December 24

Sabrina

About 10 years ago (around the time that Hissy Cat first showed up here) I met an appealing and friendly little girl who was around 10 years old, while she was walking her little Pomerianian dog around our cul-de-sac. I wound up talking to her on several occasions. I would be in front of my house, perhaps petting my cat at the time, Sabrina, pulling weeds, or getting ready to get in my car, when the girl would come by. At that time, I think that Eunice must have been in Taiwan, so I had to do all homecare duties myself. Once, she came by herself, and asked me whether I had seen her dog. She said her dog had run up the street. Fortunately, she found her dog before long. I remember that commented that I seemed to like animals as well, and I told her that was true. I also told her about my pets, and we talked about animals. She told me that her dog's name was Annie, and that she had come from Argentina with her mother a couple years earlier. By this time, she already spoke fluent English. I don't remember whether she told me her name then, or whether I told her mine, but her name turned out to be the same as my cat's, Sabrina.

Flashing forward to this fall, I had a student in my MWF morning class named Sabrina, with a long, unusual hyphenated last name, who was distinctive looking, pretty, smart, engaging and somehow familiar. She was one of those people I quickly had an affinity with for some hard-to-define reason, as though there was good Karma between us, or perhaps a vague, pleasant memory. It was not until a few weeks later that I noticed her following behind me as I approached our street. It was then that I realized that she was the little girl down the street with the Pomeranian. A few days later, she drove up to my house in a car with her boyfriend, while Eunice and I were unloading cat food, appropriately enough, and revealed that she had also realized that we were neighbors. Later on, I figured out that Sabrina lives exactly three houses down the street from mine. As the semester progressed, Sabrina and I followed each other to or from school on several occasions. In class, Sabrina had an uncanny knack of anticipating my next point or seeming to know what I was thinking. Perhaps it was just because Sabrina was a very engaged student. In any event, having Sabrina in my class made for some interesting and amusing vignettes.

Sabrina was a very good and determined student. In fact, she had one of only seven "A"s out of about 130 students in three sections of General Psychology. Recently, in one of my talks with Sabrina, I found out that her ambition is to become a veteranarian. One of the best veteranary schools in the U.S. is in Davis, where my eldest brother teaches. I asked Sabrina whether she wanted to go there, but she said she wanted to stay closer to home. In any case, I am guessing and hoping that Sabrina will continue to be a successful student.

Sabrina's dog Annie is still alive and well, just like Hissy Cat. The strange thing is that, just like Hissy Cat, I had seen neither Sabrina nor Annie in the intervening years. I'm not sure I had seen her mother, either, so I really didn't know they still lived there, even though they only live 3 houses from me. Now, Sabrina has grown to be a fine young lady -- still the same cute girl, but grown up and in college. It is a strange feeling when I think of those days 10 years ago; they seem like they were only yesterday, but I know it was ten years ago. The saying "Where did the time go" comes to mind. Even though my independent perception of time has not accelerated and become a blur, and many things have happened since then, both in my life and in the world as a whole, even though I try to live in the present and not get stuck in the past, there is a compassionate, sentimental side of me which mourns the loss of the past, the fact that we cannot change it or relive it. On the other hand, as it turns out, Sabrina and I did have the opportunity to become reacquainted, and I am glad for that.

As Christmas approaches, let us be thankful for what we have, for all the "Sabrinas" in our lives, and for good Karma and its results.

December 22

Gorjilina is Jealous of Beautricia

Yes, it's true. In the land of feline beauty queens, jealousy has reared its ugly head. You see, Gorjilina and Beautricia are our other 2 cats, and they have been having an ongoing cat spat. In fact, Gorjilina has long since banished Beautricia to the now-abandoned next door neighbors' yard, so I would say that Gorjilina is a little territorial, and our yard is her territory. Interestingly, she doesn't mind having male cats in her yard, but strenuously objects to female ones. Even though she is fixed, she still seems fond of male attention (such as from Smurfull, although she does take a mild whack at him when she sees him to keep him in line). Gorjilina even chases much larger dogs out of our yard, yet she seems to sense when real danger is present. Beautricia also does not mind male company, such as that of Smurfull. She will eat contentedly a few feet away from Smurfull at times, and they sometimes give each other a friendly cat greeting (looking at each other and sniffing). But Beautricia specifically seems to have an aversion to Gorjilina, which is clearly because Gorjilina starts fights with Beautricia.

Last week, Gorjilina and Beautricia had a major fight. I saw Beautricia in her otherwise abandoned yard that afternoon, and she seemed eager to have some more Purina Cat Chow to eat, even though she had eaten earlier that day. (Beautricia seems particularly fond of Purina Cat Chow; no the Purina company is not paying me to say that.) I got some from another bowl and brought it to Beautricia's feeding spot near the brick wall separating our property from our ex-neighbors' property. While Beautricia was eating, I heard the growling noise of an unhappy Gorjilina. She was sitting on top of the brick wall, blocking Beautricia's escape route. Normally, when Beautricia sees Gorjilina, she makes a lightning fast getaway, but that was not possible this time. Beautricia stopped eating and approached the wall, apparently trying to figure out how she would make her escape. The next thing I knew, both of them were on the cement at my feet, in claw-to-claw combat as they faced each other with all eight legs whirling, all the while yelling cat insults at each other. I hear some guys get excited when they see two females fighting like this, but I was definitely not happy that my two feline beauty queens were fighting. I reached down quickly, and pulled Gorjilina by her luxurious fur away from Beautricia. (Gorjorlina looks like a living fur-ball.) Since the whole fight was clearly Gorjilina's fault, I gently reminded her that jealousy of her "sister" was not a good thing. (No, I did not spank her; spanking Gorjilina would not help.) Even though I only held Gorjilina for a couple of seconds, by the time I let go of her, Beautricia was well on her way to the next-door roof. Cats are fast runners and great jumpers, but Beautricia, who is large and long-legged, as well as beautiful, has to be the best at making escapes that I have ever seen. She consistently goes from our yard to the neighbors' chimney or the far side of their roof in approximately 4-5 seconds. Thus, even though Gorjilina tried to follow Beautricia, she was unable to find Beautricia.

About half an hour later, I saw Gorjilina return from the next-door yard. She was meowing and making her special happy sound, sort of a vocal combination of purring and meowing, with a sort of trilling effect, apparently satisfied that she had once again asserted her right to our property. Many cats make a happy sound that seems to combine purring and meowing, but I have never heard any other cat do this as loudly or as brilliantly as Gorjilina does, which is one of the wonderful things about her that more than compensates for her jealousy. The next morning, Beautricia was back for breakfast as usual, as though nothing had happened. Things were back to normal in the lives of our cats, and everything was hunky dory -- two cats in the yard, and all that. Although they may have their fights, and hunting escapades, catching creatures both that we want them to and ones that we don't want them to, I still love cats the best of all animals. They seem to me the most beautiful of animals, they do not pose any real danger to humans, plus, they are the only ones that purr. There is nothing else that quite compares for me to the soothing feeling of petting a nice, soft, furry, purry cat.

December 21

The absense of posts this past week is primarily due to finals and grading duties. By the way, according to my official measurement, we had 3.7 inches of rain this past week, the rainiest week in around 3 years, with much more on the way this coming week.

Actually, I plan to make the topic of the next several posts about animals, mostly cats, or people who love animals.

The Return of Hissy Cat

Around 10 Years ago, there was a stray cat that used to come to our yard regularly. She was a very loud, dark grey tabby (striped) female, with a habit of getting excited and hissing -- definitely a very wild cat unaccustomed to human care and companionship. Consequently, I called her Hissy Cat. She liked me, though, and let me pet her. However, one time, for some unknown reason, she suddenly bit me hard on my left hand, so I gave her a spank. Apparently, in addition to being unsocialized, she was a sensitive cat, so that after that, she was afraid to approach me, although I saw her a few times. I guess she thought that hissing at and biting people was being friendly.

One distinguishing characteristic that she had was that someone had cut off the end of her left ear, apparently with scissors, so perhaps she had been somebody's cat, but had been abused. In addition to Hissy Cat, there were two male cats which I saw less often who appeared to be related to Hissy Cat. Both of them had the same grey tabby cat fur pattern, large size, and large, broad head and nose, similar to Hissy Cat. One of them, I called Bobby, because someone had cut off most of his tail, making him look like a bobtail or bobcat. The tail had clearly been cut off. I could see the bone sticking out. I figured that the same person who cut off the end of Hissy Cat's ear had cut off Bobby's tail. The other one, I referred to as "Hissy Cat's other brother." He was the one I saw the least often. After a year or so, I stopped seeing any of them. With all of the dangers in this area, I was worried that they all had become victims of coyotes, large, vicious dogs, or perhaps stray cat hating people, although all of these cats seemed relatively intelligent, experienced, and resourceful. I was willing to take care of all of them, as long as they cared to be around here. I figured that no one else would care for or show affection to these strays, at least, no one that I knew of.

That changed shortly before Thanskgiving this year. I saw a dark grey cat with long legs retreating from the area where I feed one of my cats, Beautricia. A couple days later, I heard loud meowing in neighbors Ben and Doreen's back yard, and saw that same cat. I still hadn't connected it with the fact that this was Hissy Cat. However, the next day, she came to me, let me pet her, and asked for food. At that point, I could see that it was Hissy Cat, complete with the missing piece of her left ear, looking healthy and well fed after all these years. I was astonished that she was still alive and well. She was already an adult around 10 years ago, so she must be at least 12 or 13 years old now. I gave her some dry cat food, which she quickly gobbled up. For about the next week, she showed up regularly in our yard, and ate food with our cats. At first, her hissing habit seemed to have diminished, but over the next few days, she became more "friendly" in her terms, which means, she would run excitedly back and forth, rubbing against my ankles, all the while hissing loudly.

My speculation concerning why Hissy Cat suddenly showed up again, is that someone, either knowingly or unknowingly, has been feeding her all of these years, but went on vacation, so that Hissy Cat did not have her usual food source. Thus, she resorted to her backup feeder, who was me. I think that she normally lives down the street, or on a neighboring street, because she usually comes from that direction. Apparently, her feeder showed up again, because after 10 days or so of seeing her, I stopped seeing Hissy Cat once again. Why she has not been coming openly to eat the food that I put out during these intervening years, I really don't know, but even though she appears to be a stray, her headquarters has always seemed to be down the street somewhere. Perhaps she has had the good fortune of having been officially adopted by somebody. I hope so.

This is where the plot thickens. Around two and a half years ago, a little male kitten showed up in our front yard making overtures of friendship to my cats, and before long, to us people as well. The cat had all the physical charateristics of the Hissy Cat family. He had a broad, large head and nose, a striped grey tabby cat pattern, although somewhat lighter than the others and with some brown fur on his face. He also had beautiful, green eyes as opposed to the yellow eyes of the other members of the Hissy Cat family. This cat grew to stay more and more with us and our cats, in our yard, although he still spends a great deal of time down the street in Hissy Cat territory. He has grown to be a very large, sleek male cat which we consider tohave officially adopted into our famly as one of our cats. I decided to name him Smurfull based on his cheerful, freindly behavior and the "Smurfulling" (sounds like a vocal version of purring while saying the word "smurf") noises he makes -- plus I like the name. I also gave him the last name "Strayborne." We have a picture of this intelligent, handsome young fellow on our Dollyverse website. As you might have guessed by now, I suspected that he was a relative of Hissy Cat, which is one reason why I was so fond of him from the beginning. Now that I know Hissy cat has been alive and well all these years, I suspect Hissy Cat may be his mother -- that is, if Hissy Cat is not fixed. I have never seen her with kittens or visibly pregnant, but I know that cats with the same characteristics keep showing up in our neighborhood, either down the street, or on the connecting street. This group of cats includes two new additions that I am aware of -- two smaller, younger grey tabby cats that I have recently seen, one down our street, another on the connecting street. They have more white on their undersides, but otherwise, bear a strong resemblance to the Hissy Cat family.

There is something very Darwinian in all of this. While I am all about Peace, Love, and Understanding, I view evolution as a good thing, and evolution requires the propagation of good traits. As a species, I believe that we are at a point where we need to evolve socially and morally, but not really physically. However, in a neighborhood such as ours, which is very close to a mountainous wilderness park, with all of its inherent dangers, it is incumbent upon any creatures living outdoors to have their wits about them. It is this sort of competition which drives physical evolution, including the evolution of superior, more intelligent brains. As I have mentioned, these cats generally seem to have large size with very large heads, with presumably correspondingly large brains to fill these heads. They also seem very resourceful. Since I know Smurfull the best of these cats, I can say of him, that he is in many ways probably the most superior cat that I have ever been around, and I have been around many cats. He catches on quickly when there is something to be learned, and he loves both people and other cats. He is so gentle, that I can turn him over and pet his underside, without him complaining. He has never bitten or scratched me, although he knows how to hunt for his own food, such as gophers. He never starts fights with other cats, but will defend himself, or run away, when other cats decide to take a whack at him. He knows that his claws and teeth are to be used only for hunting, when he feels like having a rodent dinner, or defending himself. As does Hissy Cat, he seems to know how to stay away from danger such as large dogs, coyotes, or unfriendly people. Despite his friendliness, he has a sense of caution about him, so that his trust has to be earned. Perhaps some of Smurfull's good traits are just a fortunate coincidence, but I cannot help but wonder whether over generations of stray cats living in this neighborhood, those cats who are the most large, intelligent, resourceful, and friendly with people, such as Smurfull, have become the dominant strain.