June 2003

Thought For the Month: Summer Vacations
~by Mewsette

It's that time of year again, Summer! The time when our humans' thoughts turn to vacations. Vacations are strictly a human thing. We cats don't need them. Our whole life is a vacation. Maybe some cats might like to go along with their humans, but not me! Some cats might like to ride in a camper or vacation in a tent. Not me! But humans persist in wanting to go places for summer vacations, don't they? And that leaves most of us home alone. We don't get many choices about this. In fact, they don't even ask us what we'd prefer! Off they go to have a rootin' tootin' good time, and here we sit. We can only hope they'll feel guilty enough to come home sooner than they planned!

About your choices; here they are, and you won't like them. One is to "board" you. Is that an awful word, or what? Humans consider boarding nice and safe, but we cats are not as impressed. It's still leaving home, which we didn't want to do in the first place. It's like being in a kennel, and you know what else is in kennels, don't you? Mmm-hmmm, and they bark all night, too.

Sometimes there's a good reason to board with your Vet, like if we have a medical condition that needs monitoring or treatment while they're gone. But my vet said boarding at the hospital wasn't a good idea for me, because of all the viruses floating around in there. So she told my mom I could go to Texas with her last summer. (I didn't forgive that vet for a very long time.) There's an important pill I gotta take every day, and exactly one human in the world who can get it down me, my mom. So "whither she goest I goest." I got dragged off to Texas to visit grandchildrens and it was a disaster. So Mom and I compromised. No more vacations. Period.

In case they won't compromise that well, here's another choice: you get to stay home, and a professional cat-sitter comes every day to tend to your every need. That one's not bad, except they tend to want to find you, too. If they can't, they call your mom on the phone all the way to Denver and say "I can't find her." And your mom, who's supposed to be on your side, tells them where you hide! Then they fish you out from under the daybed so they can say yup, you're there.

Probably the most popular choice is that you stay home, and your mom cons anybody she can into coming in every day to take care of you. Relatives, neighbors, friends, the paper boy, who knows? You can only hope somebody you know shows up and they know how to smush up your food right. Most of them don't, let me tell you. They don't even read the 3 pages of instructions your mom left. There might have been something important in those, like that you are supposed to get a whole can of sardines whenever you want, who knows?

One thing you might try is to get into their suitcase the minute you see it out. Sit there and look as woebegone as you can, like your little heart is going to break if they leave you. I always did that so well but, to be honest, it doesn't work.

Back when my mom went running off twice a year, leaving us cats at the mercy of relatives that didn't smush up our food right, she used to call us every night at home and talk to us on the answering machine. We liked it. Of course, we learned later that my sisfur Phelicity can't be trusted with an answering machine when she hears her name on it. She'd paw the buttons to hear her name again, and somehow make all Mom's messages go away. So if your humans do this, maybe they better lock the answering machine in a birdcage or something. Because you deserve at least a phone call if they insist on leaving you. In fact, I recommend it.

July

Thought For the Month: Being Opinionated
~by Mewsette

What? Cats are opinionated? Of course we are! We are probably some of the most opinionated beings on earth, and we make it very obvious, too. Not only that, our opinions are always right. So why doesn't anybody listen to us?

Humans would be so much better off if they listened to our purrfectly good opinions about things, don't you think? What things? Basic things that matter to us. I don't mean all the troubles they see in their newspapers and things like that. Those don't concern us cats. We may have real simple opinions on all that, and it might do them good to just look in our eyes to see.

But we have our own small worlds. and most things are simple to us. When humans give their opinions, they call it their "two cents worth". Did you notice cats don't call ours that? That's because ours are worth a lot more. Why? We meditate, we consider, and then we come up with the right thing for ourselves. So we only need to communicate our wisdom to poor humans who don't have much.

I think one trouble with humans is the way they congregate in such vast hoardes. We cats don't do that; we don't have cities of millions and demonstrations of thousands. How can anybody hear what anybody else is saying that way? Not only that, our humans are sickly so much because they cluster in hundreds and sneeze on each other. We don't do that! We don't get several colds every year, either. Couldn't they look at us and figure that out?

How can we make our opinions known to our humans? Besides learning to speak English, which most of us find a little difficult. (My sisfur can speak it, but she's a rare case.) By being obvious, the very thing we're good at.

For example, suppose your litter box is always smelly and uncleaned, and you have had enough. Do you go to a lawyer and divorce your meowmie? Of course not. Do you go poop on her pillow to get back at her? If you do, shame! That's not polite. No, you go and get her, talk and meow to her, lead her to the problem and make it obvious what is unacceptable. Will she clean it? Yes. Will she love you even more for giving her the benefit of your opinion? Yes. How can you lose?

Or suppose you're unhappy because your human is depressed about something and didn't even notice they got you depressed, too. It happens. Do you go to a doctor and get pills to make you happy? Of course not. Do you retreat and hide in a corner? If you do, come out. That isn't good for us. What helps most if someone is depressed? Showing them lots of love. Who's better at that than we are? And they will love you even more for your good opinion that it was time to stop being sad. How can you miss?

There may be many times when your human needs your opinion. If you can communicate it to them so it's obvious, you can really help them. And what helps them will help you, too. I recommend it.

August

Thought For the Month: The Last Meow of Summer
by Mewsette

It's the last days of summer, and everything seems draggy and hot to me. Does it to you? I go to my enclosed porch and flop on a box, because the plushy window seats are too hot. This is the month of plop and sizzle.

I wonder if some of us get a little crazy in these too-hot, too-long, too-glary days. Or I wonder if it's not the sun, but the bright summer moon that makes some cats out of sorts. I know a cat who thinks it's been a full moon every night this month causing kitty tizzies. I'm not gonna argue with that! I'm too hot.

A hot cat gets longer, have you noticed? We go plop on the kitchen floor and stretch out long to get as much of our body against the cool floor as we can. The hotter we are, the longer we get.

Picture a big pile of cats all lying together, the way kittens do. The sun comes out, the cats are peaceful and getting along. The sun climbs higher, the cats get hotter, and start to feel sticky and suffocated. Do those cats stay contentedly in their pile? Nope. They roll away, push others away, swat with a feeble temper, and walk off muttering to find someplace shady. They don't even want to meow to each other, and if they do, they're snippy. Is that an easy picture to see?

Everything I read says this is the kind of hot weather we cats like. Well, consider this; none of those things were written by cats. How do humans know we like heat? We never told them that. They didn't ask us. They just accept each other's stories and say well, we're a "desert species" so we must like it. Not too bright, are they? I don't know about you, but I'm not a desert species. I'm a cold-water, air conditioning species.

Here's another picture: The sun gets lower and a brisk cool breeze comes up. All the cats wake up and look around. Hey, this feels better, and there are all their friends feeling better, too. Now they meow together and the kitty tizzies are gone. Now they feel more like doing things and having fun.

That's the picture I like, and it's coming soon. I recommend it.

September

Thought for the Month: A Harvest Moon

I love to see a full moon. Do you suppose the full moon affects us cats and makes us want to howl, the way it does some other animals? Do you suppose it makes us crazy? I'm not sure. Some say it does. I know when I see it shining bright, it makes me want to shine, too.

The moon is bright and showy,
It's round and shining white.
It makes me feel all glowy
On such a special night.

The month of September has what country cats call a Harvest Moon. That's the full moon that falls closest to the autumn equinox. Rather, it's a nearly-full moon that rises very early in the twilight sky for several nights. The Harvest Moon has a slight orangy glow instead of white. That has something to do with reflections and waves of light from rising so soon after sunset. And it's called that because it comes at harvest time.

The moon is orange and glowy,
As light as days at noon.
It's fabulous and showy,
When it's a Harvest Moon.

The Harvest Moon was very important to farmers in the old days. It gave them extra hours of light to get their crops harvested. You may not know about harvest, unless you live in the country or on a farm. It's not just about digging up potatoes and turnips, though that's part of it. Somebody has to dig 'em up. It's fun, too. I used to help when I was young. I was always a furry good garden digger-upper. It's a gift. But harvest is also about storing up for the winter. We cats don't do that, the way everybody from humans to squirrels to ants do it. About all we store up is extra fur. I mean our coats getting thicker, not our stash of fur bunnies under the table. We really don't have to store up. We can just enjoy.

And when the night is passing,
That moon is sinking low,
So big, so far outclassing
The other moons we know.

I think it shows how especially lucky we are, to have our humans provide for us. We don't have to worry about running out of potatoes and turnips - or rather, kibble and tuna. We don't worry about the winter coming. We really don't have to worry about anything at all. We are free to lie in our windows and gaze up at the big Harvest Moon and.... is that a cat's face I see? I always heard there was just an old man in the moon! Do you suppose there's a cat in this one? Do you see whiskers? Better come and look! I do! Could that mean the Harvest Moon belongs to us cats? Should something that special be ours? Of course it should. So it is.

Then let the Harvest Moon shine on you and make you all glowy. I recommend it.

October

Thought for the Month: Warm Paws

This is the time of year when we stop wanting to be cool and start wanting to be warm. It seems we always want to be the opposite of whatever it is outside, have you noticed?

When the weather gets cold, the oven in our house gets turned on again. Good smells come from it, and good food comes out of it - things I like, too, such as roast chicken and meatloaf. For months that oven just sat there, being a breadbox and skillet cupboard, but now it's gonna be warm and busy baking good food. Soon, in about another month, it'll do the best thing it does all year, roast a big turkey!

Before we came here, we had another kind of stove that not only cooked food on top, but warmed the house. It was a woodburning stove. It stayed cold half the year, too, but then it would have a fire inside, starting about now. Fires take a lot of tending! There were piles of wood and buckets of cedar kindling in the kitchen to feed it. pokers to poke in it, and a broom to sweep up all the mess. But the warmest, coziest place in the house for us cats was right in back of that stove. It usually had a pot of something simmering on top, and all of us cats lying on our pads behind it. It was the most heavenly place to take long, warm naps. My furmama and I snuggled as close to it as we could, and my little sisfur loved it so much, she'd stick her whole silly head under it. My mom was always fishing her out and brushing her off. We were the most contented cats you ever saw! We were warm.

One rainy winter, my mom put my furry own scratching log into that stove and burned it up! It was the only dry one she could find! She apologized to me for three days, cause that's how long I sulked. I got a new one, but it took me a long time to break it in.

You can't put wood into this oven we have now. It doesn't have any charisma. It has to have gas to make it hot for roasting, and it doesn't even have a behind. Not that I ever saw. As stoves go, it's not much fun. I sure liked the old one better.

Sometimes, when it's cold outside, I stretch out my paws and dream of that old woodburning stove. My paws feel warm and I can almost hear the fire crackling. We cats need warm paws, don't you think? The floors are colder now, and the windowsills are cold.

If your paws feel cold sometimes, stretch them out to something warm. It might be a fireplace or a furnace vent or even a dull white oven. It might be to your meowmie's warm lap or to your sisfur or brofur or another cat. Cats are warm. We all are. It's because we've got these fur coats on. Reaching out to any warmth will keep our paws warm, too. I recommend it.

November

Thought for the Month: Time in a Bottle

I heard an old song once, called "Time in a Bottle". That seemed to me a good place to put it. But we cats have no real concept of time, because we don't need to. We're not required to run out of the house and travel to some place we really don't wanna be and get there on time, nearly every day, the way lots of our humans are.

So when "time" is meddled with, such as when Daylight Savings Time (a misnomer, because it doesn't save any, it just moves it) ends in the Fall, and our humans are forgetting which clocks they didn't turn back and calling someplace on the phone to see what time it is, we don't care. We know when it's dinnertime, and it doesn't matter what the clocks say; we are right. If we say it's our dinnertime at 4 o'clock, even though yesterday we said it was at 5 o'clock, we are still right.

Animals always know best about time, even though we don't need to. Take cows, for example. You can't convince them it's the right time if you're an hour late milking them. They didn't see the clock. We cats, being of a high order of course, can also change our minds any time we want to. I myself decided that midnight was snack time a long time ago. Meowmies are easy to train; we can do that.

Sometimes we may have a deadline date in our CLAW work, that we need to get something done by. We should always do that, but that's a date. We still don't have to worry about what time it is each day. We're lucky that way. If time seems to pass too fast or too slow for our humans, it really doesn't for us. Unless we're hungry, and it's dinnertime according to us, take note.

Our humans get awfully busy during the holiday season, have you noticed? And it's here. You can tell when they start running around in a frenzy, dragging out stuff to decorate the house, going out shopping night after night instead of spending quiet time with us. Maybe they need to take a cue from us about being calm and unhurried. It's harder for them, but not impossible. It's hard for us, too, if we suddenly feel ignored. They could maybe put time in a bottle and forget all about it, one day a week anyway. Long as they feed us on time, that is. Then they might enjoy the whole thing more, all calm and contented, just like us.

We cats can just go on being serene (so we're not nervous wrecks like our humans), taking naps whenever we want (so we're a lot better rested than our humans), and that might be all it takes to be a good influence. "Oh, I have so much to do! What time is it?" they'll say. Then they'll say, "Oh, yes, I put time in a bottle today. I don't care." And they can just sit and snuggle with us and be all peaceful. I recommend it.

December

Thought for the Month: A New Year Coming

I hope you've had a very merry Christmas, and are enjoying a happy holiday season. Holidays can be so much fun. I have been busy all month wishing all my friends a Merry Christmas, because I really can't make the words "Merry Winter" come out. Anyway, if you live in Australia, it's summer for you, but it's still Christmas time all over the world. New ways and new words are not always as good or as much fun as old ones; not to me, anyway.

Very soon it will be a new year all over the world, too. Most cats don't pay much attention to that, but I think we do in CLAW. I see the new year come in winter. You know, ice and snow, cold and blustery, brrr! I love to look outside and see a snowy white landscape, all pretty and clean. That's sort of what a brand new year is, all pretty and clean. But the outside doesn't stay that way long, have you noticed? The snowplows and traffic mess it all up and it gets dirty. It's good to remember then what a wonderland it looked like at first.

Other kitties, who live in different climates, may see New Year's Day as warm and breezy, or grey and rainy. Those kitties on the other side of the world will see it as summer, bright and green, or maybe brown and hot. We see a day from many places and perspectives, but it is still the same day we see. And a happy this or that probably depends more on who we are with and what we get to do that's fun.

I'd like for the brand new year to be a wonderland for us. We have been saddened by the loss of so many fine CLAW cats this year, and I'm hoping next year will be better for all of us here. I wish for joy to come into all of our hearts and all our activities. When we don't feel like doing something because we're sad, that's the very time we ought to do it anyway and cheer ourselves up. I wish for the coming year to really be "new" in the ways we need for it to be "new", but not to lose the old ways we like the best that make it feel right to us. Maybe that's what will make it happiest.

Happy New Year to CLAW, from the bottom of my heart. Let's take our pretty and clean new year and do all the wonderful things with it that we can possibly think of. I recommend it.