Are Cats Psychic?

"Cats are kindly masters, just so long as you remember your place."- Paul Gray.

Jazzmine knows I'm leaving for the day. Don't know how, but cats seem to have that sixth sense.  I can pass the front door a dozen times a day to place things in my outgoing stack and she does nothing.

But today is Wednesday – Mom’s day out.  We go out all day: we shop, talk, lunch, shop, talk, happy hour, shop.

Jazzmine seems to know, so today my many trips to the front door are watched with considerable interest.  The little cupboard by the door is my staging area for things to take with me when I leave the apt. The top shelf holds keys, change, hats, outgoing mail (there’s less every year in this digital age); the closed second shelf holds 3 purses, business cards, kitty treats; the open third shelf holds books for the library; large jar for mom to decant some canned peppers, umbrella and the bottom shelf is shoes (I usually take them off when I get home).

This morning, each time I pass the front door, she nearly trips me then jumps up on the coffee table and speaks to remind me that I'm not allowed to leave until she is handed at least 4 treats.  I made the mistake of giving them to her early once, but 30 minutes later when I was actually ready to walk out the door, she demanded more.

Treats doled out, and I’m out the door.  One stop to make on the way - Sneaky Pete's.  One of Mom’s favorite breakfasts (and mine) is a Sneaky Pete's hotdog and a beer for breakfast before heading out for our Wednesday adventure.  Sort of kicks the day off the day as a celebration.

Today, we’ll head straight to the Summit and work our way back to Hoover from there.

Later y’all and cheers.

Summer's Late and I Can Wait

Sunday and it’s the last day of May.  I pulled the kitchen calendar from the wall and sat down at the kitchen table to flip the page to June and add dates from my iPhone calendar.  The back door is wide open, kitty gate in place.  Jazzmine preens and watches every moving creature in the back yard, but her kitten days are long gone. She never attempts to leap out.  Not sure she could at her age and weight even if she wanted to.

I am amazed that this old place is still so cool inside when I know it’s a very warm 80-something outside when I took the trash to the alley just now. (if this is global warming, i'll take it)

Perhaps the daily rain storm is a contributing factor, but I also know that old buildings built before there was air conditioning were designed for air flow.  I have windows open in the back bedroom and the dining room and the kitchen door, which all face west.  I have the door and windows to the screened in balcony open wide as well.  That, the ceiling fans and a few strategic box fans have been keeping it very comfortable in here.  The minute I open the kitchen door in the morning, the air moves through the place at an event quicker and cooler pace. 

I love living on the second floor – I can keep windows and balcony open year round.  The only thing I do close when night falls or I head out to run errands is the kitchen door.  

However many days I can delay cranking up the central air, I’ll cherish.  I hate shutting myself off from nature and the outside world – the trains passing through in the wee hours; the birdsong and chattering squirrels that wake me in the morning; reading on the balcony loveseat; sitting at my small bistro tablejournaling, sipping and watching the life ebb and flow on the street below.

What Is Your Sunday Ritual?

Rock Ritual & Rote

with rote of ritual

rock bottom can become our

solid foundation

© Perle Champion

Ritual can be elaborate, but many are simply the rote tasks we perform on a daily basis and never give a second thought unless life or the weather interferes.

It’s early Sunday morning (really early as I forgot to fall back) and, as with all my days, my first tasks are cat-related: put kibble in one bowl, pour fresh water in the other, put the coffee on.  But, it’s Sunday and Jazzmine somehow always knows when it’s Sunday and waits impatiently for her can of stinky, shrimpy, Fancy Feast for breakfast.  Seven days a week she gets kibble, but Sunday she’ll save the kibble for later and devour her stinky treat.

Sunday breakfasts require an audience, so I sit at the table with my coffee and keep her company whiles she eats.  I open my journal and begin writing my morning pages, much of which made their way into today’s Blog.

No hurry. No walkabout this morning – I’ll probably ride my stationary bike while I watch Today and later do yoga stretches while I watch Charlie Osgood and after I’ll make my way to my desk to transcribe my pages and begin my 2000 words for my NaNo novel..

Finished eating, Jazzmine dashed down the hall, and I know she’s gone out her window kitty door to the balcony.  Her rituals are simple, eat then outside to scratch her post and preen, before retiring to whatever pool of sunshine she can find to snooze in.

Moments later, she is back inside, and staring at me as only a cat can.  Jazzmine feels betrayed, and lets me know it - it's 31 outside.  The odd throaty ‘meorrow’ seems to ask accusingly, ‘what have you done to the weather’. She stares out the window and ventures out once or twice more before giving up and curling up on the electric leopard throw that kept us warm at my desk yesterday.

On the bright side, this is the south and it will be 65 tomorrow and back to a shirtsleeves 70 Tuesday and Wednesday.  Jazz will be able to resume, at least briefly,her daily balcony ritual foray – Winter southern style – gotta love it.

Monday, Moon's Day

Monday is Moon’s day (Old English mon(an)dæg "day of the moon) and the beginning of the work week for most people.  I've retired from the 8-5 of Dilbertville, but I find I still begin most of my new projects on Monday - old habits die hard.   

Lately, I’ve been painting again with a vengeance- mostly on rescued wood.   I've posted a few below. I'll be opening an Etsy.com store as soon as I have a bit more inventory.  I already have interest in a few I've posted on FaceBook earlier which is encouraging.   I’ve noticed that I have an obsession with the moon.

My cat series, ‘Meowling at the Moon’, sold well a few years ago when I had a small show at Daniel Day Gallery, so I’m working on a new series.

My Fems in the Wild did almost as well

Small villages nestled in nature are next up.

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 I’m still writing.

• Working on a review of a friends book, which I will post on the Blog as well as Amazon, B&N, GoodReads, etc. 
• Finalizing some essays to pitch to a few magazines.
• Attending Lister Hill Library’s WriteNow program - just 2 sessions left, has helped me immensely to organize and create real-time deadlines for my writing projects.  Big thank you to Jennifer Greer for her encouragement and help.  

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Do you love winter Southern Style?

Jasmine is irritated with me, but not for the first time since this cold snap began.  If the temperature was at least above freezing, I’d have opened her kitty door to the screened in balcony that is her outdoors.  But, it is not.  The temperature this morning on my balcony was 7 degrees and I don’t want to know the wind chill, as I did not plastic in the balcony this year as I did in years past.  My office window at right had enough frost on the inside to require an ice scraper.

Even at 35 degrees, when I let Jazmine out she comes right back in and stares at me as only a cat can.  The odd ‘meorrow’ seems to ask accusingly, “What have you done to the weather?”  She might venture out once or twice more before walking haughtily down the hall to lie on the leopard electric throw at the foot of my bed.

I keep that electric throw set on low at the foot of my bed from the day the temperature first hits 40 just for her.  

She knows she can count on that spot for warmth sunshine or no sunshine to warm herself day or night.  Handy for her, since I rarely run the central heat.

I truly hate to run the gas central heat.  It sucks the freshness from the very air, and in my opinion, most of the breathable oxygen.  It dries my skin and my hair.  More importantly, it dries my sinuses leaving me susceptible to any arbitrary bug, as it did last week after several visits to over-heated homes for dinner parties, etc. 

I have to turn the central heat on occasionally to warm the bathroom for a shower, but it’s off again right now as I sit at my desk writing this Blog.  I have  a small ceramic heater whirring away at me feet at the moment, and I’ll move it next to the couch when I move in there to watch NCIS later.  

I go to bed around midnight and I slip my feet under Jazmine's throw just long enough to take the chill off and allow the down comforter to return my heat to me.  Jasmine curls up on top of it for most of the night.  The throw will stay on for Jazmine until we have several consecutive days at 70.

By Thursday or Friday the temperature will be in the 40's and 50's, and I’ll open her kitty door again.  I love winter southern style – it comes and goes and seldom lingers more than a day or two.  

A Date with Death - she's my kind of rain

Glancing through old journals, I came across one entitled “The House call – a Date with Death”.  I wrote it on this date in 2003, not on the actual day it happened - January 9, 2003

Journal Entry 2/6/03 – Aerie:
I can put it into words now, It’s been a month since Sabrina passed.  My beautiful star-white angora cat was 23 years old.  She could barely walk and refused food and water toward the end, but life would not let her go.  She needed my help and one morning told me so in the only way she could.  She stood, looked me in the eye, wet her blanket and lay back down.  I picked her up, wrapped her in a fresh blanket and made the call.”

I still remember the kind young vet who made house calls, sitting with me on the couch with Sabrina between us on her favorite blanket.  He and I stroked her as the drugs had their way, and she breathed her last as the strains of Tim McGraw's ‘She's My Kind of Rain’ played on the radio.  I still get moist eyed every time I hear that song.

Twenty-three years was almost half my lifetime, so it took several months before I could rescue another cat.  I briefly considered another white cat, but thought better of it.  I would expect her to be another Sabrina and that wouldn’t be fair.

I have Jazmine now.  She is shiny obsidian black – Yin to Sabrina’s Yang.

Where Sabrina was star white (yang), Jazmine is black satin (yin).  Aptly so, their personalities are as diverse as yin and yang, and I’m grateful.  Another white cat would only disappoint, as I’d expect her to live up to my first and that would not be fair.

Blue Skies & The Kindness of Strangers

As I stood watching the building smolder, the sky lightened and against an incongruously azure sky, the full horror of it all came into focus. The air was cold and crisp and clear and tainted with an unclean smoke. 

Tommy took Jackie, Ms. Louise, her son and granddaughters across the back alley to his house to get warm, and be comforted.

The kind neighbors who live on the street behind us and all around us reached out. The archaeology professors from UAB, offered me coffee and a warm haven for Jazmine, who was now meowing piteously every time I opened the car door to comfort her. She’d been in her carrier for over 2 hours now. I accepted for her. Sarah put their cat in an upstairs bedroom then started coffee, while Greg set up an impromptu litter box, food and water for Jazmine. She was beyond comfort, and simply sat in a warm corner and watched us all with fixed golden eyes.

I sat and drank coffee in their warm kitchen, as we made small talk and watched out their back window to the still smoking embers of my home.

I went back across the alley to get an update from the fire chief. It was 7 a.m. - time to make a few difficult phone calls. As I paced back and forth in the parking lot of Wilson’s Market, I pulled out the cell phone. I didn’t want the family or my friends to see this on the morning news and panic. First I called Mom and began, “first, I’m okay. There was a fire; Mark is gone. You have to call Barbara, Billy, Rick, George and let them know, I’m okay before they see the fire on the news.” She was dumbstruck, but recovered and I hung up knowing she would follow through.

Next, I called my friend Ree. “Ree, you’re the only one I know who knows everybody I know and then some. I don’t want people seeing this on the news first. The apartment burned down this morning. I’m sorry to just dump this on you like this, but yours is the only number I know by heart, and I’m in no shape mentally to make the calls. Mark didn’t make it out.” She lost it for a bit, but then she took charge of herself and said she’d start making calls.

So many unlikely angels: Louie drove up and offered the key to his place in case I needed somewhere to stay. The Parcak’s had offered their spare bedroom indefinitely if I needed it. I had two other offers of safe haven, but I knew when all was said and done, I was going home to Mom’s house in Hoover. 

I couldn’t be still and the firemen were not letting any of us in the building yet. I went back across the alley to Tommy’s to check on Ms. Louise and her kids. I walked back across the alley to ask the fireman again, hoping against hope, if they had gotten Mark out when I wasn’t looking – they had not. “We can’t let anyone in until the coroner comes and goes.”

With those words, words that belong in a CSI episode, echoing in my head, I walked back to Greg and Sarah’s kitchen to hold vigil. 

Next: Worldly Goods

Do Dah Days

The things I do for a bone.

The weather was amazing for the Do Dah Days festivities touted as celebrating "31 YEARS OF COOL CATS & HOT DOGS..."this past Saturday.  It's one of Birmingham, Alabama's many free to attend events.

I found a shady spot on the center island on Highland Avenue at 27th, after parking somewhat illegally*, sipped cold beer, chatted with fellow shade-seekers and shot picture after picture.  I so love my digital Kodak camera - no more wasted film.

The festival started small "when in 1979, a group of friends got together and decided to have a party — or so the story goes — and Do Dah Day was born. The following years saw the party grow into an event raising money for local charities such as the Birmingham Zoo, Avondale Library and the Alabama Theatre. With so many Do Dah Day volunteers being pet owners and animal lovers, it was a natural progression for the fundraising focus to turn to local animal charities. Soon Do Dah Day was no longer a party — it had become an all-out festival."

Polly want a bite

There were more than dogs. I saw birds, cats and a Boa (the live kind).

Strange thing about dogs, they usually bark at anything, but they seemed to know that this day is different.  This day, they're just one of many and territories overlap.  I didn't see a single snarly growler or  aggressive barker.  

Caldwell Park

The park was sunny, but if you got in the shade, it was quite comfortable and there is an abundance of shady trees in and around the park.

Can we go home now?

75 Cents for the first 7 miles - what year was that?

Mardi Gras Renegade

O La - A little late for Cinco de Mayo

Waiting for the next act.

Giddy Up

How much further to Kansas?

Do Dah Day is Birmingham’s oldest event and has evolved into a music festival.  When it began, the crowd numbered a few hundred.  Today, an estimated 40,000 people from all over the United States converge on Birmingham’s Historic Highland Parks for a day of fun, food and music with their pets. Raising more than $536,000 since 1992 for Jefferson County animal shelters, Do Dah Day is one of the city’s most cherished springtime events..

If you've never been, put it on your calendar for next year.  Here's their link. http://www.dodahday.org/

*Parking is a challenge, but unless you block traffic or another vehicle, the Birmingham police appear to declare amnesty on ticketing - Bless the all.

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Jasmine feels betrayed, and lets me know it. The morning started as always. She dashed down the hall ahead of me and sat on the sill waiting for me to open her little door to our balcony. It’s early morning and my first tasks are all cat-related: put food in one bowl, pour fresh water in the other, and open the door to the balcony.

Moments later, she is back inside, and staring at me as only a cat can - it's 35 outside. The odd ‘meorrow’ seems to ask accusingly, ‘what have you done to the weather’. She stares out the window and ventures out once or twice more before walking haughtily down the hall to lie on the leopard comforter at the foot of my bed. I keep a heating pad on low there beginning with the first day that dips under 40, just for her between the covers. I never run the central heat, so the bed is pretty cold when I first get in it around midnight. I put my feet under the spot with the heating pad just long enough to take the chill off and allow the down comforter to return my heat to me. Jasmine curls up on top of it for most of the night. She’ll visit it throughout the day as she determinedly goes out to see if things have changed. This afternoon, she'll be rewarded, as 70 is the predicted high, but soon winter will settle in in earnest and I'll be in for some seriously disdainful looks.

© Perle Champion

Another Easter: Journal Entry

It’s Easter Sunday, and I sit here on my balcony, my aerie. It’s just me, the cat and the Sunday paper with our view of Barnett Street and Ponce de Leon Street in the distance. The sun arrived at noon and Sabrina, being a cat preens her star white fur in its warm brilliance. I sip the last of my morning coffee, take a bite of rye toast spread with Brie and read “Peanuts” first.

A young couple and their three little girls are walking down the street. Their clothing says church: suits, hats, ruffles, and bows. Across the way, an elderly couple gets out of their car. A young woman runs out of the apartment house, camera in hand calling out, “Mom, Dad, wait. Let me get a picture by the car.” She snaps them, then Dad snaps one of Mom and her, then Mom snaps one of her and Dad. They all go into the apartment. Her neighbor is watching from his front porch. He takes another drag on his cigarette, stretches in the sun and returns to his paper.

My sister is preparing ham and all the trimmings for her mother-in-law. This will be the last year she does that. The old lady is dying.

Last night at John and Judy’s house, we cooked out and ate and drank and talked and Judy dyed eggs. They have no children, but Judy always dyes eggs. It takes her back she defends, “Because, that’s what you do at Easter, isn’t it?” Today, she’ll be taking her husband, John, and the eggs to her Mom’s and Dad’s in Birmingham.

My Mom is in Birmingham, too, but she works today and my sister will spend the day with her husband and his dying mother. One of my brothers is in the Bahamas with his wife and her family, the navy brother is stationed in the Philippines and the oldest works nights, so I am sure he is sleeping as I sit here.

I used to dye eggs, too, and go to church and fix the Sunday ham, but the child is gone now. I have no obligations now, except a few phone calls. I take another bite of Brie on toast, sip my first Mimosa and read “Parade Magazine” next.

© Perle Champion

Writing and Partying

Saturday again. Not blogging much, as most of my time is taken up with two things.

1. My Novel - I hit 34,011 words and counting this morning in spite of a slight hangover. I’ll be updating my NaNoWrimo profile later today. I’ll make 50,000 words by midnight of November 30 if not a little more, and then the real work begins – edit, rewrite, flesh out (50,000 words does not a novel make). I’ve gone through this before in 04, 05, 06, but I’ve yet to feel any of my endeavors are ready for primetime except perhaps in my daydreams.

2. Partying – I’ve been making the rounds of the season’s open houses, gallery openings, etc. Thursday, it was Loretta Goodwin’s ‘Tiny Treasures’ show and last night was Maralyn Wilson’s and Naked Art.

Jasmine (cat) is alternately lounging in the old black rocker by the heater or out on the balcony, which I’ve already sheltered against winter with some great clear vinyl from Hobby Lobby. It’s nice to sit here by the double windows at my laptop and occasionally look out across the balcony to the rain of yellow leaves on both sides of the street.

I’ve downloaded some of the photos last night’s opening. At Maralyn Wilson's - A window full of mouthblown glass ornaments, Metal Christmas tree (below)

Entrance to Naked Art Across the street (right).

At Zoe's vintage store: Gorgeous antique evening purse and cat on couch who could care less. (below)

Back to the novel - later...