Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the catwalk is that it does not discriminate against the young or the old. This kitten, estimated at only 10 months old, has already given in and given up. I queried his owner (who refused to give his name) if he wasn’t ashamed to see his young charge in such desperate straits. He shrugged and said only in reply, “At least he’s not chewing on anyone’s feet.”
While I love living in Portland, it has a dark underside that most choose to ignore. Known as the catwalk – short for catnip sidewalk – once promising felines lie about nearly comatose, drugged out and destitute. Once a cat ends up here, they are unlikely to ever leave, unlikely to ever recover.
Like most cats, Scout doesn’t like a lot of change in her life, but she’s had to adapt to quite a lot since December. First her beloved Templeton died early that month, then two strange kittens showed up at the end of the month. While she wasn’t happy at their presence when they were kept in isolation, she quickly warmed up once they were all in the house together. She bonded quickest with Sam, the youngest, but was more on friendly but cool terms with Emma.
Over the months though she’s opened more and more to Emma, and lately I’ve noticed Scout specifically get up and lay down near Emma. This is one such occasion, she had been sleeping in one of the chairs in my office but got up to join Emma on the carpet. It was all I could do to not pick up Scout and give her a hug, but that’s one thing that hasn’t changed — as affectionate as Scout is, she hates to be picked up — so I let sleeping cats lie.
We have a couple of these heated cat beds, this one sits beside my desk. It was one of Templeton’s favorite spots when he was still with us and has now been claimed by little Sam. Scout sleeps here sometimes as well, but Emma prefers sleeping in the open on the floor or on the desk itself.
Emma scans the skies, but for birds and squirrels in the trees overhead, rather than UFO’s. At least I think so.
In case you think little Sam is all sweetness and light, this is what attacked my feet the other morning at 5am. Fortunately he soon kicked his foot fascination and since then he’s toed the line and been well-heeled, so I haven’t had to give him the boot and shoo him out of bed. If it wasn’t so late I could probably have thrown in a bad sock or slipper pun as well, but at least I worked in a homophone, so I’ll sleep well tonight (provided I don’t get Sammied again).
It didn’t make the local news, but early one morning I was brutally attacked without warning and without mercy. The coward struck under cover of darkness, attacking my feet while I slept. I knew my attacker even before I rolled over — Scout used to attack my feet while I slept when she was a kitten but it’s been years since she’s done that, and Emma is the only one of the new cats to perform such a heinous act.
I’m nearly blind without my contacts in but I can see general shapes and colors. It was still dark but there was enough light for me to know that my attacker was orange and not black. I used my feet to push Sammy off to the floor but he jumped back up, assuming it was part of the game. After getting pushed to the floor a few times he broke off his attack and cuddled up against me and we both drifted off to sleep.
You can get away with such things when you’re so cute and cuddly.
So far the plants I moved a few weeks ago are all doing fine. I’m glad I got them established as we’re in the midst of a record heat wave.
I had moved about about a dozen strawberry plants that were growing too close to the fence, and not only did they survive but every one of them is blooming! Even the littlest one has a nice white flower that came up during the week.
We’ve got a couple dozen plants now, all propagated from the few sickly survivors I rescued while clearing the forest of weeds when we bought the house. They responded well to getting more sun when the grapes were pulled up and last year produced a number of offshoots. The berries from the original plants are quite tasty and I have high hopes for the new ones, providing the slugs save a few for me.
The blueberry bush I moved has also survived and this week started to put out a few flowers. It isn’t the sunniest spot in the yard but better than before. If it does well I might move the other two next year into more sun near the raspberries, but I’ve avoided doing anything near the house since we’re getting a new roof in a few weeks and I figure there will be some plant casualties as they work.
If these transplants prove to be a success I’ll try something more challenging, like kidneys or livers.
Emma and Sam sitting in the window in my office watching a scrub jay that flew up to the roof of the porch. Emma is showing her sharp, pointy teeth but she’s not thinking about eating a tasty bird, she’s just yawning.
You were just yawning, weren’t you Em?
Em?
Emma?
Very similar to an image I’ve posted before, but Sam scrunched his face up in this picture and it always makes me laugh.
Boolie 