taking a second look

Two days before the skunk incident (as reported in the entry just below this one), I was sitting outside. I was engaging in what is a newly-established habit for me of smoking at least one cigarette per day mindfully. Some other day I might get around to yakking more about the interesting experiences I've had via my participation in a University of Wisconsin Health Clinics research project on the effects of mindfulness and yoga/relaxation on smoking cessation, but for now, I was seated on the cement front porch at KD's place - mindfully inhaling, making note of which part of my tongue felt what, watching what my hands were doing, yadda.

There are at least three neighborhood indoor/outdoor cats in KD's neighborhood: A tuxedo, a tabby and another one that (coincidentally?) looks a lot like my FartieArtie. While I sat there on KD's porch I noticed the Artemis-looking cat curled up beneath a tree, sleeping soundly in that certain way that only a cat can circularly sleep.

Though I didn't realize this at the time, I must've been looking for some serious distraction - I hoped for something to take my mind away from my less-than-great habit, something new & different to turn my attention TO... hey, why not make pals with the sleeping cat?! YEAH! I called out to the little sleeping circular cat "Kiiiii-tttttyyyy! Wake uuuuuuuup little kittyyyyyyy. Want some petting? I'll pet you if you'll come ooooooo-oover hereeee".

Kitty stayed right where she was. 'She must be a good sleeper', I figured. I called to her again a couple of times, both with similar results. Kitty cared very little for me or for my desire to escape the mindfulness exercise. Kitty stayed very certainly put.

Not one particularly interested in ruining the good rest of another slumbering soul, I left her alone with high hopes of returning my mind to a calm open broad calm space of contemplation and relaxation. Then my mind hopped off its stool and meandered off again, taking me far and away down ghoulish pathways where mean people do terrible things to indoor/outdoor neighboorhood cats and the cats just die out on the curbside, right there where people don't even see them because they think the cat is sleeping. Like... how I think the cat is sleeping right now. And the more I tried to convince myself that I should leave her alone and just let the sleeping cat lie, the more image passed through my brain of the possible tragedies that may have befallen the sweet little critter.

I was way past mindful cigarette smoking at this point - this was life or death and I was out to save a vulnerable cat. I called to her a final time and when again she didn't move, I stepped up off the porch to come closer to her in hopes of learning more (but please god not too much. I don't need it graphic if something bad has happened, really I don't) about why the cat wasn't responding to my calls.

As I rounded the tree it became instantly clear why kitty wasn't waking up.
Kitty, as it were, was actually a big knob of tree root at the base of a curbside tree.

I was talking to the rootball on the back side of a tree.
Great. Super!

I suppose the good news tucked inside all my crazy cat seeingness is that a.) no cats HAVE died recently, including Artie, and b.) it is cheap and harmless fun. I didn't get skunked and other than the slight embarrassment of admitting the way my brain occasionally [read: frequently] misfires, it's all good.

Cats, cats, everywhere cats

I’m not sure what it is lately, but I’ve been seeing cats in strange places.  I’ve been seeing them everywhere.

Maybe the fact that we just celebrated the 16th birthday of our oldest cat along with my son’s 16th birthday (yesterday, in fact) is weighing in somewhere deep inside my subconscious, bringing Artie’s kittenhood to the forefront of my active thinking.  More than those early fuzzball years, when J. would toss Cheerios over the edge of the high chair tray to the tiny purring mouth far below, I watch Artemis make calculated decisions to or not to leap up onto the high places that used to be easy jumps for him and ultimately, I consider the approaching end of his life and what effect that will have in our household.

Two nights ago I sat outside on my front porch in the dark.  The sky was surprisingly bright for all the light pollution in my particular neighborhood, in my particular city.  The air was so cool, so crisp a reminder to me that despite the sweaty summer, autumn is fast approaching.  From the far left and behind a bush, a wayward pumpkin vine, numerous perennials and the three clumps of daylilies that have caught their orangey third wind this season, I peripherally noticed a cat poking its nose around some sunflower plants.  She had a coat similar to our middle cat Puppy, who is a dark coated, and somewhat dimwitted but always loveable Tortie.

“Heeeeereeeee kitty.  C’mere kitty”, I stage whispered across the garden.  I was interested in making a connection – to the cat, not to neighbors I might inadvertently wake by cat calls.  Kitty stopped sniffing around, but she didn’t make any movement indicating she wanted to be friends.  I made soft low clucking noises to her.  What appeared to be her head rose up to sniff the air, but she wouldn’t come closer.  

When my six or seven further attempts at “Here kitty kitty” and clucking to the frightened cat over the next ten minutes didn’t produce any signs of confidence, I decided to move me closer to her.  Bridge the gap, so to speak.   I quietly padded across the strip of sidewalk onto the wet grass and neared the daylilies where she was hiding, then immediately retreated.

Sweet little shy kitty who wasn’t responding to my love calls was, in fact, a skunk.  

I must admit to the whoosh of the adrenaline rush as well as the Homeresque ‘D’oh!’, but I was awfully gratefully for having met the one who was kind enough to give me ample time to get myself out of the way before she had to do what comes naturally when feeling threatened.

little fish in a small pond

"A recent checkup showed [President Bush] is arguably the healthiest Chief Executive ever. His secret? Daily exercise and near total disengagement with reality."
-Jon Stewart