Phelicity in Writer's Society

February 2003

Faraway Places

There's an old song about "faraway places with strange-sounding names, far away over the sea, ... calling, calling to me." Would I go?

I used to like traveling, when my mom and I traveled all over Texas back in my show-cat days. The shows were exciting, and the motels were fun. But I don't want to go back to Texas.

I used to love it on top of a mountain in the Ozarks, too; watching the deep woods and all the little creatures. I'd like to see it again now, in the winter, all covered with snow and looking like a fairyland. But I don't yearn for the mountain the way my sisfur Mewsette does. I know you can't go home again. Home is where I am now. I'm happy wherever I am.

Would I go to a far away land? Yes. I'm a good traveler. I'd have to go on a flying carpet or in a mystic bubble, though, because I do not set my paws on Bare Ground.

There is one part of the world, one only, that I really want to see. It's too dangerous to go there, and I can only dream about it. I want to because I'm a Birman, with a mystical nature, and I know all about my breed's history. If it was possible, I would travel to old Burma, which is now called Myanmar. It's next to India on the map, and near Tibet, another land I'd want to visit while I was there. I want to see the Himalayas. I want to see the old temples of Burma and Rangoon, and the blue-eyed golden goddess in them. I've seen them in pictures.

The temples are mostly made of dried earth and shaped rather like pyramids, but some are larger with many spires that were inlaid with gold. The gold has probably all been stolen now. They are not as pretty as the pagodas in Tibet. But in one of those temples lived Sinh, the first Birman. All the Sacred Cats came from there originally. I am a Sacred Cat too, and it would be so exciting to visit the places of my ancient roots. The priests are still there, the ones who came after Sinh's priest, Mun-ha. But I don't know if any Sacred Cats are still there. I want to find out. I would look very hard for the ghost of Sinh, in hopes that I might find him.

That's the faraway place that's calling to me. Yes, I would go.

May

A Job fur a Well-Spoken Kitty (May Challenge)

I've had many impurrtant jobs in my life, and still have some right now. From working the Beauty Contest circuit as a young showcat, to being a ballet dancer in the evenings, to being a Kitty Nurse when my mom is sick, I've been very good at all of them. I don't get many chances to show my superior skills as a nurse, because my mom doesn't get sick often enough. That's good, thugh.

My sideline was always Upholstery Redesign, and I'm very good at that, too. You should see our couch, which is exactly as old as I am, for an example of my creative work. Mom used to call it the $500. scratching post. Now she just calls it Phelicity's Couch. But I'm very petite, and all that upholstery stuff is heavy work. I'd like to do something more useful.

I think one impurrtant job a cat can do is to be a Language Teacher. Just think how many humans claim they can't understand what we're saying. We should teach them. I'm very patient, tolerant and long-suffering, so I'd make a good teacher. Of course I expect to be understood, no matter what language I'm speaking. My insistence upon that has worked very well in teaching my own human, my mom.

My specialty is sacred Far Eastern languages that are used in temples, and I speak several of them fluently. You'd be surprised how great a call there is for that! I'm also extremely good at English. My mom understands and even writes down the words I say in English. That's so she'll remember when I say them again. I'm proud to say I even understand Texanese, though I don't speak it. And I daresay many of us cats are fluent in languages nobody even expects, so we certainly should be teaching them.

One nice thing about the job of being a language teacher is that we can take long naps while our human is pondering the depth of what we have taught them. Lots of long naps. In another room, preferably, where we won't hear them laughing. Yes, that's the job for me.

Super Kitty

Look, in the air,
It's a bird, it's a plane!
Leaping high in a single bound!
What is that blur,
Is it feathers or fur,
That went shooting up from the ground?

What kitties do best
Is a long, long list,
But what we do biggest is leap!
Who else can jump up
To ten times their height?
Only kitties, the top of the heap!

We don't do it all,
But we all do it good,
From leaping to just looking pretty.
We don't swim like a fish,
We don't fly like a bird,
But we leap like a SuperKitty!

June

The Hard Way or the Easy Way

We cats are not the only ones who insist on doing stuff our way, even when it's not the easiest way. Birds do it, bees do it, humans, if they please, do it. In fact I don't think my human mom has figured out yet that there's an easy way to do stuff.

Take birds, for example. (Ahh, now I've got your attention.) I was watching a bird out my front door just this week, trying to build a nest in the porch roof. The down side, not the top. It wasn't a good place. Her little pieces kept falling out, and she kept putting them back. She hardly had time to go find more little pieces. And I was thinking, My, my, birds don't got a lotta sense, do they? There's a perfectly good tree out there she could have used instead. It would sure be easier, I thought, though I never built a nest myself.

But. It rains a lot here. Maybe she knows her babies will get wet if she hatches them in a tree. Maybe doing it the hard way will keep them dry later. The hard thing would be easy after they got there.

Take my sisfur, for example. Please. (Just kidding!) My sisfur Mewsette has a kitchen chair in the corner she likes to sleep in sometimes. It was her furmama's, so she inherited it. With a step by it, to get up there the easy way. She's sensible enough to use the step, except when she isn't. She fell once, trying to jump into it from the floor, too So she has a whole complicated "approach" system. She gets into another chair from a box under the table, being careful not to bang her head, from that chair to the table through a teeny skinny space, and walks to the other end of the table to look down on her chair from above. She examines it for booby traps, judges the distance, and jumps into it from above. The table's not forbidden, cause nobody eats on it. It just seems to me that's the hard way.

But. Maybe she heard about "Look before you leap". Maybe it's better to go down than up. At least the hard thing is easy after she gets there.

Then there's me, for example. I love heights, but I've got short legs and can't always get to them. My purrsonal favorite height is one I don't go to very often cause it's special. It's the top of the fridge. Also I gotta be real careful not to be seen, cause the way I get up there involves jumping from a place that is forbidden, which I won't name. I'm fast, and I've never been caught. Makes it easy to get there, two easy leaps. I love the top of the fridge! I feel like Queen of the World up there!

But. Then I look down. I don't want to spend the rest of my life up there. I don't want to go crashing into the dish drainer that's on the.. um, ..forbidden place. Remember I said I got short legs? Don't want to break one. It's a long, long way to the floor. The easy thing was hard after I got there.

So what do you think? Which is better in the end, the hard way or the easy way?

What do you mean, what do I do then?! Well, if you must know, I holler for my mom. If you must know, she comes and rescues me. If you must know.





My First Story

King Arthur and the Night of the Round Table

by Phelicity Marie Dauphine

When I was a very young showcat, I had a real busy "season". My mom was taking me to shows about every other weekend, all over Texas. We were in Waco just a week after some very bad things had happened there, so it wasn't a very well attended show. That's where we met King Arthur.

His name was just Arthur, but with other names before and after it, like showcats have. (My own had a total of 5.) A huge, all red Maine Coon, with a ruff like a lion and a tired, elegant air, Arthur was an "old" stud cat that his breeders had neutered and retired. So they were selling him. He was 11 years old, the same age I am now. Can you imagine anyone having such a wonderful cat for 11 years and not loving him too much to sell him? I can't.

They had a special large cage for him, because he was too big for the regular size, and it was on a round table that had a thick white pile cover and a purple pillow, as befitting such a kingly cat. I remember the pillow, cause I wanted one, too. The table was at the end of a row, so I got carried past Arthur whenever I was called to a judging ring. Arthur would be lying on his pillow outside the cage, for he was so well behaved that they let him do as he pleased. Maybe they thought they better.

In between the judging, while I took naps, my mom was at that round table, admiring Arthur. Oh yes, I noticed. Many others stopped to admire him, too; he was quite an attraction. But they went away. Nobody paid for him.

Shows are two days long. On Sunday, just before the Finals, the breeders put up a different sign that said they would give him away. Can you imagine just giving away a cat after 11 years? That's when my mom nearly came unglued. I could see how bad she wanted Arthur. But we got real busy with Finals, cause I made some of them. I won a ribbon, too! But not my Championship, not yet. I'd barely begun, competition was stiff that year and mostly boys. They have an edge. I didn't win mine until May.

It was still February then, when the days are short and night comes early. When the show was over, I'd had my snack, and Mom was packing us up, she went back to the round table and Arthur was gone. Only the table and his pillow were there; she couldn't find the breeders. We went out into the night and Mom put all my stuff in the car (showcats have a lot of luggage!) but not me. Me she carried back into the showhall. She just said, "Baby, we've got to go back." Well, I'd had enough showhall for the day. I wanted my dinner and the motel room window, where I could see the sights. But in we went.

That time the round table was folded with its legs under it. The purple pillow was on the floor. We waited for the breeders to come get it, but they didn't. There were only a few left in there, so I got dragged all over while Mom asked around. Finally someone told her yes, Arthur was given away, to a strange man with long hair and an earring. A type, excuse me, you don't usually see at cat shows. "But he didn't take his pillow" was all Mom could say. We went back to the car and sat there while my mom cried. I could have told her, Mom, we are 5 cats right now, in a little bitty house. Where would we put a King? If it would have made a difference.

I know, a story should have a happy ending, and mine doesn't. True ones don't always. So it should at least have a moral. And it does. When there is a cat, whether he's a King or not, and you want to take him home and love him the rest of his life, don't hesitate. Don't get busy. Hurry.

My Challenge Poem

I Wish

I wish I had a lilac bush, 'n
From my window on my cushion
I could watch the bees select or
Hummingbirds come sip the nectar.

Wish that I could watch, all cozy,
While rose bushes got all rosy,
Honeysuckle, never thinned,
And larkspur waving in the wind.

But if I had those lovely views
To look at any time I choose,
I'd wish the most for what I see:
My meowmie here to cuddle me.

July Story

Mommy and the Fredda Stair
~by Phelicity

My name is Snowflake. I'm just a little white kitty with blue eyes, but my human mommy loves me very much. She has a name, too: Ginger Rogers. I live in a fine house with my mommy and a cook lady and a maid lady. They take very good care of me, and feed me the finest chopped chicken and liver, cooked just for me. Sometimes, when Mommy has a dinner party, Cook gives me little shrimps to eat!

But my mommy goes away every morning to a "movie set", and spends her whole day there dancing with a "fredda stair". Not the same way she dances around with me at home. I like to dance, too, and I love to swish around to music with my mommy! But when she comes home at night from dancing with the fredda stair, her feet are sore and sometimes her heels are bleeding from shoes rubbing. It's too bad mommies gotta wear shoes to dance. Besides that, Mommy says she has to be better than the fredda stair, cause she gots to do all the same steps but backwards, and wearing high heels! I didn't understand that. I could imagine her dancing that way on a stair and falling down! I worried!

Then one day I didn't feel too good and I was being real quiet. It was Cook's day off and Mommy didn't want to leave me alone. So she plopped me in my basket and took me to the movie set with her!

Oboy! I forgot all about feeling bad, cause it was so exciting there! Know what? The fredda stair wasn't a stair at all! It was a tall human man in shiny black clothes and a hat. My mommy put on a beautiful, swishyful purpley dress, and she danced with him over and over on a big stage, with lotsa other humans sitting around watching. Oh, they danced so purrty! I was just enchanted!

Well, a kitty has to behave furry well on a movie set, or everybody starts yelling! I only ran up on the stage to see if Mommy wanted me to dance, too. I only skidded a little on the shiny floor. I only jumped in the air once. I didn't really trip anybody. Not really.

"Cut!" somebody yelled.

"Get that cat outta there!" roared the Director-man.

I don't like yelling, so I ran back to my basket. Soon my mommy took me to her dressing room, where she fed me my chopped chicken and showed me there was a sandbox there for me. So I spent the rest of the day in that room. Sure was a long day!

It was all dark when Mommy came back, and I hoped I was gonna go watch the dancing some more. But I guess they were all through. Mommy took off her shoes and rubbed her feet, and put bandaids on her heels. I felt bad cause her feet were hurting her, so I went to pat them with my paws. Mommy laughed and scooped me up and held me on her purrty silky dress for a while. Then she took the dress off, put on her old slacks, and took me home.

I still like to dance and swish around to music. I like to watch the movies with humans dancing, too, when Mommy shows one on a big screen for her dinner parties. But I understand now that all that happy dancing isn't as easy as it looks. It takes lotsa talent to do that, and it takes real hard work, too. If only humans didn't have to wear those shoes, and could just dance on bare paws, like me!



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