cats – Page 8 – Deborah Makarios

October 28, 2016October 20, 2017

Am I Cruella de Vil?

Not a question one often finds oneself asking. But when it first popped into my mind, I decided there was a case to answer, and promptly borrowed the book from the library to further investigate. The results were not as reassuring as I might have wished.

Cruella wears fur. So do I. [Disclaimer: I don’t buy ‘new’ furs unless they’re from a humanely culled pest species; and I would never knowingly buy or wear the fur of an endangered animal.]

Cruella likes pepper. So do I.

I like ink, too, though I prefer to write with mine, not drink it.

Cruella is married – so am I.
She has no children – neither do I.
Her husband changed his name when they married – so did mine!

Cruella owns a cat. So do I (two, in fact).
Cruella feels the cold. So do I.

In fact, I am feeling distinctly chilly as I look at this list. It’s not looking good!

On the other hand, I didn’t marry a furrier – though back in my high school days a personality test suggested I was suited to being a graphologist or fur designer. (I didn’t know what the former meant, and the latter seemed a bit redundant: they just grow.)

Speaking of school days, while I have been a student at a fair number of schools in my time, I have never once been expelled – as far as I can remember, anyway. Nor do I dominate my husband and force him to eat oddly coloured food smothered in pepper.

I don’t customarily wear slinky satin dresses with ropes of jewels – probably because, unlike Cruella, I am not a fabulously rich society heiress from a notorious family. Well, I’m not a fabulously rich society heiress, anyway (cough). Nor do I own a flashy chauffeured car which “looks like a moving Zebra Crossing” – in fact, I don’t own a car at all; I never have.

HMS Kildangan IWM Q 043387 — If Cruella de Vil owned a yacht…

My hair isn’t black and white either; it is a very dark brown with occasional silver hairs if I hunt carefully. Nor have I chosen to decorate my home in red and green marble (how revolting). Possibly the marbled interior of her home, when considered in the dim and rainy light of the English climate, goes a long way towards explaining why Cruella feels the cold so much…

Cruella’s cat is Persian, kept only because it’s valuable – she drowns all its kittens. My cats (“the Cat” and “the Kitten”), aren’t worth anything. Unless perhaps they get hit by a car and found by Claire Third (warning, cat lovers may find article/images distressing). Of the four kittens the Cat produced in her youth, three were re-homed and we kept the fourth. Most days the Cat seems to think drowning him would have been preferable, but that’s another story.

And for the record, I don’t want to make a coat out of Dalmatian puppies, not even “for spring wear, over a black suit.” I like puppy skins best when containing puppies.

So what do you think? Am I Cruella de Vil, or amn’t I?

October 7, 2016October 20, 2017

Old-Fashioned Fruitcake

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a change or two of late, on or about this blog. I decided, while taking an unpacking-holiday (if such a thing can exist) to spruce the place up a bit. Take it out and beat it like an old carpet, that sort of thing.

I ended up changing the featured image, the about page, my gravatar and the subtitle. (I stopped short at changing my name. One can have too much of a good thing.) Let us review the changes one by one.

First I changed the featured image to Tea Party by Louis Moeller. I don’t know who these old ladies are, but by golly they look like they’re having a grand old time. I feel like clapping on my doily cap and pulling up a chair.

Then I changed my gravatar from the reading jester to this smiley old lady, knitting. I want to be like her when I grow up, with white hair and a gentle smile and plenty of knitting. Also cats (not shown). Knitting and cats are easily come by; a smile takes only a moment; but white hair and wrinkles you have to earn.

I also rewrote the About page, if you’re interested in taking a look at that. It is still about me, though. Sorry to disappoint those of you who thought it might be about cooling systems for nuclear reactors, or how to breed newts. (Please do not try breeding newts in a nuclear reactor. The last thing we need is an increase in the world population of giant radioactive newts.)

And there’s a change to the subtitle: Old-Fashioned Fruitcake. I am, after all, an unashamedly old-fashioned person, a traitor to my time. And I am – I defy anyone to disprove it – a fruitcake. Nutty as a fruitcake, anyway. Although being an old-fashioned fruitcake, I can’t keep currant. (I am so sorry. I would like to say this will not happen again, but we both know it will.)

Yes, the Eccentric Ethic and Æsthetic is no more – although I can assure you there will still be plenty of Ethics, Æsthetics and Eccentricity scudding about the place. Just… fruitier. And, as the label suggests, old-fashioned. There will be LOLs (both kinds – laughs out loud and little old ladies); there will be handwork, housework and headwear; stationery and simplicity; tea and old technologies.

Think of this, if you would be so good, as a non-stop tea-party to which you are always welcome to drop in for a cuppa, a chat, and a good laugh. There may even be scones, and, when the season is right, jam – but please don’t eat the Fruitcake!

March 11, 2016

Plus Cat

It seems to be a quirk of creative types to be accoutred with a cat – or several. Writers are particularly prone to cats – Ernest Hemingway’s collection of polydactyl cats being perhaps an extreme example – but the link is well-documented in both word and image, albeit not entirely understood.

“A catless writer is almost inconceivable,” says Barbara Holland. “It’s a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys.” But not all writing cats are so unhelpful. Kerry Greenwood says she has “a censorious cat called Belladonna who supervises the process and won’t let me write more than two hours without a break. She slyly hits the caps lock with her little black paw. Thus I am saved from carpal tunnel syndrome and she is well supplied with cat treats (those expensive green ones).”

It’s the same with knitters. As Stephanie Pearl-McPhee notes in her book At Knit’s End, “the tendency to be accompanied by a cat is an oddity among knitters that cannot be explained…. Most cats have a thing about knitting. They are honor sworn to pester knitters and be involved in knitting as much as possible. They lie on patterns, play with balls of yarn, bat at the end of a moving needle, and given two seconds of opportunity, will spread themselves all over your knitting, intentionally shedding as much fur as possible. When selecting a cat to share my life and knitting with, I will consider choosing one whose fur doesn’t contrast with my favorite color yarn.”

My cats know better than to play with an active ball of yarn (though you can see the temptation growing on them as they stare at it) but they do like to be in a lap that has knitting on it. The more mature of the two is happy to just sit alongside the knitting (she’s the one who’s a fibre snob), but the junior seems to think his life will not be complete until he has somehow climbed into the needle-portal and merged his dimensions with those of the knitting. I live in fear of ending up with a Klein-bottle-sock-cat (which isn’t a Dr. Seuss book, but should be).

Then there are sewing cats. Cats love sitting on rustly paper. Newspapers are better than books or magazines, and the delicate tissue of pattern paper is even better. Add the plethora of textures afforded by fabrics, and you have an irresistible cat-magnet. Leimoni Oakes, aka the Dreamstress, has a whole category of blog posts dedicated to the ‘assistance’ of her sewing-cat Felicity. The blog at Cation Designs has both a tag and a tab about the dedicated sewing-cat and model Walnut.

There are also cats who dwell with artists, no doubt taking every opportunity to filch food from still life compositions, leave little painty footprints about the premises, and bat shards of stone across the floor to where an unsuspecting foot will encounter them. (Cats are very thoughtful in that respect).
Doubtless there are many more examples of cats and their creatives, which simply don’t happen to have come to my notice (but please mention them in the comments).

Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, you can pretty much guarantee that your cat will climb into it. Knitting? Yes please. Sewing? Let me help you pin that down (with my claws). Reading? I’ll hold the book open for you (by lying on it). Hanging out the laundry? I’ll turn unintentional back-flips while trying to uproot the washing-line pole (since you won’t let me play with the pegs). Pruning? I’ll hide in the bush and dab at the secateurs as they come past. Playing pétanque? Let me lurk on the sidelines and dash madly into the path of the steel balls as you hurl them. Cooking? The floor will seethe with cats at every turn, especially if you’re cooking anything animal based (although one of our cats will eat bits of raw kale that have fallen on the floor – if she thinks you’re not looking).

Why it is that cats do this is unclear. Boredom? It’s hard to bore an animal that is content to spend its days eating, sleeping and licking itself. Are they offering support? Are they offering – or seeking – companionship? Or do they merely wish to come between their person and anything that might look like it’s getting more attention than they are? Whatever the reason, it seems the attentions of a determined cat are inescapable, so we might as well accept them for the furry little joy-bringers they are, and do our best to get on with life despite their ‘help’.