the rix mix

Another load of snow dumped here yesterday, six or seven inches wet. More wet snow tonight that will likely include freezing rain & may or may not go all the way to rain. Another snow projected for Sunday.  Sunday is when Gina & Glen return from their ten day Florida vacation.  If they can. My arrangement for feeding Gina's cats on a daily basis does not include shoveling her sidewalks.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ, weather

Guy with sleazy exotic animal farm in Zanesville Ohio lets all animals loose & kills himself. Dozens of loose animals including Bengal tigers are shot. Animal rights people went nuts. But put yourself in the shoes of the local sheriff. It was late in the day. He  couldn't ascertain exactly how many or what kinds of animals were free. Grizzly bears. Mountain lions.  Monkeys. You know how to escape from a mountain lion that chooses you as prey?  You don't, because it's behind you & leaps on your back. It's rare, but every so often a jogger in California finds this out.

Labels: cats, in the news, nature

Because it's a birthday tribute, I disputed WMG's worldwide block of the video. Unfortunately, I won't be uploading any more of this amusing Batman-themed album. (Not April Fools. Too many disputes & they delete your You Tube account).

Labels: cats, music, video

Gina brought her laptop to the hospital but was unable to pull in a wifi connection. So much for blogging from there. If I'd had a netbook, I would've stashed it in the hospital safe. A blackberry or expensive cellphone would've been taped to my arm. I was in four locations, & taken once to the basement for ultrasound tests. Every location had its own cast of characters, many just passing through to take blood pressure, empty garbage, sweep up, drop off & pick up food trays. The proportion of personal trustworthiness is probably about the same in every hospital, city or suburb. I jokingly asked Gina to bring in her best lap cat, a thin long-hair named Meanie (this mature kitty takes an unexpected swipe once in awhile), & Gina said she could have walked past security with her cat carrier. The celebrity scandal tabloid disappeared but the Daily News remained.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ

Senator Edward Kennedy. His absence from the health care debate this summer, one of Kennedy's signature concerns throughout his long career, was unfortunate. Ted always reminded me why & how I had become a liberal; mainly human rights, & the unfinished business of a progressive Democratic president I knew only from history books & old newsreels, Franklin Roosevelt.

Lefty: Gina's quietest cat, put to sleep this morning. Deaf or nearly so, Lefty always had serious health problems. When I'd arrive to open the cans, Lefty would wander into the kitchen, take any available dish, eat any flavor, then curl up somewhere & sleep. In the winter it was usually a cushion in front of a radiator, but she might be anywhere; on top of a cardboard box, on a dining room chair, I'd hear her snoring. Occasionally, she'd surprise me by playing with another cat. She was unobtrusive, gentle, with an undemanding temperament. I didn't try to force a relationship with her, just gave her a little scritch now & again, she always seemed content enough going her own way.

Ellie Greenwich: Co-composer of brilliant pop mini-dramas with awesome sing-a-along hooks, some of them quite silly; but, taken together, they spoke to & for suburban & working class white boomer teens of the early to mid-Sixties, often passionately. Many of Ellie's most enduring songs are like chants for jumping rope. My personal fav is probably "I Can Hear Music," swell versions by The Ronettes & The Beach Boys.

I can hear music
I can hear music
The sound of the city, baby, seems to disappear
I can hear music
Sweet sweet music
Whenever you touch me, baby
Whenever you're near

Set to a wonderful melody, write it in chalk on the sidewalk.

One of the reasons I loved British bands like The Animals & The Rolling Stones as a teenager was because they admired ( & recorded) the New York Brill Building pop of songwriters like Ellie Greenwich, but understood rock & roll needed to get back to its blues, rockabilly, & live band roots. We laugh now at "Leader of the Pack," & consider it a classic, but I disliked it when it was a hit; for me it was the epitome of packaged novelty pop, redeemed only by the Shangri-Las, who performed it like nonfiction. It was also Ellie's third #1 song in 1964, the Year of The Beatles, & the other two - "Chapel of Love" by the Dixie Cups & "Doo Wah Diddy" by Manfred Mann - were pretty damned good.

Labels: cats, music, obituary

Gina's backyard, looking toward her house. The area I'm in is shadier than the photo, which was lightened a bit. It's a four-part yard. Deck next to the house, then a small grassy area fringed with flowers & shrubs. This is the "grove," with flagstone paths & brickwork patio with a picnic table, Wiccans would love it. Behind me is a "glen," a small wild area, a mini-woods covered with ground ivy, & a shed Gina doesn't use much. The houses on either side have ordinary grass yards.

There's a county-built fence at the edge of the property, beyond that a small creek flowing out of Kean University &, unfortunately, a noisy playground & park.

I visit this lovely scene many weekends to feed Gina's cats, a five minute walk.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ

Bored with swatting at moving images on TV, Sparky (standing on hind legs) contemplates catching & eating the noisy children kicking a ball around the street in front of Gina's house. The magnificent hunter ears give you away. Shame on you, Sparky, it was two of those children who got Gina to take you in as a kitten but a few months ago when you were otherwise destined for the evil animal shelter, the one that considers cuddly little kitties expendable when they are no longer so cuddly or so little. Shortly after this photo, they came over to say hello & scritched you & cooed over you & called you adorable.

Labels: cats

Part of today's Scorpio Sun sign horoscope:

You're trying to get someone to see how wise it is to give in and fall completely and totally in love with you. It will definitely work, of course -- who could possibly resist you?

I'm doing no such thing, unless posting the excerpt indicates that I'm trying it, in which case I don't know who or why. Later, I'm visiting some cats. They'll be cat happy to see me because they know I open the cans.

In the meantime, though, a little ambiance to go along with that dinner invitation couldn't hurt. Say, a couple of candles, some flowers and maybe some mood music. You know what to do.

Yeah, open the cans fast, dump them on the plates, get out of the kitchen.

Labels: astrology, cats

Later: Slightly underdressed for walk .. windy. Treated myself to small latte on sale at Dunkin', rarely drink caffeine after morning coffee, DD switched TV from Fox back to CNN, inclines me more to sit down there. 40ish woman with wifi laptop, studying for NY bar exam. Seen her there before. Don't know how much she learns. But I used to study at a Wendy's that played classical music in the afternoon, part of it was not having a convenient college cafe or library & just wanting to get out & do some people-watching, & I did swell on the tests.
***
High fifties & had a spring shower. With the relentless cold & "wintry mix" we've had so far, we're due for run of mild weather, & early February is often our deep freeze in Jersey. Yesterday, I wandered downtown, mainly to stop at Radio Shack, but decided to hoof it all the way to the Main Library for Our Lincoln, one the many books timed for Lincoln's bicentennial birthday. It's just getting started. I arrived home with that & a 2 x 6 rug, "Made in the USA" according to the label.

Gina & her boyfriend are in Fort Lauderdale this week, staying at an old family-owned motel close by the racetracks, a vacation quickly arranged when Glen learned he was going on the graveyard shift & decided he needed some time in the sunshine before his circadian rhythms were discombobulated. This leaves me in charge of The Cats. With two kittens, the list keeps growing of stuff not to leave out in open, now including cellophane candy wrappers. Last night they were already tuckered out, thank heavens, & I listened to a new organ CD on Gina's very loud music machine while I ran a load of laundry in the basement. Then carted home my new comforter, all my packages delivered to Gina's.

If I was rich, I'd do three things for Elizabeth. I'd expand the Elmora Branch Library so it has more space for books & a comfortable reading area. Then I'd fund a year of Sundays, partly to see if the local Orthodox community would use it as much they do weekdays, & partly because the 8 computers are busy all day Saturday & they'd probably be as in demand Sunday; I'd support a children's librarian- there are not enough organized activities, & the ones they do have & promote seem to draw participants. But first I'd move out of the city. The Main Library is not convenient for most people in Elmora. We're like a separate town here, the most ethnically & economically diverse area of the city.

Except for the Orthodox, Elmora is like my former town, Rahway, changes block by block, if not gentrifying with upscale condos & expensive restaurants, but that would happen if a light rail connection came here & the economy picked up. Elmora is a "natural" for light rail. Most of the route already exists on the old Jersey Central right-of-way, 2 minutes to the downtown NJ Transit station & a short trip to Jersey Gardens Mall & the airport. & there's some wonderful old high ceiling apartment buildings, including several clustered around a large, rectangular park a few blocks from what would be the Elmora trolley stop.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ

Gina named her new kitten Sparky.
She named it Sparky because the vet needed a name for the new patient file & that one popped into Gina's head.
Sparky was at the vet because soap bubbles were coming out of his mouth.
Soup bubbles were coming out of his mouth because he had been on the kitchen counter drinking the dishwater.
Why then, I asked, didn't you name him Bubbles? Or Dawn, Palmolive, or Dermassage? Or Rabies?
& for heaven's sake, you own about ten cameras, & I know half of them are pinholes & he'd never sit still for those, but couldn't you have taken a photo of the soap bubbles before you went to the vet? I would have posted it on my blog & gotten 10,000 hits from the silly cat photo people just by captioning it, "Kitten Blowing Soap Bubbles."

The vet concluded that no medical treatment was necessary. That would have been my guess, but can't blame Gina for worrying. Although it's unlikely Sparky will connect dishwater with blowing bubbles, & blowing bubbles with a trip to the vet, one can always hope.

Labels: cats

At Gina's tonight watching Keith O after feeding the cats, the doorbell rang. This was unique in my experiences there. At the door were three neighborbood girls, the oldest maybe 13. They had come to see the kitten, or kittens, I wasn't sure. They explained that they had given Gina four kittens. Gina found homes for three & kept one, but I didn't know if she had told the girls yet, so I dodged it. They know I'm the cat guy, I'm over there almost every weekend for a little while, sometimes I sit on the steps in front of the house & read the newspaper while the cats eat. It's a dead end street & the kids play in it.

The kitten was peeking out the door. I handed it to the girls, they passed it around. I said it didn't have a name yet, & Gina expected it to choose its own name, & the oldest girl said seriously, "Yes, sometimes they do that." Don't ask me to explain how this happens, but it does. Apparently satisfied that this kitten was doing fine, they took their leave. "Come back Sunday & get the official report," I said. Nice kids.
***
Craig Ferguson: You voted for Barack Obama? Why?
George W. Bush: McCain would just give us 8 more years of Cheney's failed policies.
**
Craig Ferguson: You can't leave now. You're president until January 20th, read a copy of the Constitution.
George W. Bush: Cheney ripped them all up.
***
Getting back to normal here. I had 12 times my average pageloads on Tuesday - the rise began on Sunday - because Google was finding a blog post from over a year ago that mentioned the electoral college & contained a graphic. Happened twice before with posts about a giant extinct scorpion & a count the yoyos word contest on TV.
**

Labels: cats, count the yoyos

About a year since I rode my little bike. The tires were flat, it was dusty. My tire pump was broke. I borrowed a pump, inflated the tires, dusted it off, oiled it up, carried it downstairs & set out for downtown Elmora at a good clip. Chilly & windy. About 1/3rd of the way I concluded it wasn't going to happen this afternoon, & I stopped, turned around, & rolled it back, riding only the last block. No matter how much walking you do, you aren't using what you use on bike. Other times I laid off the bike for long periods, I had the good sense to not just get back on it expecting to go on errands, which why I have it. I'd ride slowly, get off & walk if my legs felt stressed, take it up to the park around the corner. At a slow pace, riding my little bike isn't much more strenuous than walking. But it's different than walking.
***
Gina kept one of the four kittens she was care-taking. No name yet, it will in some way name itself. It is cute & rambunctious, climbed most of the way up my leg when I was popping tops on the cans - they learn that noise early. Plays with my shoelaces, bats crumpled paper around, stops & stares at the TV, & is upsetting the complacent routines of the other cats in the house, which is a good change for them. They hiss it away if they must. It's also an affectionate, purring critter, already drawn to warm laps. Unlike the previous kitten, now 2 1/2 years old, that is friendly & likes good, hard scritching but will not be held except on protest. I have to watch where I step, & be very careful when I enter & leave. The other cats pretend they're interested in what's outside, but given the brief opportunity to make a dash for it they never do. Three of them had been homeless.

There are cat people & there are cat people. The worst are the crazies with 30 or 100 cats running around, & eventually the neighbors complain about the stink, & the SPCA comes, & Hazmat has to detox the house or condemn it. Then there are the obsessives, they only need two or three cats, but might have more, & the psychological atmosphere is very thick with anthropomorphism. The sane relationship is to appreciate cats as cats - this means you acknowledge the lion & tiger in them for better & worse, treat them as roughly equal housemates but with rules. There have to be some rules. Of course, humans have rules, too. We all have to use our proper poop places. You let them live their lives as cats; they're complex, individual creatures in their feline ways. They don't know we're "humans." I'm pretty sure they know we're not cats. I move into their territory easily when Gina's away. I announce my arrival the same way every visit. I don't see myself as the substitute boss; I'm the necessary guest. I'm aware that two of her cats have forms of cat PTSD & were rescued. One is friendly but keeps to itself. Another is affectionate but is troubled by loud noises & unexpected movements, a cat that's been kicked around, so I don't stay in the kitchen when it eats, & if I'm moving toward it I'll say quietly, "Just passing by, Fred," & that seems to be all he wants, a little advance reassurance.

Wish I had something original to say about cats, I could write a cat book, they always sell.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ

Nasty weather. Not good for baseball in Philly. I'm waiting for the rain to end before I walk up the street to feed Gina's cats. Gina is foster-caring four kittens in an upstairs room, they're well provided for until tomorrow, I'm under strict orders not to look at them lest they get loose. I think she wants to keep one. She lost a cat a over a year ago, & her semi-feral outdoor cat, Creamsicle, disappeared last month.

I've had one shower this week that was steamy enough, which means the temp isn't hot enough for dishes. But if the landlord thinks he's saving money, the heat came on the other night at 3 am & it got so stuffy I had to get up & turn off the radiator.

I took no. 17 Pittsburgh & the points, they're overrated, but a no brainer I figured given Rutgers offense. Rutgers kicked Pitt's butt. Go figure. Mike Teel was due one. Rutgers is mediocre team, not a bad team. They've had only one really awful game this year, against North Carolina. But having raised expectations, Rutgers has also raised up some very obnoxious fans. The Scarlet Knights can beat Syracuse. Army is no patsy this year but it's a home game, & I don't like their chances against South Florida or Louisville. Big East football is very strange this season. Soon we can turn our attention to our preferred Rutgers team, the basketball women.

Labels: baseball, cats, Rutgers, weather

I have a sneezing, runny nose, low fever, tickle throat cough cold. I don't feel sick enough to take the over-the-counter meds that turn you into a numb zombie; it was a day to put up with annoying symptoms & go with the listlessness, stay inside all afternoon & read a book. Later I had to walk up the street to feed four cats, so I ran a small load of wash at Gina's, then sat on the couch wrapped in an afghan, channel surfing sports, one cat behind my head, another next to me, & when I became too drowsy - as the cats shifted from doze to serious sleep, fine tuning their positions - I turned off the TV, pushed myself home, & drank a large glass of orange juice. Gina's next-door neighbors have a spacious Sukkot booth in their driveway. The Rabbi's entire family can fit in there with room to spare. In Brooklyn, booths the size of broom closets are squeezed together in front of apt buildings.

For several years I've been catching, when I could, reruns of Da Vinci's Inquest, a great Canadian cop show set & filmed in Vancouver, shown late Saturday on Channel 2. Just when I was closing in on seeing them all & finally making sense of the show's seven year trajectory, CBS took it off. It's a very unusual show. Some plots were one episode, some carried over, some were just dropped. One of the best episodes, the two crimes weren't even solved & the next episode made no mention of them. The show gave a sense of the monotony of investigations. The coroner & the detectives are always stopping for coffee or lunch, knocking on doors where nobody's home, standing around crime scenes that utterly puzzle them, you see how they start with almost nothing & there's no CSIs arriving in Hummers. Da Vinci, an investigator for the coroner's office & a former cop, carries a small shoulder bag, & is not immune to the sights & smells of crime scenes, muttering as he pokes around a rancid or brutalized body for an I.D. Really dogged, professional cops. Guns are rarely drawn. The weather is often wretched, cold & drizzly.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ, TV

The County contracts vendors to run refreshment stands in the larger county parks. No food trucks are allowed to operate inside any county park. Hot dog trucks occupy coveted spaces just outside the entrances of some of the parks. The unwritten code of Jersey Hot Dog Truck Territory applies to them, & competitors test the code at their own risk. Sometimes a hot dog truck will let an Italian Ice truck park nearby. Probably cousins.

The small county park up the street is mostly playground, very popular, & has no refreshment stand, & there's a one hour parking limit on the street. One enterprising ice cream truck operator slowly drives into the parking lot with "Popeye the Sailor" playing loudly. He parks the truck, turns off the music, locks up , & uses the park men's room. He stays in there for about ten minutes. By the time he gets back to his ice cream truck he's collected a large crowd of kids. He announces that he's going to the street where he'll open for business. He then drives slowly a few yards out of the park to the street like a Pied Piper playing "Popeye," sugar-fixated children (& some adults) walking behind the truck.
***
I like dogs. I'm wary of them when not properly introduced. I might stop & try to befriend any loose cat; if it comes over to say hello it won't bite me. I do not pet strange dogs even if they appear friendly, at least not until I've chatted with its owner & the dog has had time to sniff me. Most dogs exhibit no more than brief curiosity. Their top two interests are: 1. The odor of dead things; when a dog finds a dead thing it either eats it or rolls around in it. This is natural. 2. The odor of other dogs' pee. At night, with their poor vision, some dogs tend to get excited at shadowy humans, if not hostile. I expect people walking their dogs to restrain them when I pass by on the sidewalk. Tonight, a lady failed to do so & I could feel the yappy little thing snapping at the legs of my baggy jeans before she pulled it away, muttering in Spanish. At that moment I was reminded that I was capable of kicking her dog clear over the telephone wires if the leash extended that far. To be sure, I'd feel sorry afterward. For not kicking the woman instead. The dog was straining & barking yards before it got to me, & my vibe doesn't do that to dogs,* which means it's an ill-tempered little beast that goes nuts around every stranger. Odds are that it wasn't born to be nasty. A few weeks ago I got past a large, loose dog with a big red nose at 1 am without incident, although it approached me quickly out of darkness, I could hear the clicking of its toenails before I saw it, & I was plenty freaked by the encounter.

*There are humans with zilch empathy toward animals. Some of then even have pets, although it oughta be again the law, because they are deliberately cruel or, without realizing it, cruelly indifferent. I knew a guy capable of making a cat's hair stand on end just by looking at it. In the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake or lauded as a great witch hunter.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ, nature

Over to a friend's house three blocks away late afternoon to feed her cats, a quiet dead end street, decided to avail myself of her a/c & sofa & watch the Red Sox/Angels game. I'd brought along something to eat, thinking I might hang out. When the game ended I channel surfed for awhile. Heard the rumble of distant thunder a bit after ten & went outside & sat on the front steps, a line of storms coming from northwest, flashes illuminating the clouds, outlining them. Didn't know if they were headed my way but hoped for some cooling downdrafts. The wind kicked up, swirling warm & cool. The storms seemed to be dying out. Began to rain, drops at first, starting & stopping, then steadier, the scent of shower, nothing torrential, just what remained of a cloud-wringing. I moved under the roof overhang. The lightning stayed in the clouds, no great claps. The wind blew fresher. I could hear the rain in the trees. It was a small, friendly storm. When it ended, the three old cats had disappeared into their night places, the young one stretched out on the cool wood floor, awake, tail twitching, observing harmless invisible things. She was dismissing me. So I shut everything off, locked up & walked home, sidewalks already drying out, the air summery, the oppressive heat gone until tomorrow.

Labels: cats, weather

Labels: cats

Here's a local story so horrifying I hesitate to post it. But I know my readers include many animal lovers.

Grand jury indicts man for animal cruelty in 19 cat deaths
Anthony Appolonia answered newspaper advertisements seeking homes for cats.

The cat rescuers who gave 19 felines to Appolonia between October and December thought they were giving the animals, house pets and stray kittens, a loving home.

Instead, the 50-year-old unemployed Aberdeen man tortured and killed the animals while he went on the prowl for more, authorities said today.

A Monmouth County grand jury indicted Appolonia today on 19 counts of animal cruelty, offenses punishable by at least five years in prison per cat, said Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin.

You can follow the link if your stomach can handle more details. Ledger commenter Joeworker writes, "This can't be his debut at this behavior." How true that must be. As we add "alleged" behavior.

The calculated deceits & sadism of this demented man set him apart. He doesn't even have the sorry rationale of "bloodsport," sending animals to painful deaths in cock fighting rings & dog pits. But animal cruelty is epidemic, mostly individual, invisible & ignored. I'm not even speaking of the mass production food industry. Pets starved, abused, neglected, abandoned. Wherever I've resided, I've had neighbors who should not have had the right to keep pets (or raise children). The easiest & most common way to train a "junkyard dog" for guarding one's backyard is to make it so miserable it wants to rip any living thing to shreds. My friend Gina brings stray cats in from the outside that obviously spent time in other human homes. One of them, Fred, a wonderful, friendly creature with a soul of his own as surely as you & I, reacts to sudden movements as if he expects to be literally kicked around, although he has received only kindness & respect from the lucky day he found shelter with Gina.

Labels: cats, in the news, nature

Dear ____;

I saw you as an old lady in the supermarket today. You had to be 80.

Although you had an attractive thirtyish woman hovering near you, you pushed your own shopping cart into the checkout line. She placed the items on the conveyor, & put the filled plastic bags in the cart.

You were gray-haired & slightly hunched. On your head was a black beret, tilted a little. Your plain black coat, on closer examination, was a cool weather, snap up windbreaker with a double-thick collar of the type sold by Land's End. You wore a pair of funky but quality sneakers, well past original white. They looked several years old & comfortable.

You bought Quaker maple flavor single serve envelope instant oatmeal; several cans of Progresso soup; a loaf of Pepperidge Farm whole grain bread; & a few other things I couldn't see. Not much.

You also bought food for what I guessed were two cats. A small bag of Friskies, over a dozen assorted cans, all name brands. You know what they'll eat & what they won't.

As the cashier rang this stuff up, you dug around in your messy black leather handbag, muttering to yourself, & I thought, Cripes, here it comes, the wad of coupons. But you were only looking for your credit card, which for some reason was floating around loose in there. You handed it to the cashier, signed the receipt, & slowly pushed the shopping cart out the electric door followed by your young friend (who told me she was your next-door neighbor).

Love,
bob

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ, shopping

I was looking after Gina's four kitties this week (& two semi-feral outdoor), & she lets me have run of her house, too. Gives me a chance to catch up on the laundry, & watch large screen satellite TV. College basketball. An episode of Big Valley if I'm there at 6. Occasionally, an entire movie. Tonight I saw most of Clerks II, just a modest love story as Dante chooses his buddy Randal over rich woman Emma, with the other love interest, Becky, not convincingly true love, it's impossible to forget she's Rosario Dawson. Plus the donkey-fucking act, funny mainly because we & the characters are set up to expect it will be a woman & a donkey like a stag party version of Catherine The Great.

I also watched election coverage. An original insight from any of the "analysts" on CNN & MSNBC must be very rare. Pat Buchanan's pip-squeaking voice, up, up it goes as he becomes more agitated until I expect him to start singing "Betcha By Golly Wow." How can people watch this stuff hour after hour? Graphs, statistics, & endless yapping about what it all means.

Most exciting events on Saturday night were two loud cracks of thunder that sent one cat running into the dark dining room & then upstairs while the cat behind my head on the back of the couch simply woke up both times & looked out the window without getting up. I was for going upstairs, but I bravely controled myself.

Labels: cats, TV, weather