Postcards From Another Point Of View – 10 September 2016

Postcard from Smoothy:

Ellie was at another training class last night, but she won’t tell me much about it. Something to do with investigation, she says. The hound is a Pandora’s box of possibilities.  Today she’s is off to another contest and I’m at home guarding the house, which is a good thing because I saw this very long green snake in front of the house. It didn’t dare come closer when it saw I was watching.

Postcards From Another Point Of View – 14 September 2016

Postcard from Smoothy:  Bio

I should right a bio, since you read my words, and see my photos. I’m Swedish of course, and bilingual, as are most Swedes. I learned American (Not English) from an xpat Main Coon kat, named Shank. Shank knew my mom ‘in the carnal way’ as they say in the bible. He and his servant were on the run from someone in New York. I never asked who it was, or why. Sometimes it’s better not to know things.

Sometimes I think of Shank as my dad, but it’s confusing—there were so many involved. There was something with a Rag Doll. Grandma? Very flexible, a high priced call bitch. Ah, those Rags. I feel her in me. I can go limp anytime I want, bend over backwards, left or right —270 degrees, 300 on a good day. Humans will never know what it is to go limp in a lap, and be stroked gently. As good as it gets. Sometimes I over relax and go to sleep.

After a good relax I turn on the after burner, run around the house and tease Ellie.  She can’t catch me. I’m much faster in the house, but she might catch me in an open field—or not. I can turn faster than a rabbit. I play ‘chatch the thing on a string’ with the servants when I’m in the mood. It’s fun and gives me opportunity for major flexing and high jumps. I can do a meter and half now, both straight up and horizontal, one place to another. Lamps keep getting in my way, but there are fewer of them now.

I can’t spell worth a damn. I should tell you that. This is my 5^th incarnation and I’ve never learned. I’m also a bit dyslexic, but if you get what I say, it doesn’t matter. Kats have 9 incarnations. You’ve probably heard the old “nine lives” bit, but it’s not what you think. The real meaning was written by the Egyptians, a long time ago, when kats were worshiped. The wise guys knew kats lived through 9 incarnations . . . with spaces between. You have to wait your turn, which isn’t bad. Floating around in space—without a body is relaxing.

 After the 9^th incarnations I get to make a move, up or down the chain of consciousness. Being born kat it petty good. Not many entities as slick as us. Human form is as good as it gets, I guess, but being born a kat’s not bad. Some people think dogs are smarter than kats. How can they think that? Anyone can to what they’re told. It takes brains to do what you’re told not to do.
More of this later. Ellie’s barking at the door. Probably nothing. Ellie hears things.

Postcards From Another Point Of View – 8 September 2016

Postcard from Ellie:

 

I got my SAG card today. I am so pumped! Now I am ready for the Hollywood. I haven’t shown it to Smoothy. He wouldn’t understand, and to tell you the truth he can’t read.

I’m on my way to another training class this evening. Another competition coming up this week end, after that I need to find an agent. Wish me luck.

Postcards From Another Point Of View – 7 September 2016

Postcard from Smoothy:

It’s a nice fall day in Sweden. I’ve been hanging around the yard with Ellie  – patrolling the fence. She had a birthday this week. Ellie’s two by human reckoning; I’m not sure what that is in dog years.  She’s been running on about Hollywood again. Somebody got her a SAG card, she says. I haven’t seen it yet.

 

We went back inside for lunch, and as you can see she’s hogging the dog food bowl. “Another contest this Saturday,” she tells me. “I need to bulk up.”

Whatever. I climb the tree to my food on the counter which is dog proof. Kats rule!

Postcards From Another Point Of View – 4 September 2016

 

Postcard From Ellie – 4 September 2016

Well, were back . . . without much to brag about. Another ribbonless event. It was a hard go from the git go. We arrived a bit later than intended and our location from the ring was too far away to see what was going on. Then it rained and we had problems setting up the tent. Mom got stressed and when she gets stressed I get stressed. Our tour of the show ring was nothing to write home about, but we did okay . . . and I did not become distracted. Even so, I only got a “Very Good.” This was my first “Very Good.” I’ve always gotten “Excellents” before. The judge was Irish and looked like she was having a headache or something, but whatever.

Two more shows to go this season, starting with next weekend. We’ll be ready for it.
Still no word from Hollywood, but I expect an e-mail soon.

Postcards From Another Point Of View -1

 

Postcard From Bruce:   3 September 2016

This is our third week with Smoothy. He’s doing well, growing, and purring a lot, and loud. He sleeps in the top of one of our two cat trees, preferring the one by the window at night. Daytimes naps are taken in the other by the kitchen. He is happy to sleep in our laps, and be petted. This is something wife and I both wanted. Smoothy used the sandbox from the first time he saw it—no problems there, but nothing is easy. His claws and teeth are like needles. Collateral damage so far is: one lamp that used to sit on a window sill, wife’s scratched wrist, water soaked desk and papers. One of the bedroom curtains is down, along with the rack and screws that held it, pulled out of the wall. Not sure how to repair. We need to keep the cat out of our offices and bedroom.

My wife and Ellie are off to a dog show today, sixty or so competitors will come from all over Sweden, Germany and Denmark. People bring tons of gear to these events, brushes and combs and dishes, food bowls, plastic poop bags, water, small tents . . . leashes. Raingear— always good to have in Sweden, documents and forms filled out, cages with wheels—and locks.

There was a dog napping at one of the last contests. Owner left her dogs inside their cages in a locked station wagon. Someone, or ones, grabbed them, cages and all. She is heart broken, all her work, and loving care, and training grooming—gone.  I feel so sorry for her. Owners and their dogs— intensity of love is scary. Gossip theory is, the dog-napped dogs, two Labradors, would probably be shipped to Russia, where they would have their I.D. chips removed, and resold.

 

Postcard From Smoothy:    3 September 2016

Everything is going well. I’ve pretty much scoped out the house, but there is a blocked off area—closed door opens to a garage and stairway. What the hell is up there? The two rooms with desks are more or less off limits. I knocked over a small flower vase, full of water while I was using the keyboard on mom’s desk.

The bedroom is also off limits. I was climbing a curtain and the whole dam thing came down. It might have killed me. I was able to get under the bed before it hit the floor. Housewoman was pissed, but she got over it pretty fast.

Ellie’s okay— an ego as big as Brazil, but she’s nice, polite you might say, except when it comes to her food. She’s a bitch about food, but we’ve been getting friendly, and we play sometimes.  Ellie and mom are at a beauty contest today. The houseman has used the door to the garage and gone upstairs. What the hell does he do up there?

Poem taken from Writer’s Almanac

I fell in love with this one:

Future Plans
by Kate Barnes 

When I am an old, old woman I may very well be
living all alone like many another before me
and I rather look forward to the day when I shall have
a tumbledown house on a hill top and behave
just as I wish to. No more need to be proud—
at the tag end of life one is at last allowed
to be answerable to no one. Then I shall wear
a shapeless felt hat clapped on over my white hair,
sneakers with holes for the toes, and a ragged dress.
My house shall be always in a deep-drifted mess,
my overgrown garden a jungle. I shall keep a crew
of cats and dogs, with perhaps a goat or two
for my agate-eyed familiars. And what delight
I shall take in the vagaries of day and night,
in the wind in the branches, in the rain on the roof!
I shall toss like an old leaf, weather-mad, without reproof.
I’ll wake when I please, and when I please I shall doze;
whatever I think, I shall say; and I suppose
that with such a habit of speech I’ll be let well alone
to mumble plain truth like an old dog with a bare bone.

“Future Plans” by Kate Barnes from Where the Deer Were. © David R. Godine, 1994. Reprinted with permission.