The Wolf Year

It was so. The November corpses laid down by Gooney spelt out in rodent runes the bleak months of darkness, disappointment, death.

Mr G. F. O. Pekoe

The world of The Stupid Ones was in turmoil also.

I like to think that world doesn't touch me in my basement, but it does. The booming was heard less frequently. My powers waned in that year.

Yet we renew. Halibut grows strangely quiet, his black form dwindles. You can also see that Gooney's shanks are leaner under his ridiculous fluff. We remember Bhisku, wise monk, resting under the peony. And yet: while Gooney killed mouse after mouse and the winter grew colder, a new ORANGE ONE came.

Orange Charlie was another who dwindled, then disappeared altogether. And here was ANOTHER.

Not long after the Solstice, at the beginning of that Wolf Year, he crept round and round the foundations of the house, hiding under the shed, taking hasty meals set out for him in cardboard boxes. Orange Charlie went down in the west. Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe rose in the east, out of bitter cold snow, egg shells, and apple peelings.

We trapped him, like a skunk. He is quick and violent, joyful in war. There are no more mice in this house.

Eight Days before the Solstice

The dark days have returned. These will be the darkest yet.

One sign -- a dozen signs -- in the tally of a dozen mice, crushed by machine or shocked to death by the surprisingly venatory Gooney. They tried to escape the darkness outside, the sudden descent of this petrifying cold, by seeking asylum in My House.

Yes, it's a hundred years old and made of wood, with many mouse-friendly gaps. But I still boom in the basement. And little Mr G stalks around upstairs, deiseil, shouting for the return of the sun.

Vacation

The sky is white today. Myriad sparrows scream stupidly in the hedges.The blue jay has grown fat on the endless droppings of seed from the feeder.

It is the fat of the year. Also the midnight of the year.

All the time I should have been planning the Festival of Misrule that is Halibut's Solstice Feast (with Ritual Dance and Dismemberment), I was asleep in my cave. Taking a leaf from the barren tree of hibernation.

Too late to send out the invitations now. Too bad.

Predator's Progress: Mouse on Deck II

Exactly a year, and the mouse – a different mouse – is again using the deck as a climbing frame and promenade to crumbs and seeds from the winterfeed. Looking back at my notes of a year ago, I should say that Gooney has made great improvements in bloodthirstiness. He knows how to sit, for a long time. That is the beginning of all predation. He takes an interest in the rank smells that mark the zone. It's true that he still finds flies more exciting to snap and leap at. It's also true that this small mouse is still at large. (I have deliberately witheld my paw to give the young giblet a sporting chance.) It is progress nonetheless.

How to remove the smell of cat urine from your books

A "friend" asked for my advice on the topic above. It is not only a pile of incunables that makes an enticing cat bed. Any books ill-advisedly left in a cardboard box -- after a move, for instance -- can suggest to cats that there is a new lavatory arrangement in their new home. Unpack those books now! (Then smear your friend's paws with butter. Not only will this reward him for his patience during a trying time, it will establish your cat in his new human-built environment.)

If it's too late, here is the advice of a librarian, which I republish for the benefit of those who need it. I don't mind myself.

But if you don't get the smell out, then you will have de facto a new litter arrangement: on the floor where the book lies, on the shelf, in amongst the shredded paper made by your resident recycler. Bog book not required -- there will be plenty to read for your literate furry friend while he does his business.

How to Get the Smell of Cat Pee [sic] out of Books -- Basic Instructions

It is best to be prepared.

(1) Open the books and sprinkle each page with baking soda. Be sure to cover all areas of the books, including the covers and bindings.

 (2) Place a table in the direct sun on a hot day. Stand the books on their ends, inside the plastic bags, with the cover and pages open to allow to maximum airflow inside the books. Place the thermometer inside the bag, near the opening, and seal the bag with a twist tie.
     
 (3) Allow the books to stand in the sun for two to three hours. Open the bag just enough to fit your hand inside to reach the thermometer. Do not open the bag more than necessary or you will allow too much heat to escape.

(4) Read the thermometer. Once the temperature reaches 140 degrees Fahrenheit the bacteria will be destroyed. {That is 60 C -- very hot.}

(5) Remove the books from the bag and brush off the baking soda with a clean dry cloth.

Glossed by Librarian with Cats 

Best practice - ziplock baggie with book and about half a cup of baking soda.

Try for one of those 2 gallon or "supersize" baggies; you want to be able to open the book while it's in the bag, without opening the bag itself.

Get the extra air out of the baggie (don't go crazy, just don't leave it too puffy with lots of air - smoothing it out with your hands is fine.)

Leave the book + soda in the baggie for a few days, and during those days, every time you walk by, shake up the baggie to get the soda all dusted about again. Open up the book and let the pages flip while the soda is all floating around - flip the pages through a few times per shaking session to really get the soda in contact with the individual pages and the insides of the hardcovers and into the crevices of the spine.

Aim for shake/flipping pages about 4 times a day, and at the end of each day, take out the book, discard the baking soda from the baggie, and put new soda in with the book again.

You're done when you can't smell cat pee anymore. (This could take a day, it could take a week. If it takes more than a week, it's usually a sign that you're not going to win this one.)

As a bonus round, if the book still smells a little "off" but not recognizable as cat pee, follow up the baking soda routine with a day in a baggie with a few dryer sheets. They'll absorb smell and slightly "perfume" the book, to mask a little bit more of the funk. 

Does the baking soda leave any marks or discoloration on the pages?   It won't discolor the pages, and if you have a laminated-cover (plastic-slick feeling) book cover it will be fine there also.

The only thing I can see you having trouble with is an older or cloth-bound book; you might get some lightening effect on the cloth if it is at all damp or wet.

Even then if it is light-colored, there won't be an issue.

Short Version - I would only worry about rich or dark-colored damp/wet cloth covers - everything else will be fine.

☜ A fifteenth-century scribe had no such good advice at hand, only curses and rude drawings.

As I have often said of my self,

cats have a natural affinity for the bookish arts.

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.

Rivals

It is already May in the great grey city, and I do not think the crab tree will bloom this year. It sprouted a little thin mouse a few weeks ago, but I have not seen him lately. Maybe Orange Charlie got him. I doubt that Little G did: he disappoints me.

The prey seems to disappear fast, and yet the cats are lazy. If you ask me, it's the Corvids moving in. I saw a big, black one up on the roofline, shuffling uneasily, humping his glossy shoulders. Down below, a magpie tore at the skin of a baby hare. Where did he find the nest? Could it be that I am losing my touch?

Poms

In a quiet house, Gooney and Bhiksu found a dusty, blue pompom. It did not realize that its days of peace and safety were over. When the humans returned, they fished out one of the favoured yellow ones. Gooney made them smile as he pranced and leapt like Barishnikov.

The prancing cat Gooney is no Prince Siegfried.

He skidded across the kitchen floor and ended up in front of the small dark passage beside the dishwasher. Extending his hairy white arms into the gap, he flopped his hindquarters in an unseemly imitation of a flat fish like this one.

Bhiksu can make all the excuses he wants. It's not good practice for mice. It made me grind my teeth.

Myself and other Great Artists

My devotion to the arts is well known to my near neighbours, but in this I am not alone. Many feles domestici are great makers and appreciators of all variety of Kunstwerke -- to be found in gardens, under bushes, in boots, and squelching under your toes as you head downstairs to make your dawn cup of coffee. Our creations are to be seen, smelt, heard, savoured. Open your ears and hear our derisive silence or howls: it's all music.

Even technology serves our art. Mr Lee and his Catcam have inspired a new school of the feline photographic arts, combining an appreciation of the outdoors and the underbellies of still-warm vehicles. He and his disciples capture the elusive experiences of grass-stalking, leaf-brushing, glowering, snuffling, drinking from stagnant pools, staring at cows in the distance. If you don't believe me, have a look. A retrospective is eagerly anticipated.

Mr Lee and the Means to his Art

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

The indifferent clouds scud across the sky, a breezy day in this normally stagnant city. Why the exhilaration, tasty sparrows? You may exult as the gusts buffet you upwards. But wait wait. Halibut has been climbing and clings to a swaying branch. My jaws are quivering, little sparrows. And so is the branch: so hurry up, idiot passeres, and fly into my mouth.

Travels of the Goon

In a bag.

Under the steps. In a book case. In the towel cupboard. Under the sink. In the dryer, if he might. If miniaturization were possible, between the CDs or along the top of a row of novels. Under a bush. Under a chair draped with clothing, standing in for a bush. Beneath the duvet (don't jump on it). Maybe the oven is possible? The fridge an even more dangerous possibility. Inside the big bag of cat litter. Inside the small plastic basket which has the harness, jingle jingle. Into the treehouse yes! Over the gate. Through the hedge. Into Pat's garden and under her deck. A skunk lives there sometimes.

Halibut's School of Prey Play and Execution

Hmm. I don't know if G is going to develop his new career. On the one hand, he's been looking conspicuous in the vicinity of small dark spaces. On the other hand, I caught him taking effete delight in a little supper of seethed chicken hearts and avocado yesterday evening. (At least he did not descend further into PASTA, which is a human invention of loathsome farinaceousness, resembling cross-sections of intestinal worms.)

Don't turn on the shredder, Gooney.

I have been thinking of sending some small fluttery thing into shock so I can give G some practice. I know, you are thinking: "What's got into Halibut? Why is he turning all warm and benevolent?" Or, "Do you think you are G's mother?"

Well, G's mother (Angel Eyes Xotic Lilac Liberty if you can believe it) evidently did not do her job. Too busy trying to remember her name to feed the little runt, let alone teach him to slay. I don't like to see talent wasted. Even the miscroscopic talents of the Goon.

Gooney gets back his cohones

Well done, my boy! Now on to rats.

Guest Post, by Me Bhiksu: We are hanging in there, waiting for Halibut's Annual Solstice Dinner and Talent Show

When Halibut is blacker than usual, he crawls into the back of his cold cave and doesn't come out for weeks.

He has been there for a while now. My brother and I think a warm spot beside a pig is best.

We know a pig who is very friendly on a dark day. He has the right colour and smell.

Anyone who needs cheering up should meet one soon.

Yours truly Bhiksu