We give thanks for Boxcar Bean and Baby Wry

Tonight, I had intended to tell part 2 of the story of how Thunder Paws came to live with us, but today we journeyed to Anchorage to the home of Fire, our youngest son, and his wife, Lilac, for Thanksgiving dinner. When we stepped inside, we saw Boxcar Bean sauntering across the floor.

This made us feel very thankful, so I decided to interrupt Thunder's story just long enough to present Boxcar Bean as he appeared on Thanksgiving Day, 2008.

Here he is, on a chair in the kitchen of Fire and Lilac Kracker.

How could we not be thankful?

Boxcar was very curious about baby Wry. He seemed to be surprised that humans could be so small.

Boxcar is puzzled.

Boxcar Bean, Baby Wry Kracker and Tryskuit Kracker. For those of you unfamiliar with how Boxcar Bean gave up his life as an Angel to become a Kracker Cat, you can find the four-part series here.

Also, anyone who reads "comments" here is familiar with the name, Standtall. Standtall keeps her own fine blog, based in Lagos, Nigeria, and not too long ago she decided to set Thursdays aside to publish interviews that she does with other bloggers. Today, she honored me and made me her Thursday interview. You can read it here.

Thank you, Standtall, and please keep up your good work.

And, as long as I am inserting links, I plan to put the Krackers' Thanksgiving Day up on my Wasilla blog. It won't be up until maybe 12 hours or more after I post this - although, in the meantime, you might find some of these images of Boxcar there as well, plus Muzzy and a couple of snowshovelers.

Thunder Paws: How he came to live with us, part 1

Thunder Paws

Sometimes, the best cat is the one that you do not seek out; the one that appears unexpectedly before you and then, without making any effort to do so, inserts itself deep into your heart and life to bring you warmth and pleasure, causing you to laugh with delight and to marvel at the wonder that is a cat. So great is the love generated by such a cat that when, unexpectedly, it is torn from you, it’s absence leaves you and its whole host of human loved ones grieving; yes - even weeping.

Thunder Paws was such a cat.

I now begin his story:

After persuading me to bring the kitten home, Nabysko decided to boil him, so she put him in a pot.

On May 15, 1992, the sun rose into a crystal-blue sky and there poured it rays down to generate the first hot day of the year in Wasilla, Alaska. Unable to cope with work on such a day, I abandoned it, grabbed Sunflower, Nabysko - the only two people who were nearby and drove them up the Matanuska Valley to take a glacier viewing expedition,

By the time we turned around to return home, we had been parched by the hot sun, so we stopped at a gas station in Sutton, not for fuel but for cold, liquid, refreshment. We rushed inside, thinking not of kittens, but only about the chilled drinks that we would soon guzzle. In my case, this meant Pepsi. 

There, in the gas station store, just beyond the soft drinks, a low box sat on the floor and in it was a beautiful calico cat, attempting to groom two kittens with her raspy tongue. One, a rambunctious tiger-stripped fellow, burst out of the box and went leaping, scurrying and hoping wildly about the store.

The kitten did not wish to be boiled. He jumped out of the pot.

The other, an orange fellow with a white face, breast and paws, nestled snugly against the soft, furry, underbelly of its mom and looked up at us through dreamy, curious, puzzled, intelligent, blue eyes. “Oh, cute!” Nabysko squealed. 

Her chubby little hands shot downward, gripped the startled kitten and yanked it up from the warmth and security of its mother’s tummy. Nabysko tucked the bewildered creature close to her cheek. Squirming, the kitten maneuvered itself into an upright position, placed its paws upon Nabysko’s shoulder and looked out apprehensively.

“Do you want him?” a skinny, wrinkled, old man asked.

“Yes!” Nabysko squealed happily.

“No!” I thundered. “We already have a cat!”

Free now from the pot, the kitten moons Nabysko.

“No one will take these kittens,” the old man sighed, “I guess I’m going to have to take them to the pound.”

“Please, Daddy,” Nabysko begged as she cuddled the tiny orange and white fellow. “This kitty can’t go to the pound!”

“No, Nabysko” I stated firmly. “We can’t rescue every kitten. We just can’t! Kaboodle would not be happy.”

“Daddy! Kaboodle needs a friend. Please! Daddy! I need a cat to sleep with me. Kaboodle always sleeps with Tryskuit!”

“No!” I guided Nabysko out the door and to the mini-van, where I strapped her into the safety seat behind her mom, the beautiful Sunflower. I took my own position behind the wheel, inserted the key and gave it a twist. 

The engine sputtered to life and began to purr. I put the gear in reverse, brought my foot down upon the gas pedal and started to back up. As I did, the happy image of Nabysko cuddling the kitten swept through my mind.

If, as stated below, I regretted taking the kitten, then why did I nestle him like this, later that very day? Why now, despite the joyous decade that he gave us, do these pictures cause my eyes to water, and this screen to blur, even as I type these words?

“Heck!”* I stammered, “I tell you, something is wrong in this world when a father can’t get his own daughter a kitten to sleep with! C’mon, Nabysko!” I braked. Leaving a perplexed Sunflower alone in her seat, I led Nabysko back into the gas station, where she scooped up the kitten.
As the three of us left the store and headed back to the car, the old man called out after us.

 “That’s a fine kitten! You won’t regret it!”

I thought about Kaboodle and how unfair this was to him. 

“I already do!” I shouted back.

*I actually said, “Hell!”, but there might be mommas who read this to their sweet, innocent, children and so I have toned down the language. I would note, however, that Nabysko survived hearing repeated utterances of the epithet uncorrupted.

Ps: Please note: These photos did not look so dark and muddy when I saved them in Photoshop, but somehow they translated this way online. I thought about removing this piece until I could get a chance to redo and replace them, but by then the post was already up. Plus, those of you who have tried to replace a series of photos already placed in blogger know that it is not a straight-forward, simple process. 

So, for the moment, I will leave them like this, but I hope to replace them with copies that translate better, very soon.

Royce knew Thunder Paws; he knew him well

As you all know, this is Royce, but what you have no way of knowing if I do not tell you is that I took this particular photo in the wee hours of this morning, right after I returned home from Fairbanks. 

By wee hours, I mean a bit after midnight. Although I truly did take this photo early this morning, in just five minutes from now I will have taken this photo yesterday. And so, tomorrow, now four minutes from now, anyone refering to this photo would likely say that it had been taken last night - although truly, I took it this morning.

Tonight, I had intended to tell the story of how Thunder Paws, the thinking cat, the second of the original Kracker felines, came to live with us. But it is late and I don't have the energy right now.

So, instead, I present this photo of Royce, who knew Thunder Paws well. 

Tomorrow night, I will tell the story of Thunder Paws.

Well, what do you know... the clock has passed midnight, once again. I did not take the above picture early this morning, as stated, but yesterday morning.

I no longer plan to tell the the story of Thunder Paws tomorrow night, but rather tonight. First, though I will try to get a good night's sleep and then put in a full day.

I kind of like having the picture of Kaboodle as the big picture, so I will leave it there until I post the Paws story. Royce has had, and will have, many opportunities to be in the big picture.

How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 14: Kaboodle - we make it through the winter, but I damn near die

As much as we loved him, we could not let Kaboodle freeload off us. So we set him to work, splitting wood with his sharp claws. He did a good job.

To any newcomers, or any old-timers who need a review, I suggest that before you read this, you click either on the label, "Kaboodle," or "How the Kracker Cats Came to be." 

I must wrap the Kaboodle intro section up, so that I can introduce the remainder of the original Kracker Cats. I have to leave to catch a plane to Fairbanks in less than an hour, so I will keep this very short.

In short, despite the great ignorance that I had in me toward cats, we made it through the winter, with all of us very much in love, even if there was a certain amount of strive and contention in our lives - because Kaboodle was that kind of cat - sweet, yet combative and contentious. 

And, as I said, he played rough. So it happened that when spring finally came, I was out on the Iditarod Trail, following a specific musher with my airplane, the Running Dog, as he ran his dogs from Anchorage to Nome.

In the village of Kaltag, where the trail turns off the Yukon River and makes its way through a low range of mountains toward Unalakleet, at the edge of Norton Sound, I chatted with a vet as he gave the dog team I was following an exam.

I asked him about cats, and if they ever scratched him when he examined them.

One day, I stepped into the living room and found him like this. He had worked so hard to split that wood, I figured he deserved to chill out and relax.

"Oh, yes!" he said. "Frequently. Getting scratched by cats is part of being a vet."

So I took off my various coats and jackets, rolled up my woolen sleeves, and showed him the scars and scabs Kaboodle had left on my arm - not in meanness but in play.

His eyes went wide. "Wow!" he said. "You have an extraordinary cat!"

As the race moved toward the finish line, I grew every more sluggish and lethargic; my body and limbs seemed to be stiffen. Ordinary movement became more difficult. I chalked it up it to the physical demands placed upon even a photographer who follows this grueling race, even in a little airplane.

But when I got home and tried to catch up on my rest, it did no good. 

The sluggishness grew worse, and I stiffened more. Pain set into my legs and joints and then grew to become unbearable. By late April, I could hardly walk, it hurt so bad. But the ice on the lake that I had parked the Running Dog was about to rot and melt, so I made a heroic effort. In great pain, I taxied the plane off the lake onto the shore, removed the skis and put my wheels back on.

This left me in such pain that Sunflower rushed me to Anchorage. The doctor looked me over, speculated that I had sarcoidosis - a disease that can kill and recently did kill the actor, Bernie Mac. The doctor subscribed Prednizone.

I got well again.

Later, I was reading something, somewhere, and I saw the words, "catscratch disease." I read the article. The symptoms were identical to what I had suffered, what the doctor diagnosed as sarcoidosis. 

.....hmmmmm?

It has been a long time since I have reported on any activities of the contemporary Kracker Cats. First, I began to tell the history (which I must soon get back to) of the original Kracker Cats, beginning with the Whole Kitten, Kaboodle. Then I spent a week running around New York City and I had no chance to post, period. Next, I ignored the cats who live here so that I could tell stories about the cats I had met in New York.

So it is time to catch up a bit on the activities of the Kracker Cats.

This particular activity took place on October 29, right after I got back from New York. As you can see, Martigny is extremely excited about some dramatic event that is happening right outside our back door.

Just what, I don't know.

Royce is less excited; he is just slightly curious.

Now Jim comes over to check out the excitement. As you have probably already noticed, baby Wry observes with nonchalance.

Whatever it is, Jim and Marty are transfixed. As you can see, Royce has left the scene.

Perhaps it is because he has 15 years or so of wandering in and out of the house at will, or at least when he can get someone to open the door for him, and so things from the outdoor world that are a wonder to the indoor cats are commonplace to him, but, for whatever reason, Royce loses all interest and curls up beside me to take a nap.

Now Jim has stepped out of the picture - but not because he has lost interest. He just seeks a better vantage point. Sunflower is growing very curious and wants to know what has captured the cats' attention.

I want to know, too.

As Barack Obama campaigns on TV, Sunflower and Wry get up to check out whatever it is that have the cats going so. Sunflower can see nothing. Maybe Baby Wry sees it, but we don't really know what Baby Wry sees, even when he looks at exactly what we look at. Sunflower even goes outside, onto the back porch, to see if she can spot the item of interest. She cannot.

Baby Wry's attention goes elsewhere. Marty remains intently focused on the great mystery.

Jim has found a better vantage point.

Royce lazily opens his eyes. Silly young housecats, he seems to be thinking.

The silly young housecats remain intently focused upon that which remains a mystery to us humans.

How stupid can you be? Marty's eyes seem to say, don't you understand the magnitude of what is happening, just beyond our back door?

No. I'm afraid I don't.

The cats got me here. Sometimes, we think they don't comprehend so many things that are obvious to us but to which they are oblivious - like, say, a Viagra commercial on TV. They don't get it at all.

Yet, even so, they are comfortable in their complete understanding of the world. And, as is clear here, it is obvious that they see, hear, observe, and know many things that we foolish humans are just as oblivious to as they are the Viagra commercials.

Obviously, these two are very bright. They understand that which eludes us.

Marty leaves in exasperation, perhaps to go to another window in a bedroom. Jimmy continues his studies, as does Wry, although they study different subjects.

And Royce sleeps peacefully, because he knows more than all of us, including the house cats. The house cats will never know what Royce knows. I hope they live as long and healthy as he has.

I am buried in cats

I had a different plan for tonight, but I haven't the time to execute it. So I am going to a break and let Charlie be tonight's photographer, and me be the subject. As you can see, I am buried in cats - Royce and Chicago, to be specific. Outside, it is cold, but it feels very warm beneath these cats.

Sometimes, I am buried in more cats than this. Although, because there are rivalries among the cats and they can have disputes in the middle of the night, only Jim and Pistol are allowed to come to our bed every night. But sometimes, on the weekends, when Sunflower goes to work early and can't close the bedroom door all the way, they all come in.

For some reason, they tend not to fight when they come in early in the morning, and I wake up buried in five cats.

Successor to the new New York deli cat should be enjoyed with coffee

Oreo had made her bed atop the coffee bean dispenser. She was asleep.

You will recall King - the king of all the New York deli cats. I had hoped to see him again. Needing to save a little money, it had been my plan to find an economical motel somewhere away from the city, near a train station tied into the subway system, because, you understand, in New York City, downtown Manhattan, even a cheap hotel is expensive.

Still, my sister Sal Tien was with me and had never before been in New York City, so it seemed only right that before doing anything else, I should first drive her into the heart of The Big Apple. Of course, I also wanted to impress her with how I, an Alaskan country boy, knew my way around the biggest city in the United States, just like it was nothing.

So, not long after driving her into Manhattan, I said, “Central Park is just ahead.” Sure enough, I drove another three blocks and Central Park was right there.

Oreo hears me taking pictures. She wakes up.

“Now,” I said to Sal Tien, “I’m going to drive you to Times Square. You don’t think I can do it, but I’m going to take you there - just like it was nothing.”

And, sure enough I did. Suddenly, I felt far too tired to drive out into what they call hinter lands in New York to find a cheap stay. And there was the Hotel Edison, on 47th, just off Times Square. So we checked in, then stepped out onto the street to take a walk. (Please note: this was in 2002. There is no way I could afford a New York hotel today. Fortunately, on my latest trip, I was a guest in a very fine home of some people who used to live in Alaska.)

Naturally, Sal Tien wanted to head straight to Times Square. “No,” I said, “Let’s go this way,” and headed in the opposite direction. She was puzzled, but followed. I found a certain Deli and went inside, searching up and down the aisles, looking for a black cat, but I did not see one.

“Where is the black cat?” I finally asked the owner, who was at the cash register.

“The black cat?” he answered, sadly. “You want to know where the black cat is?”

"Yes."

Oreo seems to be wondering if she is still asleep, perhaps having a nightmare. She hopes she is asleep. 

“The black cat is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes. Gone. She was 15 years old and she died.”

“Oh, no,” I said, puzzled that he was calling the cat “she,” since I had understood, or perhaps misunderstood, her name to have been King.

“But look,” he said, pointing to a coffee bean dispenser perched high above the floor. I looked and there, sleeping atop the coffee, was a comfy tabby.

“Her name is Oreo,” he said. “She is one and a half years old.”

“Oreo!” I said admiringly, even as Sal Tien oohed and aahed with praises of her own. “Where did you get her?”

The deli owner, who appears to be of mid-eastern origin, looked at me as if I were stupid. “At the pet store,” he answered in a derogatory tone, as if all cats come from pet stores. I asked for a story, but he was not a story teller - at least, not in English. “She is like a human,” he answered. “My customers all love her. A customer bought her a collar. She is just like a human.”

And that is all that I learned about Oreo. I wonder if she likes to dip herself in coffee?

Oreo figures out that she is awake. This is not a nightmare. This is real life. She begins to scream. It comes out as a yowl.

Yowl!

Yowl!

Yowelll!!! 

Yowellllll!!!!!!!!!!

"Don't you dare dip me in your coffee!"

King of the New York Deli Cats

I have shown you all the cats that I photographed during my most recent trip to New York, but I have been in that city before.

Late one night, many years ago, when I still did all my shooting in black and white and Tryskuit and Nabysko still lived at home, I arrived in New York City and checked into my hotel room.  It was late, but I wanted to buy some shredded wheat so that I could eat it for breakfast the next morning. Leaving my cameras in my room, I stepped out of the hotel and then found a nearby Deli just off Times Square. 

In search of shredded wheat, I looked down an aisle and was surprised to see my own, very dear and beloved buddy, the black cat, Little Guy sitting there, sandwiched between a shelf stocked with peanut butter and jam and another with loaves of bread - both white and wheat. I looked a little closer and saw that this was not the Little Guy at all, but another black cat, one who was just a little shaggier than my big-hearted Little Guy.

How I miss Little Guy! It has been seven years now since I lost him! Seven years! And still I miss him!

Delighted and eager to meet this black cat, I stepped towards him. He leapt to his feet, scurried off down the aisle, then slid onto his side and started clawing maddly at some boxes of Riccola, as if perhaps he had a bad cough and needed some relief.

I caught up to him there and we visited awhile.

I then told the owner of the Deli, a man whoose physical features and accent suggested origins somewhere in the Middle East, that my two daughters would be greatly disappointed if I returned from New York City without a photo of a cat. “Would you mind if I came back tomorrow, with my cameras, to photograph this cat?” I asked.

He laughed outrageously. “Sure,” he exclaimed, “you can photograph King.”

But the next day was such a busy one for me that I did not get the chance, and early the morning thereafter I boarded my plane and returned to Alaska. My journey had been an utter failure, for I had not photographed a single cat in New York City. When would I ever get a chance to return to the Manhattan deli?

As it happened, about six months later. After I arrived, before I did anything else, I headed straight to the Deli. The man did not recognize me so again I explained my purpose. Again he laughed loud and long. “Sure!” he again exclaimed, “You can photograph King.”

Again, I found King taking it easy by the bread, peanut butter and jam, and again he scooted off to claw at the Riccola, causing me to wonder if maybe he hadn’t embibed a bit from the cases of IPA Bitter Brew Brew stacked just across the aisle.

King and I engaged each other for the photo shoot and then I went to find the man, to see if he would share some stories about King, but he had left the store.

A younger fellow had taken his place but he was not comfortable speaking English, and I could not even identify the language that he spoke. I can tell you this about King: all who came in the deli were delighted to see him. People can be pretty brusque and rude in New York City, but in that deli, in the warming presence of King, New Yorkers all smiled; King had decreed that all New Yorkers who entered his kingdom must be friendly and pleasant and all happily obeyed.

Next up: See what happens when I go back to the same Deli a few years later.

Can't quite bear to remove buttons yet

All you who love your cat buddies! I was just about to make a new post, but I could not bear to remove the big picture of Buttons by the white tiger and replace it with another. Plus, I am very tired - exhausted you could say - I don't know why, but exhaustion seems to be my norm these days.

So I decided to leave Buttons big for one more night.

Tomorrow night I will make a new post. A new big picture will go up and Buttons will come down. Unless I get too lazy. One never knows about this. I just might get so lazy that I stay in bed all day, all night, and all of next year, too. I think by the beginning of 2010, I would start to feel guilty about having lain in bed so long. I would then crawl out from beneath the pile of happy cats that would be sleeping on me, and I would make a new entry.

Then I would eat a huge portion of pancakes and eggs.

Sorry, but I get like this, sometimes.

Coney Island, Part 2: Santos fights New York City hall to save his garden for his good cats

I am so exasperated! I have been trying to load these pictures for hours, and now that they are finally loaded (not through my usual Safari Browser, but through Firefox, which is much slower than Safari) I feel too exasperated to write in here. And yet, I need to post this story. So...

As you can see, Santos let me into his Coney Island garden. Buttons, who just happened to be as cute as a button, lept up into the cage of the white tiger. I was frightened for her, but she handled bravely. The white tiger was so impressed with her courage that he stood perfectly still, in admiration and did not harm her at all.

As for Luther, Santos told me that he used to be Lucy, but then one day it was discovered that he has a male organ, and so he became Luther. I am finding that this is a common mistake, which makes me feel better about how our original estimation of the Whole Kitten, Kaboodle.

Santos was born in Puerto Rico, moved to New York 53 years ago and sometime after that, he made this garden in Coney Island. He calls it, "Santos White Garden." Somtime later, he found eight homeless kittens, and so he let them move into the garden. He has had cats there, ever since.

Buttons and Luther. Buttons has two little button eyes, a button nose, and a button butt. That is why she is buttons. Santos did not tell me this, I just deduced it. We Krackers have always been good deducers.

But Santos did tell me how he almost lost the garden to the city of New York. There were folks in the government of that city that did not think that there were enough buildings in New York. They sent some scouts out to find places where they could build more buildings.

Such a scout found Santos' White Gardens.

Soon, Santos received word: his garden had been condemned! All of his little statues, his hanging apes, his various toys, would all have to come down. As for his chickens and ducks, it would be best if he just ate them, as they stood in the way of progress.

His cats, who had always had free roam of the garden, would have to learn how to live indoors only, or maybe be given to someone who lived on a farm.

Look at Tiger! Tiger is the daddy cat to Luther and Buttons. He is old but virile. He never did lay before the surgeon's knife. Look how tough he is! You can see that he is an outdoor cat. And yet, he is a city cat. Not a farm cat.

What would Tiger do, if Santos had to leave his garden, so that some rich person could put up big building in its place, and grow even richer.

But Santos fought for his Tiger! No one was going to take Tiger's home away, just to build a building. And Tiger has a wife, Fuzzy. She needed a home, too. Plus, Santos opens his gates to classrooms of New York school children, who come over to see what a garden is like, and to pet the kitties.

Santos protested in front of city hall. He made signs. He made phone calls.

Santos even got the ear of former Governor Spitzer, before his recreational activities cost him his job. Spitzer was at first in favor of removing gardens for building, but when after Santos educated him, he came around.

A governor really does not have final say in what a city does to the gardens within it, but still he was a good allie to have.

In the end. Santos won. His garden is still there. Schoolchildren still come around. His four cats have a home, with chickens and ducks.

As for Buttons and Luther, I should note that they were only half the litter. Santos gave their two siblings away.

What about Fuzzy, their mother?

Here she comes! This is fuzzy!

Fuzzy comes to Santos.

Santos also plays a blues guitar, down on the boardwalk, in the summer time.

I am too tired to write anymore about it. Just look at the picture, and add your own caption.

Looks to me like they all get along pretty good.

Luther.
Buttons and Luther.

Luther and Tiger. There's more, but I must go to bed now, so this will have to do.