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7月13日 Who Knows Where the Time Goes - Part 3Well, now it's my turn. I, too, have a birthday - tomorrow, in fact. But I won't tell you how old I am. A lady never reveals her true age and I am nothing if not a lady.
 My Human says Breeding always shows and I have Breeding.
Would you not agree?
 I mean, look at that profile? Doesn't that tell you something?Besides which, if you look at my forehead, you can see the M which, as everyone knows, is the mark of a true Tigger Princess, as She is always telling me.
See?
 Now, to get back to the subject at hand, tomorrow, as I said, is my birthday. I have been given to understand that in France, they celebrate Mon Anniversaire with fireworks and street parties and even military parades. That is, of course, very right and proper although personally, I would prefer something quieter and more intimate, something en famille, as it were. My Human understands this. It took a few years to train her properly but the effort paid off in the end. At my age, (which, as I said, is classified information) you really start to appreciate the importance of the Family Circle. I don't want to go gadding about, nor do I want a big, expensive party with lots of guests I hardly know and don't care about. Just my Human and Possum and Moi.
What's that you say? Presents?
Well, of course, any little gift will be greatly appreciated
  .Party games? Of course.
I like to play "Catch" - as long as I'm "It".
See how fierce I can be...
 Well, I'm going to go to sleep now. Somehow, that always seems to make my birthday come more quickly. Besides which, I need to conserve my strength. Tomorrow, we're going to PARTY.
See you all domani, when I'll be - oops, almost let slip how old I am.
Good night. Bon nuit. לילה טוב.
 Princess PixieCato
7月4日 Who Knows Where the Time Goes? - Part 1Okay, everybody. Paws up, who knows what day it is today?  That's right! It's the 4th of July!
And who can tell me what is the significance of that momentous date? Right again! It's My Birthday!
 Yes! Today, I am fourteen years old. How Time flies!
My Human saw fit to mark The Event by waking me before 8 o'clock in the morning to sing to me "Happy Birthday To You".
Don't get me wrong. She has quite a nice voice - for a Human, (actually, she has a very nice voice, but it wouldn't do for me to let her get too puffed up in her own esteem by telling her that) - but at my age, one doesn't want to be woken up at such an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning to be sung to. And then, to make matters worse, Pixie was sick on the bed. It's lucky our Human witnessed that, she usually attributes all the vomiting in inconvenient places to Yours Truly.
However, she made up for her faux pas (the Human, I mean) by letting me choose my own breakfast. There was quite a dizzying array of delicacies to choose from. She set out all the tins in a row and asked me which I preferred. How was I to decide? Should I go for the salmon and shrimp? Or maybe the rabbit and turkey? Then, again, would not liver and duck make a suitable Birthday Breakfast? But that would mean foregoing the chicken and turkey... Oh dear, it was enough to make a poor kitty's head spin! In the end, I went for the tuna and cod. I'm not sure that was the best choice and given a little longer, I might have plumped for something else, but as soon as she saw me go back three times to the same tin, she concluded that I had made my choice.
Well, I had, of course...
After breakfast, I curled up next to her, while she stroked and petted me and told me what a beautiful pussycat I am.
She's right.
Looking in that silver glass thingy that stretches from wall to wall in her bedroom, I have to admit, I am a Fine Figure of a Cat. However, when you get to be my age, it's nice to be reassured about that sometimes. And to know that She still loves me, as much as I love her and that in her eyes, I am - and always will be -
Possum the MagnifiCat.
PS. To my millions of friends and admirers in the United States who are celebrating My Birthday with me, I want to say Thank You and have a wonderful day yourselves. I understand you also have something to celebrate.  10月7日 My Furry FriendsI think it's high time I introduced you all to my furry babies.
Minxie was the first. She came to me in 1980. The neighbours' children had found her in the garden, a lovely little tabby kitten about a month old. I didn't think her fate would be happy with them. They loved animals but had no idea how to care for them. A pair of pigeons they had adopted hadn't lasted long and I swear that on one occasion, passing their apartment block, I saw a donkey looking out of their ground floor window! So I took the kitten home, more to keep her out of unsuitable hands than with any intention of keeping her - but then she looked me in the eye and told me her name was Minxie and my fate was sealed.
Minxie loved being picked up and petted. She hated it when I had to go out and when I returned from work in the evening, and called to her from the car-park, she would run to the living-room window and greet me.
Sadly, she succumbed to cancer in 1995, shortly before what would have been her fifteenth birthday.
Two months passed, and I took myself off on a coach tour to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. On the very day I returned, after over 24 hours without sleep and a night-flight which landed early in the morning, Dad and Ilana phoned to say that they had found a kitten and would I like to give her a home.
"What does she look like?" I asked.
"Sort of grey and white," my father replied.
"She's very brave," Ilana added. "Shall we bring her round now?"
"Okay," I said, still half asleep.
Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. The new kitten was there in Ilana's arms - mostly white, with large tabby patches (grey and white indeed!) - and covered in fleas.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Ilana said. Personally, I couldn't see it, but I confined my comments to pointing out that "she" was, in fact, a male.
After that somewhat inauspicious start, Possum settled in happily and, after the flea problem had been dealt with, I decided to give him a companion. And so Pixie came to join us. I picked her out from her sisters because she reminded me of my beautiful Minxie. The Cat Welfare Society lady who was looking after them had named her, for some inexplicable reason, Elsa. Ridiculous! She was so obviously Pixie.
Appearance aside, Pixie was as different to Minxie as one could imagine. She hated being picked up - still does. She also hates having her paws touched. But she does love being petted and she especially likes being scratched behind the ears in a particular spot.
Possum grew into a magnificently handsome cat. I call him my MagnifiCat. Unlike Pixie, he loves being picked up and he loves having his paws stroked. And what paws they are - big, pink and white. Ilana always said he would be a big cat because even as a kitten, he had huge paws.
When my furry babies were about two years old, I moved to my present apartment. The thing I most remember about Moving Day was that Possum so hated being transported in the cat carrier I had borrowed from a friend, that he actually cried. He had teardrops rolling down his cheeks. I have never seen anything like that, before or since.
They each have their favourite places. Possum likes to sit on the arm of the living room sofa, with his paws hanging down on either side. Pixie (otherwise known as PixiCato) likes to wriggle into my bed under the blankets, and many is the time she has narrowly escaped being sat upon. Each of them also has a favourite window from which they like to observe the world. Pixie likes the study, with its view of the street, from where she can watch the comings and goings of the neighbours. Possum prefers the living-room, where he can keep an eye on the garden.
They've been with me for over eleven years now. Since I don't know their exact dates of birth, we celebrate Possum's birthday on the 4th of July and Pixie's, on the 14th of that month. American Independence Day and Bastille Day!
Well, now you've met my babies. Take a look at them. Aren't they gorgeous? 9月2日 Stephanie 1991 - 2006 In Loving MemoryStephanie was a black labrador retriever belonging to my father and stepmother. Well, I say she "belonged" to them, although it's a moot point who actually belonged to whom. Steffi was family. She originally "belonged" to my stepsister, but somehow, she ended up with Dad and Ilana. And there she grew up - and grew and grew and grew. In her later years, she was somewhat overweight and had to be put on a diet. But who could resist those pleading brown eyes, whenever she came round to beg a tasty morsel. Cake, chocolate, chicken, bread dipped in gravy - you name it, Steffi would eat it. About the only thing she wouldn't eat, as Dad and Ilana used to say, was lettuce. "Do I look like a rabbit?" she might have been saying, indignantly.
They called her Stephanie because she was bold and she was beautiful. And maybe also, because she was a princess. She looked fierce - but she was gentle as a lamb. Did she chase cats? Of course she did! That's what dogs are meant to do. It was expected of her and she knew it. But she would never have actually harmed one, even had she been able to catch it. It was just a game to Steffi. If a cat stopped running and just looked back at her, as if daring her to come closer, she would stop, bewildered. I have even known her to step gingerly around an ant crawling on the floor so as not to crush it.
In her last years, she was plagued by a mysterious paralysis of one of her hind legs, which made it difficult for her to negotiate the stairs and even to rise on all fours from a sitting or lying position, and so she was afraid to go out, as she was haunted by the fear of falling. Getting up the stairs was also a nightmare for her. The vet never discovered what had caused the paralysis. True, once she made it down into the garden, she enjoyed herself as ever, but I wonder what was going through her head every time they called her home and she knew she would have to face those stairs again.
When my twin nieces were born, two and a half years ago, Steffi had to face fierce competition for the attention of her family. There were times when my stepsister would arrive and Steffi would run to her in joyous welcome, only to be ignored for the sake of the twins. Poor baby! My heart went out to her then. Whenever I went round to visit Dad and Ilana, even if the twins were there, I always made it point to greet Stephanie first. The relief she must have felt when the twins and their parents left and the house was her own again!
Last week, it all became to much for her. She had developed edema around the heart and although she was receiving injections, she was still in a bad way. By last weekend, they were already talking about ending it all. Although my father was more or less desperately trying to convince himself that there was some improvement, because she had eaten some of her food, having been off it for several days, last Sunday, the decision was made and Steffi was taken to the vet to be put to sleep. Her body was cremated.
I write this now, knowing that she's looking down on me from some canine heaven, where she is (finally) allowed to climb up on the bed or the sofa, where there are large gardens to play in, with cooperative cats, where there are no stairs and where, even if there are, her leg is miraculously healed and she can run around as she used to when she was a puppy.
Rest in Peace, Stephanie. We love you. |
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