I couldn’t help myself from taking her home… I know I can’t keep her (hubby keeps telling me that too, and I say “yes, of course” and secretly plot ways of figuring out how to make a small apartment full of two very tall adult humans and two very active cats not seem crowded with yet another family member). Fred took the angry little torti down to the shelter where he said he has a Momma cat that lost some of her kittens.

Meanwhile, I get to coax a very frightened but hungry little baby cat into eating on her own and grow big enough to be adopted by some nice family.

Strange Sounds - Part 3

Continued: A curious thing I learned during the bottle feeding stage is that cat babies don’t know how to go to the bathroom.

Growing Pains

I noticed she wasn’t using the litter box, and looked it up. Sure enough. I had to rub her tiny butt with a wash cloth to simulate the Momma’s tongue. This would trigger a certain reflex, and like a tube of toothpaste she’d squirt out astounding amounts of brown matter. But it only took a couple of tries of putting her in the litter box, making pawing motions with her front paws in the litter, before she mastered the task herself.

Walli grew like crazy and the more she grew, the more her fiery red-head personality established itself. She loved to kill her tiger toy, and wrestle down our hands and anything else she’d get her paws on. She loved her fishing toy and would jump several feet up in the air to catch it.


Walli and Tiger Toy

She took to stalking my feet and hunting them, literally climbing up my bare legs when she “caught” me. This was in the summertime and I lived in shorts and capri pants, so my ankles and calves were a streaky, bloody mess for weeks.

Walli on the attack - showing off those little claws

Gradually she gained control of her claw usage. But no sooner had she stopped scratching me to pieces before she discovered another weapon. Our little red-head would be the most loving creature – she would purr loudly as soon as you as much as touched her, and curl up on your lap being sweet as can be for any length of time. Only to suddenly turn around and attack your hand with her teeth. Great.

These “attack-the-hand-that-pets-you” games became more and more frequent and intense. I could tell she really enjoyed them, too. She’d size me up from a distance, and then out of the blue she’d attack and bite. This started getting annoying, especially since she was incredibly affectionate – when she wanted to be.

The vet told me later this is fairly common behavior in “bottle babies” as they don’t have other cats to socialize them and teach them appropriate cat behavior. As she spent most days alone while we were at work, by the time we’d get home, she would be completely starved for attention.

M and I decided another cat might be good for her. I didn’t give it all that much thought until one day…

Continued…

Happy Hatters – Enjoying the Simple Life

This week's theme for Sunday Scribblings is "simple."

Been digging in old photo albums lately… came across this one of my sister R and I. I’m the one on the left in the green jacket. I was probably about 4 years old, so she must be 3. The smiling guy in the background is our proud Daddy.

I just love the colors in this shot… and I love hats like that! I have a small collection of them and wear them often. Seems like my obsession with hats, clothes and colors got an early start – apparently, I had a keen fashion sense back then. Grandma sewed my jacket – it had matching overalls, too.

The picture is taken at our “cabin” in rural Norway. The cabin was actually a small farmstead that had been in my family for generations, a place to come to escape the bustle of the city and enjoy a simpler life. My father, who wore suits and ties most days couldn’t wait to come out there, roll up his sleeves, don work boots and -gloves and cut the grass with a scythe (the ground was too rocky for a regular mower). He would take his chain saw and cut down trees and chop wood. He would make repairs to the outbuildings and renovate the main house. One year, we dug a cellar beneath the kitchen floor.

I spent every summer of my life from the year I was born until my late teens at that cabin. For us kids coming there meant long carefree days roaming the countryside exploring the steep, rocky landscape, building forts, and swimming in the icy river.

The river was accessible by a trek across a field, through a dense wooded area, down a sheer cliff wall that some ancestor had once picked rudimentary steps into, across some train tracks and finally through a patch of heavy brush. The water was always so cold it made your pulse race and your legs ache, but if you could just force yourself to duck, and keep your body submerged for a few minutes, you almost got used to it.

We would pick berries and crush them with sugar for fresh jam with the next meal. We ate countless slices of bread with raspberry and blueberry jam that we had fixed ourselves.

R and I spent several summers working at a neighboring farm picking strawberries. This was the best summer job ever! We would ride our bikes there at about 7 in the morning – it was downhill all the way, so we picked up a ferocious speed. We would spend the next four hours picking (and eating!) the sweet berries as fast as our hands could move. You got paid by the basket, so it was up to you how much money you could make. I got pretty good after a while, and made what to my young mind seemed a fortune at the time. At 11am we would be done for the day, ride (read: walk) our bikes back up all the hills and have the rest of the day off to do whatever came to mind.

Part of the charm of coming to the cabin was the peculiar outfits we wore. Our “cabin clothes” were old hand-me-downs of uniquely strange appearance and ambiguous origin, and a vast stash of old rain boots and other shoes of assorted purpose. We threw on whatever was handy without a thought of what matched – in fact, the more it didn’t match the better – and were free to climb trees and cliffs and explore all day long without having to worry about ruining our clothes.

To my sisters and me the simple life was epitomized by our very own eclectic sense of carefree style for a few weeks every year.

Strange Sounds - Part 2

…Continued: Realizing the company owners had just spent a considerable amount of money renovating the place, the thought of cutting a hole in the wall seemed catastrophic.

The Rescue

I called the owners and it turned out they already had a call in to the city animal control office. Someone was expected to come out soon.

I waited and waited. The kitten’s cries got weaker, as if it were exhausted. Then they ended completely. I had visions of a dead cat trapped inside the wall for months, and imagined the ensuing dead animal odor. I could see myself trying to work amongst the rank vapors that would undoubtedly interfere with my ability to concentrate.

The crying started again with renewed vigor. Apparently, the little feller had just been napping. I decided that if this little guy got out of that wall alive, I would take it home and name it Wally.

Someone finally showed up from the animal shelter and climbed up into the attic. The Momma cat had apparently had her babies up there, and this little guy had fallen into a crevice and gotten stuck between the wall panels. The man fished it out by lowering a dish towel that it clawed on to, and came back downstairs with a tiny red tabby kitten – screaming off the top of its lungs! He explained how it had been trying to climb up to him, gotten almost all the way up, and then fallen back down – over and over again.

I later found out it was a female, but the name Walli stuck. She was estimated to be only about 4 weeks old and apparently not even weaned, since she had no idea what to do with cat food. But she sure was hungry! She had the strongest voice I have ever heard in a kitten, and cried and cried for food and for her Momma. So I bought some cat formula and fed her with a tiny bottle the first few days.

She quickly learned how to lap out of a bowl, and was eating regular cat food in no time.

A curious thing I learned during the bottle feeding stage is that cat babies don’t know how to go to the bathroom.

Continued…

Quick Birdie Update

For those of you who have been following my balcony hatchlings, here is the current status report:



May 10: Cats nap while thunder rolls and lightning strikes.


I find dove’s nest abandoned by Mother Dover, who I so far have never seen away from nest. Did she get caught in the rain?


Minutes later rain subsides and Mother is back; feathers wet but fine otherwise. (Click on the image for larger version)


May 12: Great growth spurt



May 13: Big brother became a giant overnight


May 14: One-under-par. One birdie to go.


Mother still keeps watch


May 16: Empty nest syndrome

Of Hermits and Masks

This is my response to this week’s Sunday Scribblings; the theme is Masks.

Hermits lived their lives in isolation from mainstream society, often in caves in the desert, thus giving name to the hermit crab. These little creatures don’t have their own shells, but hide inside empty seashells in order to protect their very soft abdomens and inner organs.

The problem with these “borrowed” shells is that as the crustacean grows, the shell stays the same. As the crab gets bigger, the shell becomes restrictive and stunts its growth. The only way to solve this is to find a new, bigger shell, and to change shells, the crab has to leave the safety of its current shield and expose itself to the world…

Every so often, a hermit crab molts, which means it sheds its outer skeleton and grows a new one. This process makes it highly vulnerable for a few days, in which it doesn’t do much more than bury itself in the sand waiting for the process to finish. The amazing thing is that during this season of extreme defenselessness a hermit crab can actually re-grow lost or broken limbs. So not only does it emerge bigger and stronger, but also more complete.

I became fascinated with hermit crabs after a discussion about masks in my freshman English class in college. I started thinking about how similar we humans are to the hermit crab, in that we are so good at building defense mechanisms for ourselves. We frequently wear masks to shield our true selves from the outside world, to appear stronger or more adept at handling what life throws our way than we truly are.

In certain cultures, masks are believed to have magical properties that will endow the wearer with special powers or the ability to communicate with ghosts.

In modern society our masks take on many forms and purposes. The most basic one is makeup, which most women wear daily to “enhance” their features, thus hiding the true appearance of their face. We use clothing as another way of hiding or changing our appearance. We change our hair color, eye color, waistline, breast size, butt size; all to present an image of ourselves as more beautiful, more successful – more complete – than the original, “true” version.

We also mask our personalities. We learn to only show a carcinised surface layer of self, which includes witty comebacks, bright smiles, confident strides, and firm handshakes. But we all know that’s not all there is to us, is there. This is simply what we want others to see, as we “put our best foot forward” and dress for success.

I took a lesson from the hermit crab: I had developed this great thick skin which served the purpose of shielding me from anyone and anything hurtful. Nothing fazed me. I was soaring like a very strong and very lonely eagle. Gradually, I started shedding the layers of protective gear I had built up to form thick walls around me, walls that kept hurtful words from damaging my soft tissue, but which also made me an island, a prisoner in a self-made cave of isolation.

As I finally stopped hiding behind my strength I found that the act of making myself vulnerable was in the end what enabled me to grow stronger and become complete on a deeper level.

After said discussion back in college, I wrote the following entry:


January 23, 1997

Vulnerable.
Without this mask I am. Vulnerable.
So why do I keep it on.
That is simple. Protection.
I need to protect who
I really am because if you
See me like I am, you can
Hurt me.
That is why
The hermit crab wears his
Shell

But if he does not get out of
It at times he will suffocate
And die in his own protected world
I am but a bruised reed
A flickering wick
But you said you would not break me
You said you would not quench
My flame or snuff me out.
So I trust you.
Peel away all the layers
Of this shell so I can breathe
It may hurt but
It is worth it
Worth the pain but I
Warn you

I will be standing here shivering.
Stripped. Without my protection
I am weak. And afraid.
Afraid of weakness
But that is how I want you to
See me.
Yes I will allow you to see
Beyond the mask
To help me escape
So I can regain my balance
Get in tune with
Myself. With you
With you
So I can hear your voice
That is to be
Free

Happy Birthday Norway!

May 17, or "Søttende mai" is the Norwegian Constitution Day, where we celebrate our independence as a nation. This day marks the day our brand new constitution was adopted in 1814, after having been under Danish rule for 400 years.

The picture above was taken 30 years ago, on May 17, 1977. It shows my Mom and Dad, with my sister and I, our entire family before there were 11 of us... :) That's me on the right, playing with the flag and my trumpet noisemaker. I still remember those little white sweaters Grandma knitted for us - probably because they were worn for years to come by my younger sisters.

Søttende mai is a day to dress up in your brand new clothes and walk the streets watching children's parades and marching bands. It is a day for eating lots of ice cream and hot dogs, make lots of noise and patriotically wave your flag in the air, shouting ''Hurra for søttende mai!'' It is a day for being happy and enjoing the sunshine... or cold wind and rain, which frequently is the case in Norway this time of year. I sure do miss it.

Strange Sounds - Part 1

Today marks a year from the day we brought Walli home, and I thought I'd tell the story of how her adventures with us began...

The picture shows her shortly after she came to us.

The Wall Cat

The metal growled hoarsely as I turned the key in the lock. I applied my usual shoulder-followed-by-snap-kick before the old wooden door gave way and swung open with a long groan. Once inside, I breathed in the pleasantly musty and familiar smell of an old house. Another day of work was about to begin.

A cat meowed. Wait a minute! There were no cats here. I looked around the small home-turned-office building and heard it again. It was the distinctive sound of a small kitten screaming for its Momma.

I looked everywhere but couldn’t see a cat. Obviously, there was no cat in here. I had locked up last night myself, and there definitely was no cat here when I left. There were some strays on the property, but all the openings to the crawl space beneath the house had been blocked and I knew there was no way inside the house anyway. I went outside and looked around the corner. The sound disappeared. I went back inside. There it was again. A kitten crying and crying, sounding quite desperate now.

It sounded like it came from the bathroom. I went there, but now it sounded like it came from the other room, on the other side of the wall. I went back to where I started. In there, the sound decidedly appeared to come from the bathroom… suddenly, I realized – the sound was coming from inside the wall! Amazed, I put my ear to the wall like a stethoscope. The sound got stronger, and now I could hear clawing and scratching, too. If it weren’t for the constant yammering I would have thought there was a rat in the wall.

The sound came from a spot at about my head level and I could hear the little creature scratch and climb up the wall a ways, then thump! It would fall back down to the same spot where it started.

This routine would repeat itself over and over, accompanied by more and more desperate cries. I called my hubby and held the phone up to the wall so he could hear, too. “I’m afraid the little thing is going to die in there,” I said. “I can’t seem to find a way in or out of this wall.” Realizing the company owners had just spent a considerable amount of money renovating the place, the thought of cutting a hole in the wall seemed catastrophic.

To be continued…

Gearshift: A Mother’s Touch

My Mom taught me how to drive. That is, I mostly drove with my Dad, and subsequently spent all my income from two after school jobs with a professional driving instructor trying to unlearn some of the bad driving habits I was convinced I had picked up from Dad. Then Mom showed me the “soft touch.”

Dad and I have very similar temperaments. We both like to think we’re right, we don’t like to be told what to do, we’re both stubborn and most of all, defensive in the extreme. Unfortunately for us, that defensiveness never translated into defensive driving.

As the tension levels of a nervous student driver and her even more nervous father (I gave him plenty of reason) rose to the ceiling the atmosphere in the car would grow more and more cantankerous as two heard-heads collided in a veritable personality crash.

My jerk-and-go style of man-handling the gearshift, speed to a screeching halt at each stop light – almost killing the engine – only to race off as if the devil himself was on my tail as soon as the lights turned caused my driving instructor, as well as my Dad, plenty of headache.

As I struggled to rid myself of the habit I let Dad know in no uncertain terms he was the reason it was taking me so long to get my license – I mean, how could I be any different with such a bad driving example in my life?! I pointed out how he would do all the things my instructor told me NOT to do when driving. This did not exactly help said tension levels, so after a while I suck entirely with the professional instructor – at least he didn’t let his emotions get in the way of my progress.

On a rare session with Mom in the passenger seat, I chuckled at her usual heart-in-her-throat “please don’t drive so fast, honey” and thought she was wimpy. I secretly relished in seeing her face turn white and her obvious discomfort. Come on, it’s not like I was going that much over the speed limit! (In my mind speed limits have always been a minimum guide rather than a maximum limit.)

“You’re right,” my driving instructor told me (see, I AM right!). “It is not that you are going that fast per se, it’s just that you’re going way too fast for your skill level.” OK, whatever. Cars were passing me on my left, and that’s just not right.

As I jerked again on the uncooperative gear shift, Mom placed a light hand on mine. “Don’t be so hard on it, honey,” she said in her characteristically mild manner. “It is very sensitive. A soft, gentle touch will do.”

I relaxed instantly. She was right! The engine responded readily and shifted smooth as butter as I carefully guided the gear stick into position.

From that day on, my driving improved dramatically. I am not a perfect driver for sure, and I still commit the occasional speeding transgression, but I have been infused with enough of Mom’s gentleness that I am able to handle most tense situations with more grace and composure so as to make the ride smoother for my fellow passengers. I have learned how a little gentleness can take you that much farther down the road of life.

Happy Mother's Day!

Thought Pictures

Time for some literature again… I’m still on the same book; in the selected passage Hurston describes a gathering of townspeople on the front porch of the local store telling stories:

"When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to."

-Zora Neale Hurston-

What does your thought picture look like today?

Meanwhile...

The cats have ramped up their bird watching activities...

Stormi: "See anything up there? "Walli: "No... not yet"

"Wait - what was that?! Bird? K-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k!!!"

"I could so go for a little dove chick steak right about now..."

"Sigh... why they gotta be up so high... and have wings"

"I'm dreaming of a grey birdie..."

Walli: "You think if we waited all night they'd get tired and fall down?"
Stormi: "Dunno. Let's try it."

Continued...

Lovey Dovey

Remember this dove?


Well, a few days ago two little chicks hatched!


This image was taken one or two days after they hatched... it is a little blurry, but you can sort of make out how one barely has an eye open...




Two days later he already looks more alert


A face only a mother could love...
You can see his feathers starting to come in around his eyes.

Continued...

Storm!

Went to bed with the knowledge that our area was under tornado watch until 3:00am. A funnel cloud was forming just a few miles to the west of us, but it was moving due north, so it didn’t seem like we were at risk. Still, it was a little strange knowing there were several storm systems in the area that could start twisting and touch down anytime, anywhere, and we would most likely be asleep when/if it happened. Woke up at 5:00am to the sound of howling winds and thunderbolt after thunderbolt. Apparently a tornado had touched down somewhere in our state during the course of the night, but it was in a remote area and caused minimal property damage. A system was heading straight for us, but seemingly void of tornadic activity, so would have gone straight back to sleep. If it just wasn’t for that damned wind and the thunder that was just so loud!

As the rain keeps pouring down, we’ll have flash flooding to contend with…

Other thoughts:

Happiness is like cell division – it grows when it is shared!

(Takk til Catt for lykkepil!)

Antonym:

Meiosis – to make smaller, diminished sense of importance. .

Dawn and doom

Another language gem from Ms. Hurston:

Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.

-Zora Neale Hurston-

What is a good image of your life?

Testing Nesting

This dove is sitting on her 3rd clutch of eggs this spring. The nest is perched on the crossbeams above our balcony, and the cats love to stroll the railing staring up at her lustfully. I mentioned spring came early in March this year, and then we had a freezing spell in April, but she sat on those eggs faithfully in the cold until they hatched. I've already seen her crank out 2 sets of chicks so far... She must be a veritable breeding machine! Being from a family of 9 kids, I heard countless jokes to that effect growing up, but really… no joking aside. I’m going to try to snap a shot of the chicks when they hatch – I’d assume this will be her last of the season, if not, my hat’s off to her for stamina!

Continued...

Mules and other brutes

I just started reading “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. The first page blew me away. Man, this lady could WRITE! In a few lines on this one page I found some of the most incredible literary description I have ever read. I just had to share a few lines. It opens:

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.”

We all carry dreams within us, which are ever present in our subconscious mind, but often just out of reach. I love how she describes the dreams as being “mocked to death by Time” as if time was some bully that was constantly teasing them, dangling their realization in front of them like a set of keys then snatching it away before it can be seized.

Then she goes on to describe the local townspeople gossiping on their front porches in the setting sun:

“These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human.”

The story is set in the black south in the early 20th century, and these are apparently servants and laborers who, while performing their duties like dumb, deaf and blind animals during the day, relish in employing their tongues, as well as their ears and eyes when the job is done, mulling over any bit of gossip that passes their way and become “lords of sounds and lesser things.”

The way Hurston describes these people simply as “skins” that are filled either with an animal or a human being, depending on the position of the sun is simply stunning in my opinion. It also dehumanizes them and creates a distance between them and the reader, as they sit “in judgement” of the protagonist, Janie Crawford.

All dialog in the book is written phonetically in dialect, which Hurston was criticized for as being condescending and portraying blacks of the era as ignorant. However, as Edwidge Danticat writes in her foreword to the book, perhaps Hurston “simply listened to them more closely than others” and strove for authenticity. I have to admit the dialect is slowing down my reading a bit, yet promises a fascinating reading experience. I look forward to immersing myself in the rest of the story!