History Repeats?

Four years ago I was despairing of ever finding a job in Massachusetts. I had applied to dozens of places, researched dozens more, and nothing was happening. In desperation, I applied to the Home Depot. HD called me for an interview, sent me out for a drug test, and scheduled me for orientation. So I went in as scheduled, but the orientation was cancelled because nobody else showed up. I went home even more dejected. Within minutes, Mystic Scenic Studios called offering me a job, but we'd have to agree on the wage issue and would talk later. Within minutes, Party By Design called offering me a job. The following Monday I was happily at work.

The day before yesterday I applied/ interviewed at the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway, and was all excited at the prospect of possibly working there. Yesterday, a casting director called and asked me if I was available for a gig on "Breaking Bad" all day Friday. "Sure!" I said. In the afterglow of that call, I was remembering that day four years ago- August 19th, 2005.

Bearing Up In North Georgia

As I said, four years ago we moved to Massachusetts. My mother was skeptical of our prospects for finding a place to live that would allow four cats. We were skeptical of our success at keeping Mr. Peanut Butter inside- he'd been a marauding the neighborhood boy for nearly ten tears. When my parents took him in, they said they wouldn't let him out, because there were bears and such up there in the mountains. We warned them about the screens on their beautiful screened-in deck in the treetops- one of the last things I did before we put our Orlando house on the market was replace the screens on three windows and the sliding glass door, and that was just from delays in letting him out. They followed through with their plan, and we were amazed that Mr. Butter (they call him Peanie) seemed content to stay inside- except he loves to go out on the deck. The molding beside the door to the deck is pretty scratched up.

Well, as of last week, some of their screens are torn to shreds. A bear tried to get in the deck. It believed there must be birdseed in there. It climbed 16 feet up the corner post and tore out the screen. Damn, no birdseed. It went out onto the lower garage roof and put paw prints on the windows of the main house. It scared my parents pretty badly, but it hasn't been back. Mr. Butter, aka Peanie, has taken the opportunity to venture out onto the garage roof to sniff around, however. But he came back. He's almost fourteen now. I guess his marauding days are over. And he KNOWS there are bears out there.

My First Abq Job Interview

For old time's sake, I read the Help Wanted ads in the Albuquerque Journal every Sunday. This takes me back to a time when that was the best place to find a job- well, never Albuquerque before, but you knew that. Wonder of wonders, Sunday, August 16th I found one to apply to: Tram Conductor on the Sandia Peak Arial Tramway, the longest tram ride in the world. We rode it our first week here. It dangles from cables and rises to the 10,000 foot peak of the Sandias, the range that stretches along the east side of Albuquerque and turns a bright pink-purple at sunset. Up to fifty people can ride in each of the two cars, and the view is spectacular.

Applications were starting today, Tuesday, at 9:00. I got there at 8:35, and there were three people already filling out apps. I filled mine out, which took a long time due to my out-of-control hands, and took it to the desk. The woman there paged Rod- the guy doing the hiring. He took me to a table at the resident restaurant. We had a good, affable conversation during which he told me what the job really was: everything. Shovel snow, take tickets, work the parking shack, grounds maintenance, clean bathrooms, shine shoes...well, not the shoes, but everything else.

I hope I get the job. Imagine working the Tramway during Balloon Fiesta! I love public speaking, too, which is the primary thing during the fifteen minute ascent to the peak. I think I have a shot. Rod is an old guy with a salt-and-pepper beard.

It Wasn't Always Cats

I was born in January 1953. Why? Because my brother asked for a little brother. Be careful what you wish for. To ease his suffering, our parents bought him a baby duck for Easter 1953. My brother (we'll call him "Stupid") named it Mister Peepers, after a popular TV show (there weren't that many TV shows in 1953) and so it remained until a year later when Mister Peepers laid his first clutch of eggs. Then she became Peepers. It was handy, because every year for twelve years, just before Easter, Peepers laid our Easter eggs. If you knew my mother, you'd know what a grand and wonderful thing this was.

I was around eight when my fourteen year old brother lost all interest in the care and feeding (no litter box!) of his duck. Well, I was a wandering soul, and the path through the woods to the pond had been well beaten down by me by then. I started taking care of Peepers, including taking her for frequent play times in the pond. She had a grand old time eating tadpoles and frolicking in ways she just couldn't in her pen in the far back yard. Of course, when it was time to go back to her pen, she didn't want to go. I would walk around the pond to where she was, and she would swim to the far side. Usually I had to wade in and grab her, but sometimes it was just too cold.

One time, when I heard the dinner bell, I tried two or three times to catch her, to no avail. Finally I decided to come back for her after supper. When I did- she wasn't there! I went home through the woods looking for her, then marshalled my family and friends. We all fanned out, looking for a white duck in dark woods. When we gave up and came home, she was there in the back yard, heading home to bed.

Carmen Can Juggle Too.

Perhaps the best single juggling episode happened one dark and stormy night in 1999. The odd part is- I wasn't there.


May 14th it was- the night of Black Cat Coffee House at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando. Carmen wanted to go. I had just loaded two 40 foot trailers with a steaming heap of television news scenery. I stayed home. Carmen left early, stopping by the Spiral Circle Book Store on the way. Just so you know, the Spiral Circle is a popular dumping ground for unwanted kittens. Well, you guessed it: there were two tiny tiny white kittens there hiding under the steps. Carmen took a deep cleansing breath, and left them there.

She called me from the church while she waited for the coffee house to start up. She described the two tiny tiny kittens, how cute they were and how vulnerable. Her Itty Bitty had died a few months earlier, so I knew where this was headed. "If you want to bring them home, it's okay with me," I said. She would think about it.

As soon as the thunderstorm started, I knew the outcome. Carmen and two other women- Susan and Susan- drove in the pouring rain, thunder and lightning to the Spiral Circle. It was a building up on blocks, with wooden stairs and room to crawl around in the mud. I sort of wish I'd been there to see them chasing these tiny terrified kittens around- but if I had been, I would have been crawling around in the mud in the pouring rain too. Whew! That was close!

After we dried them off and put them in their little bed, they curled up together in a yin/yang circle. Yin is the feminine, yang masculine. There you are.

The next morning we took these four-week-old flame point Siamese dumped-by-a-breeder kittens to our vet. Two weeks after that, our vet bought a new Lexus. Coincidence? They had every parasite known to kittendom. Yang had two surgeries in July. Yin was blind (no pupils in her eyes) and her spine is slightly deformed. The vet said he'd be surprised if they lived four years. Yang died at nine, and Yin is over ten years old now, and trying to cajole me out of my desk chair.

Adoption

Saint Cloud, Florida. It was the early morning, say 4:00 or so, of Christmas Eve 1995. I was usually up at that time, even on a Sunday morning. The cats, you know, don't know (or care) that Sunday is any different from Monday or Thursday. They want me up. Anyhow, this particular Sunday morning, Harvie and Itty Bitty- aka Ms Mouse- were raising a ruckus, looking menacingly out the sliding glass door to the screened in porch. There was a "cat" door through the screen to the outside so our kids could come and go at will. We kept cat food on the porch, which was a great temptation for raccoons and opossums. Usually the most reaction the girls had to an invasion by one of those critters was to open one eye and yawn. "Go ahead and eat," they'd say, "there's plenty more where that came from." They only had a problem if some strange pussy came on the porch.

I stepped into the middle of the melee and turned on the light, expecting to see a cat glomming down at the food dish. The dish was empty- not unusual after a night of marauders on the porch. I couldn't see any, but Carmen had plants out there, places to hide. I opened the door. It was bitter cold, in a Florida way- maybe 35 degrees- and quick as lightning a tiny orange striped kitten ran in the door and began doing the figure eight rub around my feet. The old lady cats were beside themselves. "Kill it, Dad! Step on it!" they seemed to say. Instead, I went into the kitchen and got out some food. "Awww, don't feed it! It'll never go away!"

We took him along to Vero Beach to visit my parents. My dad said, "Why, he's no bigger than a peanut." and a name was born.

Peanut Butter stole things. I looked out on the porch one morning, and there was a small black and white stuffed toy dog just lying there. Later on I looked out and there was a pig. Hmmm. Over the next couple of days the entire animal cast of "Babe" was assembled on the porch.

Not many weeks after that we moved to Orlando. Within days more Babe toys began arriving. We thought about canvassing the neighborhood trying to return the toys to their rightful owners, but we never did. Then the piece de resistance, Peanut brought home a thing kind of like a hot pad, kind of like a beanbag. We didn't even know what it was, much less where it came from, but all the kitties loved it- they'd rub and rub their faces on it, roll their whole bodies over it, and just lie there clutching it to their noses. We reasoned that it must have had catnip sewn up in it. But even today, thirteen years after he brought it, our two resident cats still love it just as much.

When we moved to the Boston area, we didn't want Mr. Butter roaming the streets, and we knew we couldn't imprison him, so my parents volunteered to take him in. He still lives in their cabin in north Georgia, hanging out on their screened-in deck in the treetops.

Harvie- Not A Pooka

A dear friend of mine from my theatre days in the early eighties, Fay, had to move into an apartment in Vero Beach, Florida, where she couldn't take her cat. Harvie was born during the Vero Beach Theatre Guild production of Harvey in 1980. She already knew me and loved me, so I inherited the Harv.

The flea situation in Vero Beach was very bad. Harvie hated to walk on the carpeted living room floor. It sort of happened gradually, but soon it became apparent that I had rearranged my living room furniture so that Harvie could go anywhere in the house without touching the carpet.

A year later I married my first wife, who promptly rearranged the furniture again. It might have had something to do with the fact that upon Harvie's first encounter with Jodi, the Harv threw up on her. Good job, Harv! Their relationship never got any better.

When Carmen moved in, she brought her own cat into the mix. It took time, but the two kitties learned to peacefully co-exist (mostly). We moved them to Saint Cloud, where we lived serially in three different houses, then to Orlando, where they both died within a few months of each other in 1999. Harvie was 19, Ms. Mouse was 18.

I'll tell you two short Harvie stories. One night in early '83 she came to the door making strange noises. She wasn't a talker, so her "voice" was weird anyway. I opened the door, and she came trotting in proudly with a mouse in her mouth. Then she stopped and set it down. It ran into my coat closet! Harvie told me with a look, "I'm tired from all that hunting," and went into the bedroom. I, on the other hand, was not at all ready to snooze. I propped open the front door, went into the closet, moved shoes, boots and boxes around until the mouse was spooked. Then I used my broom to run his mousy little butt out the door. All this commotion woke up the Harv. She was staring at me from the bedroom doorway. "You let my mouse out!" she said with her eyes. Then she went back to bed.

Later that same decade, my Uncle Jim came to visit on Christmas Day. Uncle Jim was a bird watcher, a long-time member of the Audubon Society, with a life list of birds numbering many many hundreds. Being in the Christmas spirit, that morning, not long before he came over, Harvie killed a bluejay and laid it in the center of our door mat. She was sump'n, that girl.

Juggling 101- A Primer

It happened infrequently enough that we would let our vigilence slip. We would be walking in an unconcerned fashion along the hallway upstairs, when suddenly there was a cat on our shoulder. Sindbad! He would leap from the floor to the top of an open door, and then wait for one of his unsuspecting humans to walk by in an unconcerned fashion. Then he would simply drop a couple of feet to the unsuspecting shoulder. It was always good for a "Hey!" or a shriek. Then he would pur in our ear until we calmed down. What a great game!

If we saw him up there, he would pretend to be merely lounging, as he often did. If we reached for him, he would jump down the other side of the door. No, the game was the surprise shoulder leap. This was generally more effective than the jump up from behind shoulder leap, which he also did. And sometimes, when he was feeling generous, he would crouch in front of us and leap up without the element of surprise. The down side of that one was that we (I) could step aside and he would go flying by with a look of horror on his face- not that he was scared, no- he was outsmarted! It didn't happen often.

Yes, Sindbad introduced me to the world of cat juggling, learning what a cat is all about and using that knowledge to manipulate them. Not that I ever have the upper hand, you understand, only that whenever necessary I can use my knowledge to steer even four cats at a time in a direction of my choosing. Of course, each time is the only time a particular trick will work. It's a full time job, this cat juggling.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night...

I'm glad my mother will never read this. With every sentence I write I'll hear her corrections to all of my facts- ALL of them. I know that this happened in Maryland in the early sixties- maybe even 1960 itself. Our friend Vivien had a friend who had a Siamese cat named Sindbad. Her friend was being transferred overseas, and couldn't take the cat. My mother had always wanted a Siamese. A match made in kitty heaven.

Mom drove over to the far side of Fort Meade (headquarters of the Second Army) and maybe even the far side of Laurel- I was like seven or eight, so I really don't know - in our Plymouth Valiant station wagon with the electric rear window that wouldn't roll up all the way. My stupid brother (six years older) and I were in the rear-facing back seat. Vivien rode shotgun.

I remember three things the woman told us: 1- never laugh at Sindbad, because he's very sensitive; 2- never let him outside because he'll never find his way home; 3- when you put down his food, tap the dish and say "this is for Sindbad." Of course, as you well know, these were HER issues, not Sindbad's

It began to rain- a mean miserable thunderstorm, at rush hour traffic time. Vivien had Sindbad wrapped in a towel, my stupid brother and I were in the rear-facing back seat with soda bottles trying to minimize the inpouring of water. Visibility was dismal, the thunder and lightning were terrifying, traffic was horrendous, the cat was howling that wonderful Siamese howl.

We made it home somehow, pulled into the carport, took the cat inside and set him down. He took off running, and disappeared. For a week we searched the house- a big rambling split level with a crawlspace and an attic- to no avail. We left food and water out for him, but it was never touched- of course, we hadn't been able to tell him "this is for Sindbad." We decided he had run away or died somewhere in the house. About a week later, he just appeared down stairs in the recreation room. He was our cat for fourteen years. It didn't take him long to teach us how wrong dumb-ass high-strung cat woman was. He spent much of his life outside, we all laughed together a lot, and in fourteen years we never ever said, "this is for Sindbad."

I Never Blogged Before

For years I've been writing about my thoughts and observations as life goes by the windows. Carmen has told me many times that I ought to blog. Well...when somebody- who is not paying me to do their bidding- tells me what I ought to do, the automatic braking system kicks in and it can (as it has in this case) take years for me to turn the corner and take the advice. It only took a few minutes to come up with a name and the attending commentary, a few more to set up the system, and here I am, streaming my consciousness as if anybody gives a flying fig what I have to say.

By the title of this blog, one might get the impression that it is about cats. Since it is my life and my life's work is the care and feeding of cats (just ask them) then you can be sure cats will play a major role. One might also get the impression that we have thirty cats, or at least a dozen. Nope. Two. We have had as many as four for short bursts, but for a year and a half, since Yin's brother died (anybody care to guess his name?) it's been two.

There will be stories from the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and double naughts- I'm really old. There will be stories of today's scam used by Remus Lupin (the grey striped one) to drag my butt out of bed at 3:30 in the morning. There will be updates on the ongoing attempt to sabotage this blog: my search for employment. But for today, I'm just setting up for a long siege. I've often thought I should write a column- but I know nobody cares what I have to say. So a blog is perfect. Nobody needs to care. Except me...and you.