A la recherche du chat perdu

A la recherche d'un endroit confortable

For a long time, Gooney used to go to bed whenever he possibly could. Before breakfast, after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon, anytime before or during or after dinner, when it was dark, when it was not. In fact, he still does this.

He sleeps. Then he wakes up and thinks about sleeping again. So he sleeps again. And so on.

When a cat is asleep, all the birds he has chased in vain circle round him like a host of jeering demons. He stretches out his paw in dream and they fly away, gone forever. Only in desultory fading gusts does the sweet and tasty birdsong touch his trembling ears. Touch and fly.

So it is with the past. It is a vain labour to attempt to pin it with one's claws. It is past the reach of teeth. It is only in some objet, only in the senses awakened by a thing that chances to come within range, that we can once again cry havoc among the twittering fools of youth.

And so, like a machine, Gooney responds to the clatter of the tiny moulded cat biscuits on the hard floor. Like a vacuum cleaner. He touches his lips to the nearest morsel. No sooner has his saliva dissolved the hardened chicken protein than a shudder runs through the entirety of his lithe frame.

What is this extraordinary thing? He does not know. It is a like a giant rodent deep in the earth, deep in himself. He does not yet know what it means, but he can feel it rising, can hear the echoes of the great plains across which it travels.

Gooney finds a new publisher

I may, on occasion, have spoken slightingly of Gooney. Sometimes he appears to have no brain at all.

On reflection, appearances are spot on in this case.

Nonetheless, the sacred flame of poetic fire may kindle in an empty vessel. A hollow gourd. Its very emptiness proves the presence of the divine muse. Gooney is, in short, a poet.

Imagine then, my tooth-gnashing, claw-rending, tail-lashing rage upon seeing Gooney's Genius cheapened by the degraded commercial mind. Look at this and snarl: mrgooneyblog botched by mercantilist filth
Since Gooney has not a penny with which he can 'upgrade' to the blessed clear air of ad-freedom, he is doomed to make poems in the vicinity of poor pictures of pink brains with ludicrous exhortations to 'train'. Oh that we could have the real thing, not to train, but to splatter and then clean delicately from our paws.

WordPress! Éditions Flétains raises its tail and sprays angrily and reekingly upon you. From where do you press your words, you so-called Publisher? From between your loathsome, unlicked flanks?

I refuse to allow my simple innocent kitten-savant to be so soiled. From today, mrgooneyblog joins the select few published by Éditions Flétains, here:
http://mrgooney.blogspot.ca/

Gooney and I are even now batting a few frozen chickadee corpses to and fro across a corner of the cave, negotiating a book deal for the collected poems. Before long I must rescue the lot.

March -- and the snow still gleaming like a demon that is preening

The mouse tunnels under the snow have glazed floors and walls from five solid months of winter. Halibut's domain is a cold, dark cave, but enough is enough. Sparrows are dropping like icicles.

Only the magpie prospers. The other day I saw a smug one in the spruce tree. I thought he had a twig in his loathsome bill. Building, I thought, for a fresh shipment of tender nestlings.

Then I saw the dangling legs, the tail of a chickadee.

You know the End Days are near when fish fly in the air, carts pull horses, and the prey gets uppity.

Just another Aeluroid lowering around

All around are enemies. No matter if the day is bright, the snow gleaming. They are there, just behind the fence, waiting and watching.

But I too know how to watch and wait. My huge brain, moreover, stuffed tight into the small space of my feloid skull, bursts with cunning and malicious patience. Forget the failed schemes to bring health, sanity, and culture to the stupid masses. My specialty is killing stuff.

Did you know that the mongoose and the hyena belong to my superfamily? How about yours? Any killers in your family?

Me?

Fishmongering

Is your brain not big enough, Halibut?

For its brain-and-agility embiggening effects, I have embarked on a week of eating fish. And where might you catch fish, Halibut? At the bottom of the garden? Under the hedge, perhaps? Maybe fishlings cavort with the elusive mouse under the deck.

I confess that these are not wild, claw-caught fishes. In fact, I have been purloining from the humans who have some source of their own. If the local birdbath had inhabitants other than mosquito larvae, I could ask Gooney and Bhiksu for tribute. Why should they not use their unusual webbed feet for a change?

The fare is, I admit, a little bland, if maddeningly healthful. So I have developed some excellent recipes. Here is one:

1. Open the fridge with your paw and remove a filet from its wrapping of waxed paper. Feel free to tear the paper ad lib.
2. Drag into a corner of your cave.
3. Roll well in mouse droppings.
4. Serve at once.

Since all of my entrepreneurial offerings have met with resolute lack of taste and interest, I am loathe to consider re-opening Halibut's Fish Restaurant. But a private dining club perhaps?

Mouse on Deck

I should say that the mouse is climbing on, up, and under the deck. To give Gooney his due, he sat under the steps for a very long time. It was hot. I pointed out to him that his gently swishing tail was giving him away as he he was sitting on a bed of dry, crunchy leaves.

It may be that G is of a mind to take up his apprenticeship once again. I shall advise him later on the stupidity of mice. (Contra the besotted video of my previous posting.) Mouse may not understand that the wooden latticework which keeps large bodies from under the deck nonetheless allows the Goon a certain reach of paw and talons.

And Delicate says that Halibut is a pessimist. Nonsense: it is optimism that is the last, best vice of the leaders of the animal world. No matter how scarce the prey, how dim the predator, we hope for blood.

World's smartest and most agile mouse, you say?

Why are we all demotivated? Look at THIS.

Mouse dressage. It's obscene.