Jimmy causes big scare - sprays blood - India series interrupted (but will return!)

At the vet: Jimmy "goes to ground."

So I was sitting right here, at this very desk, working on something, when Sunflower opened the door to this office that Jimmy so generously shares with me. Jimmy came trotting in ahead of her, his little bells jingling as he entered. "Jimmy's been sneezing," Sunflower said as he bounded to my desk, leaped up, stepped onto the closed laptop that sits on an open drawer to my side, where it momentarily served as a hard drive to my big Mac desktop computer, and then laid down and curled up on it.

"Sneezing and sneezing. Violently! He went on and on, without stopping."

Just then, Jimmy sneezed, then sneezed again. "Maybe he got into something,"  I speculated. Sunflower returned to the house and I went back to work as Jimmy curled up on the laptop and dozed off. Every now and then he sneezed, but not too bad. Then, about 20 minutes passed without a single sneeze.

A bit later, I went into the house. Jimmy leapt down from the laptop and followed. I sat down on one end of the couch. Jimmy leaped up onto the endtable and sat down right alongside me.

"Is this blood?" Rye, who was on the couch in the front room asked. 

I got up and went to take a look. Sure enough, there were two large sprays of now dry blood splatter - some of the droplets quite big. Sunflower confirmed that they were in the very area where Jimmy had suffered his violent sneeze-fit.

I called the vet  office. "This is not at all good," the woman who answered the phone said after I explained the situation. "Has he been vaccinated?" Yes. "What's his name?" Jim. "Well, you've never had him in here," she said. Yes, of course I have. She starts to read off the list of our cats names, including late cats, "Thunder Paws, Clyde Texaco, Royce, Chicago, Many Toes..."

"He is Many Toes!" I stopped her. "Jim Slim Many Toes!" 

Soon, secured safely in his yellow travel case, I carry him into the vet office. After a brief wait, I am directed to an examining room. I open the case. He leaps out onto the table. I scoop him up, then take a seat on the corner and try to stroke the fear out of him. Not soothed, he slips off my lap and "goes to ground," in the corner, beneath the chair that I sit on (above).

I move the chair to where I can reach down and pet him, but still he is frightened. So I sit down on the floor beside him, scritching his head lightly, talking to him. For his sake, I am being brave, but I am scared. "This is not at all good," the woman had said, causing me to think that if a cat sneezes blood, there can be no benign reason. 

We have been together now for going on eight years. The original black cat, Little Guy, was eight years old when he disappeared and I still miss him. Jimmy - so gentle, so mischeivous, so friendly, always wanting to be with me, near me. His fur soft, clean, almost aromaless, warm against skin. I cannot lose him now. 

After a bit, I see the face of the vet as he peers through the window into the examining room, but he does not think to look past the table down to the floor, and so does not see us. He disappears. Soon, he is back. He looks a little closer this time, sees the two of us down on the floor and enters.

Next, Jimmy is on the table, being examined. The vet turns him this way and that; peers into his eyes, his ears, pries open his jaws and looks into this mouth. Finally, he gives his preliminary diagnosis: Jimmy probably just got into something that set off a violent sneezing spree, and he broke a vessel.

No big deal.

There is a small possibility that it could be a polyp, back in his nasal cavity, in which case it could be plucked out. This would require that Jim be put under and a scope inserted and twisted around, but since this just seemed to suddenly happen, the vet does not think this is the case. There is a tiny, tiny, chance that it could be a tumor, but, for the same reason, the vet does not think so.

He sees no necessity to subject him to that procedure now, and suggests that I just take him home and observe him for awhile. If the sneezing and blood spraying were to return and persist, then I would need to bring him back to get scoped, but for now, no.

As I wait to pay the lady at the front desk, a puppy comes up and gives Jimmy's box a good sniff.

Later, I am again working at my desk. Jimmy is sitting on the laptop beside me. My aquarium lights are on and two oscars swim behind Jimmy. I decide to get a picture, to make that scene the closing moment to this blog entry. I pick up my camera, but as I raise it to my eyes, Jimmy steps off the laptop, onto my desk, then walks across the keyboard of my big Mac. 

A message pops up on my monitor - "are you sure you want to delete the selected images?" No, I am sure I do not. Jimmy does this kind of thing to me all the time.

Jimmy steps off the keyboard onto my chest, and settles down, seeking comfort. Holding him secure with my left hand I turn the camera backwards, and fire a couple of frames. Hence, the above.

Jimmy then sidles further up my chest, and lifts his nose to my nose. His squints his eyes and rubs my nose. He purrs softly. I do not know what the camera will focus on, but I snap a couple of additional frames. The camera focuses on my forearm - but also, even with blur, it focuses upon love.

I lay the camera upon my desk and, nose to nose, I hold him for the longest time. 

Later, in the evening:

I spot Royce, Sunflower, Toast Ed, Muzzy and Blossom, who carries little Wry, as they walk down the driveway. Blossom announces that she is in the mood to dine on hamburger.

Soon, we are all dining on hamburger - except for little Wry, who still prefers mother's milk, plus formula and a bit of rice cereal now and then. The band plays, "Bad Moon A'Rising." Except for Muzzy, the Kracker Cats all stayed home. Muzzy waits in the car.

After dinner, little Wry gets a kiss.

Toast Ed and Muzzy, the biggest and strangest looking Kracker Cat, ride with us for a little ways, then get out and walk home.

Niece Vidya Falls In Love With Little Brown Kitten: Bangalore, India, Part 4 (of 6)

CAlmost immediately upon entering the Magazine Store, my good Niece Vidya spotted this little kitten, resting contentedly upon a pile of magazines. A delighted little shriek squeaked out of her.

She hurried over, wrapped her fingers gently around the surprised kitten, and raised it up to embrace and caress it.

The kitten was not really in a caressing mood, but Vidya still loved the way it felt as it squirmed about in her hands. Husband Vijay, just to the right, captured the moment on his cell phone.

Soon, Vidya placed the kitten back on the floor, but she could not stop loving it.

The kitten returned to a comfy place in the magazines and gave itself a good licking.

Then it set about to roam around, and to use the Magazine Store merchanize to sharpen its claws. I don't know what it does to the value of a magazine when a customer finds the pages frayed by kitten claws, but it seems like, in the Magazine Store, home to 10 Persian cats, claw marks ought to make any magazine worth ten times what it would be without them. 

The kitten runs about some more. My Good Nephew Vijay could step on it, if he should want to, but, as I say, he is a good nephew and he does not want to step on the kitten. Both Vidya and Vijay believe that people should not harm or hurt animals for any cause. The thought of eating one is unthinkable.

Sometimes I tell Vidya about life in Alaska, about how people hunt for food. She understands that life is different here and people have to eat and animals - caribou, moose, seals, whales, walrus, fish, ducks, geese, etc. - are the food of this land, but the thought does not please her.

"Survival of the fittest," she laments.

When we chat, she will ask me what I had for dinner. If by chance it was a meatless dinner, she is always very pleased. 

Although she had come to the Magazine Store resigned to the fact that when she left, no kitten would leave with her, Vidya had fallen so deeply in love with the little brown kitten that she could not stop herself from asking the store owner, seen here between her and Vijay, if maybe, just please, would it be all right, if it was all right, if maybe she could have that little kitten for her own?

After all, he has nine other cats there, and Vidya has no cats at home. 

"No," the store owner tells her. He does not sell cats nor give them away. Once he takes a cat in, he says, that cat has a home for life.

As I mentioned yesterday, back in her native Chennai, Vidya lived in the midst of cats. They spent time at her house and ate food that the family gave them. One was Gucchi, a tabby, and she was particularly fond of it. There was a calico, too, and others, and she loved them all. Then, just before she got married, a curious thing happened. 

"Gucchi absconded," Good Niece Vidya laments. "I have this feeling that all my cats were aware that I am supposed to leave the house after the wedding, so they started moving one by one... I don't know what to call it, cat instinct or what?"

After the wedding, she moved in with Vijay's family, who had never viewed animals as pets. They were not ready to take a cat into the house. It is not that animals never entered the house, which has three stories and on the second there is a very lovely veranda with a door made of wrought iron bars, spaced close enough together to keep the big monkeys out.

This seems to irritate the big monkeys, so, when they get the chance, they pick up the baby monkeys, shove them through the bars and then those little monkeys run about the house to loot and pillage.

There is a mango tree just outside the house. Just before the mangos are ready to be picked, the monkeys come. They pick the mangos one at a time. They take just one bite, decide that mango is not good enough for them, throw it away, pluck another and do the same.

There is a hanging basket chair made of bamboo on that veranda and it just may be the most comfortable chair that I have ever sat in. Or maybe it just seems that way, because here I was, down from Alaska, sitting out in darkness in open air, fragrant with the lovely scent of tropical flowers and that air was warm and it wasn't filled with mosquitoes.

This just does not happen in Alaska. Here, you can experience air that is dark, air that is warm and air that is mosquito free, but never all at once.

No, never. So maybe that's why the chair seemed so comfortable. Or maybe it actually was the most comfortable chair that I have ever sat in.

Anyway, I sat in that chair as Vidya leaned against the railing and told me of her great longing to have a cat; about how nice it would be, how much she loves animals. Suddenly, a handsome, healthy-looking orange tabby with a white face, white breast, white boots and white tip of the tail sprang out of the darkness onto the veranda, scurried with purpose right between us, leaped up on this and that and then disappeared onto the roof.

It happened so quickly that the cat was gone before I could even lift my camera.

A few minutes later, the cat suddenly appeared again, going in the opposite direction. As I reached for my camera, it again scurried between us, then leapt off the veranda to some perch or landing place that it could see but I could not. It disappeared into the night before I could fire a single frame.

Please remember: To see larger versions of post pictures, simply click on the desired image.

Good Niece Vidya and the Magazine Store Cats: Bangalore, India, Part 3

This is my good Niece Vidya, and she loves cats - in fact, she loves all animals. For the most part, she tells me, she has a higher regard for animals than she does for people. Two days before I took this picture, Vidya was not my niece, but since she is the wife of Vivek's brother, Vijay, she has called me "Uncle" ever since the wedding . I like it when she calls me "Uncle," and she likes it when I call her, "Niece."

Tonight, I had big plans to tell all about how Niece Vidya and Nephew Vijay took me to Vidya's favorite magazine store - not because of the thousands of magazines sold there, but because 10 cats live in that store. Back in her native Chennai, where her parents still reside, Vidya lived in the presence of cats, but now she cannot have a cat at home, so she loves to go to that magazine store, just to visit all these cats.

So I was going to write about our little trip there, and the long discussions that we have since had about cats and other animals, both when I was in India and now by email and chat - at least until very recently. Vidya just became the mother of a brand new baby girl who has the most thick head of beautiful, black, hair that you can imagine. So Niece Vidya has been preoccupied, but I am confident that our email and chat discussions will soon resume. I look forward to it. 

Anyway, I did not get much sleep last night... last week... last month... how long has it been? It is now early tomorrow morning and I am just too tired to put together the entry that I had planned.

Therefore, I will just introduce Vidya now. Tomorrow night, hopefully, I will tell more of the story.

As for the elephant, it regularly visits a temple very near the home Vidya and Vijay share with Vijay's parents. Vidya has come by for a blessing. The elephant obliges and gives her one. The elephant also blessed me. It was a most special feeling when that elephant placed the tip of its trunk upon my head, and blessed me. I suppose that a cynical person might say that the elephant did not really bless me at all, that she only touched my head with her trunk, because she was trained to know that is what she had to do to get the cluster of miniature bananas that I gave to her, but let me tell you, whatever you believe, when an elephant reaches out with its big, strong, trunk, and then with the soft sensory tip, touches you lightly upon the head, it is wonderful. It is a blessing.

Thank you, elephant at the temple for Ganeesha, Remover of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings, Lord of Success - Ganeesha who Himself lost his head and then had it replaced with the head of an elephant; thank you, Vidya, for taking me to this elephant. And the cats, of course.

After the blessing by the elephant, we returned to the house and Vidya served up some coffee. If I could drink some of that coffee right now (and, oh! If you have not tasted Indian coffee, prepared right, then I suggest that you hop on a plane and head to India right now, before the price of gas goes up any more and try some) perhaps I would become energized enough to do the entry I had planned tonight. So I will try again tomorrow. I need to say something more about those cats, too, and the man who invited them into his store.

Muse leads me to cat: Bangalore, India, Part 2

Did you ever meet someone and then suddenly feel that you had not just met at all, but that you had known this person forever? So it was at the wedding feast, when I found myself at a table directly opposite Vivek's cousin, Soundarya, a beautiful and intelligent young woman in her late 20's. As is proper etiquette in India, she ate her food with her bare hand, off a banana leaf and she looked so striking in her golden saree that I could not stop myself from shooting several frames of her. 

"I don't take good pictures," she protested. 

"That's okay," I answered. "I do."

Soon, the feast was over. She asked if I wanted to accompany her on a walk. Next, we strolled down a dusty, bustling street, past smiling people who sold watermelons and tropical fruits from a street cart, past tiny jewelry shops sporting many items of gold, and a woman who ground Indian coffee together with chicory. Soundarya began to tell me about her work as a freelance teacher, but suddenly stopped and pointed excitedly to a bird hidden in a tall tree. It was a very special bird, she exclaimed happily. She told me it's name, but I have forgotten.

We continued on. "A catty!" she suddenly squealed with delight. "Look! A beautiful catty!" In a tiny yard on the other side of gated fence, a small orange and white kitten stood at the feet of an attractive woman wearing a green and white saree. Soundarya scurried off to the fence, and, in answer to her plea, the woman lifted the kitten from the ground, hoisted it over the top of the high gate and transferred it to Sandy's eager hands.

At this moment, Sandy became my muse. I had been warned on good authority that I might not even find a cat in India and here, in just a few minutes, without having made any effort whatsoever to do so, Soundarya, this person who I felt like I had known forever, had led me straight to cat - a beautiful, adolescent, kitten - a "catty." How could she be anything but my muse?

I doubt that this catty ever had more love showered upon it then it did in the three or four minutes that Soundarya caressed and snuggled it, but the time finally came when she had to let go of it, to return it to the lady on the other side of the gate, a woman who obviously loved it. Reluctantly, Sandy raised the kitten back over the top of the fence and the woman took it back.

Even then, Sandy found it difficult to say goodbye. She reached through the gate to give the kitten a final scritch on the head. Then, sadly, we moved on. "Look! A baby monkey!" she suddenly squealed. Sure enough, there, on a ledge outside the second floor of a two story home was a baby monkey, obviously plotting how to sneak in through the window and steal something.

I try hard to learn the stories of the cats that I photograph, but I did not learn the story of this one. Through email and chat, I have since learned many things about the young woman, however. She is a person with a heart most compassionate toward animals. She is forever rescuing street puppies, giving a pat to the calves that freely roam the streets of Bangalore and she even rescues crows - a very daring thing for a young Hindu woman to do.

In the latest crow rescue incident, quite recently, she found an injured one in dire need of a vet. So, as her boyfriend drove her motorbike through the insane traffic that swarms the streets of Bangalore, she sat behind him and cradled the crow in her arms. To sooth it, she sang to it.

"What did you sing?" I asked in chat. I thought maybe a Hindu lullaby, or something else from her culture, a song that I would be completely unfamiliar with.

"Safe in the Arms of Jesus," she answered.

She found a vet, but in Hindu society, it is inauspicious to ever allow a crow inside; just like breaking a mirror, it can bring seven years of bad luck. The vet did not want to be bothered with the crow. Sandy - who told me she would rather suffer seven years of bad luck then to let a crow that she could help suffer - grew angry, and scolded the man.

Chastened, he turned his attention to the crow, and fixed whatever it was that ailed it.

Sandy and her boyfriend then released the crow in front of a crowd of people. As it flew to a tree, the crowd cheered, the people clapped.

See? How could she be anything but my muse?

As a general rule, I dread shooting weddings. I try to get out of them at all costs - unless they are for very special people, such as Vivek and Khena, Khena's sister Shaela and her husband Steve, and my own Toast Ed and his beautiful Blossom. Then I put my whole heart into the job. So Sandy and I have already agreed, when her cherished wedding day comes, I will be her photographer; I will travel back to India and I will photograph the wedding of this woman who I call Muse.

I will also return to the house behind the tall gate and if the woman and the cat are still there, I will have her tell me its story. If I need an interpreter, I will get one. I will photograph the adult cat. And once again, I will post its picture in my blog.

And for a wedding gift, I will give Sandy and her husband a kitten every bit as beautiful as this one.

That's a promise, dear Muse! Or would you prefer an Alaskan husky? I could do that, too - if I can get him across our borders. I know you would also like a Merganser duckling from Denali Park, but I could get arrested for that. You will just have to come here, to Alaska, and see those Mergansers for yourself, in the wild, where they belong.

I scour Bangalore, India, in search of a cat: Part I

I am back in Alaska now, but before I continue on, I need to put my Salt Lake trip in context, so that my millions of faithful readers will understand why I had ventured down to that sinful city. Last August, my niece, Khena, married her husband Vivek in a grand and colorful Hindu ceremony, held in his hometown of Bangalore, India. One week ago today, they held a second, western, ceremony at Alta ski resort, just outside of Salt Lake. I attended both.

I was exceptionally pleased to go to India, but Khena did not want me to be too disappointed if I failed to photograph a cat there. She warned me that in her previous India travels with Vivek, she had not seen even one. Even so, I set out, walking about Bangalore, determined to find my cat. I soon found him, and this is he:

Wait! What happened? This is not my cat! This is a monkey!

The monkey's on the attack! Going after their picnic lunch!

The monkey's got their picnic lunch!

Now he's eating their grapes! Someone should spank this monkey!

So you see what happened. This thieving monkey not only stole the grapes from these poor people... and this after they had so generously offered him a cookie... but he stole this spot on my blog away from the cat, who should be here.

But I am not one to give up. My search for an Indian cat did not end here. Did I ultimately succeed? Please come back tomorrow, and find out.

To see larger copies of the images, please click on the picture.

Three Cats Met Along the Way: Salt Lake City

Quiggy in the window.

Quiggy is a window cat. She can spend hours sitting in the window, contemplating the world beyond the reach of an indoor cat, which is what she is. "She really likes looking out the window, any window," Thos explains. "She is definitely interested in what is going on out there. She has made it out a couple of times, but only a few steps before I caught her and brought her back in.

"When I come home from work, I can see her, in the window, looking out at me. It feels good. When I open the door, she comes running to greet me. At first, she was the only one who did that. Now all three do."

When Thos first saw Quiggy in a cage at the Human Society shelter, he did not intend to adopt her. He did intend to adopt her cagemate, plus another cat, a Russian Blue, but his mom came to the shelter with him and when she picked up the Russian Blue, it attacked her face.

Quiggy's cage mate, the one Thos intended to adopt, was a very gentle calico. Thos feared the Russian Blue would treat her unkindly. Plus, he saw that the two cage mates were good friends. So that is how he came to adopt Quiggy.


Thos admires Annabelle, the third of the three cats who have come to him since Melee.

Melee was the first cat to take possession of Thos once he was grown and on his own and he loved her greatly - especially her tail. She was an orange cat with hair of modest length, but her tail was covered with fur that was thick and pouffy. Thos loved that tail, and he was amused by her love of water.

When he put water in her dish, she would follow him around so that she would be ready to start drinking the moment he sat the dish down. Even after her thirst was slated, she would continue to adore her water. Thos was touched when she laid her head down beside her dish and there fell asleep.

Melee was about five months old when Thos got her. He wanted to do the responsible thing and so, when she reached nine months, he took her to the vet to get spayed. The month was May, the year, 2003. After he dropped her off, he left and went to work.

A few hours later, Thos got a call from the vet's office. They had put her under and all had seemed well, but then she had suffered cardiac arrest. She was still alive. Thos rushed to the vet and found her unconscious, hooked to a machine. The vet told him that she would probably not recover and that if she did, she would be brain-damaged.

He sat there with her from some time, then called his mother - my sister. He was presented with a piece of paper and asked to sign it, to give the vet permission to euthanize her. He signed it. "It was probably the hardest thing that I had ever done," Thos remembers.

For a period of time, it was hard to think about getting another cat - none could ever replace Melee - but three more cats have since come to Thos, including Quiggy, seen above.




Sava - ready to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. (click on pictures to see larger versions).

This is Sava, the calico Thos first found in the cage with Quiggy. He was drawn to her immediately, because he had always loved Calicos and the way they looked. Plus, she was a bit of an older cat who had wound up at the Human Society at an early age. After she gave birth to a litter of her own and raised all of her kittens, the society lent her out three times to be a foster mom to orphaned litters, and then they spayed her.

After what he had suffered with Melee, Thos preferred to get a cat that had already been spayed, rather than run the risk of falling in love and losing another cat in the same manner. When he saw Sava, he put his hand to her cage and she rubbed it. Soon, she was in his arms. She latched herself to his shoulder and would not let go. There were other calicos at the shelter, but it was obvious - this was the one who would go home with Thos.

Yet, when he got her home, she was frightened. She dashed here, and dashed there, trying to hide. She looked spooked.

When he is alone with them, Thos most often speaks to his cats in French. "Ca va," he kept saying, in soothing tones. Ca va - "it's okay." Slowly, she calmed down - but only for Thos. When visitors came, she became frightened and often hid. Thos has now had her for about three years. Only recently has Sava accepted strangers, but now she has and she can be very loving toward them.

"She is a really sweet, gentle, loving, cat," Thos says. "But she is definitely the dominant cat of the house."


Annabelle, the Make-Out Cat.

Originally, Annabelle lived with Thos's stepsister, but just before the step-sister gave birth to her first baby, Annabelle was transferred to the care of Thos's mom, my little sister. In the simplest terms, Annabelle and Thos's stepdad never hit it off, and so she was temporarily transferred to Thos's care. Thos quickly became attached to her and so, before anyone could come and claim her, he adopted her as his own and she adopted him as her own.

Annabelle is exceptionally outgoing and friendly - towards anyone. "My family calls her the make-out cat," Thos relates. "Because whenever anyone comes over and sits on the couch, she is all over them. She wants to get in their face, and put her nose all over their face - her nose is always wet."

Thos often finds her sprawled out in weird and twisted positions. Lately, when a visitor comes and sits at the table, Annabelle has taken to climbing onto a shoulder, where she falls asleep. She stays there, sleeping, until finally she wakes up to find her guest walking about the house. Then Annabelle jumps down.

Two cats met along the way, sort of - Salt Lake City

I don't know why it would flee - not from me! It led me to this position in front of the next door neighbor house.


"A calico cat!" I shouted at my nephew-in-law, Steve Cook, as he drove down a street in Salt Lake City. "On a porch! Stop!"

He applied the brakes and I jumped out and as I did, I spotted a second cat, black and white, in the front yard of the same house, giving company to a girl in her early teens. Through her wide glasses, she looked at me quizzically, slightly worried, as I approached.

"Is it all right if I photograph your kitties?" I asked.

Her eyes brightened and her face lit up. "Sure!" she said.

Before I could bring my camera to my eye, the black and white dashed off. I raised my camera and shot. I was disgusted with myself. I had a wide-angle lens on the camera and I needed a telephoto, but I had left all my other lenses in my sister's house.

So I followed the fleeing cat and shot a couple of frames with the wide angle. The scaredy-cat led me to a position in front of the next door neighbor's house, then disappeared, so I turned back, in the hope that I might get a better photo of the calico cat on the porch. She had now been joined by two women, who must have emerged from the house as I pursued the black and white cat.

"Who's that?" the older of the two women asked.

"I must photograph kitties wherever I go," I answered. "Is the calico shy, too?"

"No," she said. I saw the calico studying me with a friendly look in her eye. I could see she was thinking of coming over to meet me.

"Kitty," the woman said, "go in the house!"

I couldn't believe it! Here was this beautiful calico cat right in front of me, friendly, wanting to come and meet me, eager to pose, and the woman had ordered it into the house! Worse yet, it obeyed; it trotted toward the open door.

I shot one frame and then it pranced to the door, stepped inside and disappeared within. I hoped that I might convince the lady to bring it back out so that I could have a real photo session with it.

"Really," I told her. "I'm a photographer from Alaska and I travel a lot and wherever I go, I try to photograph a cat!"

"Well, you've got one," she said, in a cold, unfriendly, intimidating tone.

I was about to try to explain to her that this one frame did not really count, that it would not be that great, that, to photograph the calico properly, to do justice to her beauty, I needed to spend a bit of time with the cat. I wanted to tell her about Tryskuit and Nabysko and how, when they had been small girls, they had given their wandering daddy this assignment: to photograph cats wherever I go, to find out the stories of those cats and then to bring the photos and the stories back to them.

I took this assignment from my daughters seriously and even though they are now grown, I still do.

I wanted to tell her these things, but there was something about her posture, her demeanor, that told me that she was done with me, that she did not want to hear, that she had no curiosity or desire to learn why a scruffy, upper middle-aged man with a beard and a camera would want to photograph her cats. She viewed gentle me as a threat and just wanted me to go away, right now.

I could see that the situation was hopeless. I thanked her for her help, returned to the car and then Steve drove us away.

The altogether too obedient Calico cat heads toward the open door to enter the house.

The following images were shot May 23:

Fritz: Demonspawn



When my nephew, Thos, was a Mormon missionary in France, his forlorn, lonely, companions would frequently pull out their wallets and show pictures of the girlfriends they had left behind to anyone sympathetic enough to listen. Thos would pull out his wallet, but instead of a girl friend, he would show a picture of his sister's cat, "Demon Spawn" Fritz. Thos would boast about how Fritz would attack and shred the hands, arms, and, if they wore no shoes, feet of anyone foolish enough to draw too near. 

Even so, Thos's sister, Khena, loved Fritz and kept him safe and secure. In a few years, he settled down and became as gentle as a pussycat... sort of... he still has his moments. He recently attacked Khena's new husband, Vivek. When Vivek's parents came from India to visit, Fritz attacked his Mom, who makes the best coffee in the world (which, I should add, just in case his bishop reads this, Thos, being one of the few among us who has remained within the fold, would never drink).  

Last night, we all had dinner at the Red Iquana. Khena pulled out her phone and boasted about Fritz.

Griffin: Gentle As A Summer's Mist



My niece, Amber, then pulled out her phone to show us all pictures of Griffen. Griffin is so sweet and gentle, she would never hurt anyone, not even a mouse. Unless she were hungry, of course. Well, she might just bat it around for fun. Cats do this, you know.

No need for pictures in a wallet



Khena shows her sister, Shaela, the jpeg of Fritz.  Shaela is also my niece.

Remember Martigne? The calico who four days ago chased the laser mouse about the empty room in the Anchorage apartment about to be vacated by her people, Toast Ed and Prickly Pear Blossom Kracker?

Immediately after she moved into our house, I took her into the bedroom that she now shares with her people and opened the door to her travel kennel. She stepped cautiously out, then dashed beneath the bed. There she has since stayed, although Blossom does report that when it is just the three of them, sleeping, she has come out, a time or two.

Tonight, she got out, came to the bedroom door, peeked out and saw Jim. The two studied each other, hissed a bit - but not badly. Then she went back in and Jim dashed out here to his office. I suspect that when I get back from Wainwright, she will have advanced into the house.

In the evening, little Wry Kracker joined Jim Slim Many Toes and I in my office, where many fish hang out.

Following four days of furious blogging, I must now take a break. It is nearing midnight and in just a few hours, at 4:00 AM, I must drive to Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage to catch the 6:00 AM flight to Barrow. From there, I will catch a 12:30 Frontier Flying Service flight to the village of Wainwright, where I will attend the funeral of a true, wonderful, gentleman, one of the finest men that I have ever known.

He was short and slight of build, but you could drop him into any group of men anywhere, and he would inevitably be the toughest, smartest, most observant, keen-eyed member of the group. Yet there was no arrogance in him. I never saw a macho display come from him. I never saw him seek to intimidate nor to belittle. He was Iñupiat Eskimo, a whaling captain, and every spring it was a given that a bowhead whale would come to his village through him and his crew, Iceberg 14.

He took me into his crew and his home and with his late wife and wonderful children, treated me like family. And that is how I will feel when I step into the Alak High School gym - the only room in the village large enough to even have a hope of holding all those who come to pay their respects - that I have come to attend the burial of special family member.

Ben Ahmaogak. How I love you! I hate to see you go.

Wry in the midst of cats

I really do not like the structure of this Google blog. This is a photographically oriented blog and I would like to separate the words from each day with photographs inbetween. But this does not allow me to do that. So, all the photos get pushed to the bottom, where none can be seen without scrolling down below however many days worth of blog text one has entered. There must be a solution. I will look for it another day, but not tonight. Tonight I am too tired. Tonight, I met the big deadline that I had referred to, with seven minutes to spare. Now I am exhausted, even as I was before I began. Too exhausted to seek out the solution. So any reader will have to go down south to find today's photo entry.



(5/27) As you can see, I did solve the problem described above, and the solution was quite simple. I still don't care for this blog structure, however. It is not going to work for the real blog, come fall. Even so, as time allows, I will still learn more about working with blogspot, and see what I can do.

Okay, I am too exhausted, too lazy, to write anything today. So I will just drop in a few of the day's cat pictures. You will see that one of the Kracker cats is very big. He doesn't look like a cat. He looks like a dog. He looks like a St. Bernard. Maybe he is a St. Bernard. I am too tired to tell the difference:

In the morning, I find baby Wry Kracker lying beside his uncle, Rye Kracker, as Jim Slim Many Toes pads by.

Chicago, the calico, (yes, she was named for the Cubs) and Royce.

This is Pistol - my little Pistol-Yero!

Jim wonders how it is that Muzzy looks so much like a dog. Pistol says, "to hell with it all." Pistol is like that. He swears a lot.

My true buddy - Jim Slim Many Toes.

Jim is a housecat, but he likes to go outside, so sometimes I chaperone him. He does not want back in. He is taunting the cats who are still inside.

Our beloved Pistol-Yero!

Toast Ed has treasured this stick since he was a toddler. Muzzy, the biggest Kracker Cat ever, takes it away from him.

Muzzy runs with the stick.