The Seduction of Charlie and Other Cat Stories

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Llyn De Danaan

The Seduction of Charlie

 

An introduction to irrational spaces and the art of shape shifting

 

December 31

Remember that cat under my bed? Progress. Here is how close he has come to me after 1 month. He’s been down three times tonight to eat and stare at me. He also washed his face in my presence. Pretty good eh? Happy New Year.

Okay. Here goes. Final chapter? I think so. Then what? I mean…….the “placing”….the boring part. The next book is already waiting/file box full of material. Can’t wait to see where it goes. Monkey at my side. Cat upstairs under the bed. I certainly have all the encouragement I could ask for and what’s more……..Carolyn La Fond is visiting this afternoon.

 

Cleaning house and listening to lp recordings on my Onkyo turntable…..so far Paul Robeson album called Scandalize my Name, Cheap Thrills, Viva La Causa (Songs and Sounds from the Delano Strike), and all the Odetta cuts on Vanguard’s “Folk Song and Minstrelsy”. I’m so happy I kept the turntable AND the recordings. I can’t play 78s on this turntable.

 

The cat is not helping to clean the house. He may like Paul Robeson or Odetta. He remains silent on the matter. He does like lps better than any digital music.

 

One other note: today I looked for catnip…trying to make myself irresistable to cat. At Mud Bay pet store, I saw a package labeled catnip marinated mice. Is there something really wrong about this?

 

Cat report. I put the catnip marinated mouse near the door of my reading/tv room. I was on my little trampoline watching Downton Abbey when he came down stairs and across the living room to the kitchen for his dinner. When he had a few bites, he came back out of the kitchen to where I could see him. He made a wide circle and came back upon the catnip and mouse. He PLAYED and rolled in the nip whil…See More

 

  • I’ve never considered rolling in catnip for a human’s attention
  • Short Charlie life story, re: a second dog came to his old household. He was beset. He is in dog recovery, truth be told. He will, one day, realize I am not a dog much less a conniving standard poodle.
Picture: F.K. Fisher with Charlie. “I think that elderly female writers hiding behind their Siamese cats should be forbidden by law.” M.F.K. Fisher
  • I’m thinking of renaming my cat Charlie. He doesn’t seem to care about names and I’m more a Charlie type. It makes me feel more myself to holler out Charlie.

Charlie it is. Apologies to M.F.K. Fisher. But my cat looks like her Charlie (the picture I posted). So it is meant to be. Charlie seems to like the new name. Last night I did lie on the floor and ignore him as per Tim Ransom’s suggestion. He stared, laughed, but otherwise ignored me. Then I threw a fresh marinated mouse in his direction. He liked that. He did his juggling act but did not take this new bit of fluff all the way upstairs. The novelty has already worn off? This morning, the first mouse (the one he had taken upstairs night before) appeared downstairs near where new mouse was still nestled in a heap of shredded catnip. Thought they should be together? Charlie is apparently quite active after I go to sleep. And silent. This is all fascinating to me. After 23 years, Frank did not juggle nor did he do much of anything else. But he was loud and insistent. Charlie remains aloof but interested in the territory and exploring more and more. He has not found his voice, however.

Charlie report, January 11, 2014. Last night we surprised each other on the stairs. I was going to bed, he was going down to eat. A friendly “hello how are you” passed silently and quickly. This morning we sidled around each other going the opposite direction. His sidle was more of a skitter born of confusion. Did he think I was already downstairs and had been avoided? I went back up to the bedroom to exercise and make my bed. He sat in the closet doorway and watched my routine. I was on the floor doing sit ups part of the time. This MUST be somewhat interesting to a cat. I mean, the fact that I CAN do crunches must be in itself interesting. I flailed around with my Pilates stretch ropes and my 8 pound free weights. He stared on. I spoke to him about cabbages and kings all the while.

 

Monday morning, January 13, Charlie report. But first, the ever revolving turntable of life dealt me a strange hand today. I pulled Django Reinhardt Memorial Volume 3 but the sleeve was empty. Never a good sign. Next pull was Elliot Carter whom I am attempting now, once again, to understand. Side two is “In Sleep, In Thunder” six poems of Robert Lowell.” What am I to make of this? Here are some words by David Schiff who wrote the liner notes: “The strings, at times passionate, at times desperate, a little rigid, a bit scrappy…and the odd couple of percussion and piano with their bottomless bag of tricks and transformations…..” Well, maybe not the thing for 7 a.m. Monday morning.

 

Now for Charlie. Last night I called out that dinner was ready. I didn’t expect an answer. But I prepared my wire toy thing for cats…the one strung with bits of cardboard tubing at both ends. This is a versatile toy that when employed by a clever human, gives most cats pleasure. The cardboard bits can be made to jump or crawl or twitch. Nobody is fooled into thinking it is a living thing with a heartbeat, but it is animated and can be as challenging for a cat as Luminosity or a crossword puzzle or crossing the street while the light is still green is for a aging human. Anyway, as I sat reading, bait prepared, he crossed the door on his way to the kitchen. I grabbed the wand and slithered on my hands and knees and took up my position under the lintel over the french door that opens to the hallway. I stared in the direction of the kitchen, inching the cardboard bits along the floor ….seductive twitches…my soft voice calling. I can think of lots of other things that would have answered my siren call. Minutes went by. I couldn’t hear him eating. Hmmm. Suddenly I felt eyes on me. He was across the room way over by the computer watching me, eyes glowing. How did he get there? Well, however, he was interested. He gradually came across the carpets and began to PLAY. Doggone! He snatched, he grabbed, he preened, he polished, he reared up like a mighty beast, and he seemed to HAVE FUN. He was within inches of my hand a few times. He rolled over a couple of times. He forgot himself in his delight. He forgot me for a few seconds at a time. I was a virtuoso with the wire and the tubes. I made it do things that make me blush with pride. We were like that on the floor for what seemed the length of a plane ride to Chicago. He tired, turned his back, and headed for his upstairs lair. This morning he was behind the kitchen garbage can and skittered away when I started to make coffee. Who knows?

 

Charlie seemed disconcerted this morning. My routine is the same. He went back under the bed as I followed the various instructions I’ve received about lying down on the floor. I wonder what he writes in his diary? “Human being once again blocking my egress. Moves limbs up and down and sideways while lying on carpet that I have come to consider to be mine. Thank goodness I attended to my bodily needs while she slept. Now that she is about the house, I wouldn’t even try. Still on the look out for canines. You can never be too vigilant. More tomorrow.” Meanwhile, random turntable: the high pitched warbling of Joan Baez In Concert. Released 1962! I was on my way to Borneo or maybe already there. I had a Phillips battery operated turntable and a few albums. Maybe someone sent me this one? I had seen her at Ohio State either right before I left for the Peace Corps or after I came home in 64 or 65. Probably 62. By 64 Phil Ochs was out on the quad singing about war. I think the Baez concert is the one I took my brother Judo to. She wore a simple green cotton shift and took off her shoes. What have they done to the rain? Indeed. What a prophet. The liner notes on this album are TERRIFIC. First line: “Heine once said that literature is a graveyard in which we wander, searching out and embracing the headstones of those ideas which are closest to our own beliefs. So it is with our researches in folk music.” Heine…liner notes that quote an early 19th century German poet whose work was set to music by Schumann and Schubert. According to wikipedia, Marx was an admirer…himself a radical. Take a look at a snippet of what he wrote a year before his death: “This confession, that the future belongs to the Communists, I made with an undertone of the greatest fear and sorrow and, oh!, this undertone by no means is a mask! Indeed, with fear and terror I imagine the time, when those dark iconoclasts come to power: with their raw fists they will batter all marble images of my beloved world of art, they will ruin all those fantastic anecdotes that the poets loved so much, they will chop down my Laurel forests and plant potatoes and, oh!, the herbs chandler will use my Book of Songs to make bags for coffee and snuff for the old women of the future – oh!, I can foresee all this and I feel deeply sorry thinking of this decline threatening my poetry and the old world order – And yet, I freely confess, the same thoughts have a magical appeal upon my soul which I cannot resist …. In my chest there are two voices in their favour which cannot be silenced …. because the first one is that of logic … and as I cannot object to the premise “that all people have the right to eat”, I must defer to all the conclusions….The second of the two compelling voices, of which I am talking, is even more powerful than the first, because it is the voice of hatred, the hatred I dedicate to this common enemy that constitutes the most distinctive contrast to communism and that will oppose the angry giant already at the first instance – I am talking about the party of the so-called advocates of nationality in Germany, about those false patriots whose love for the fatherland only exists in the shape of imbecile distaste of foreign countries and neighbouring peoples and who daily pour their bile especially on France”.[47] This is cited in the wikipedia article about him. Oh….these wonderful lp album notes….where they can lead one!!!

Monday morning, January 13, Charlie report. But first, the ever revolving turntable of life dealt me a strange hand today. I pulled Django Reinhardt Memorial Volume 3 but the sleeve was empty. Never a good sign. Next pull was Elliot Carter whom I am attempting now, once again, to understand. Side two is “In Sleep, In Thunder” six poems of Robert Lowell.” What am I to make of this? Here are some words by David Schiff who wrote the liner notes: “The strings, at times passionate, at times desperate, a little rigid, a bit scrappy…and the odd couple of percussion and piano with their bottomless bag of tricks and transformations…..” Well, maybe not the thing for 7 a.m. Monday morning.

 

Now for Charlie. Last night I called out that dinner was ready. I didn’t expect an answer. But I prepared my wire toy thing for cats…the one strung with bits of cardboard tubing at both ends. This is a versatile toy that when employed by a clever human, gives most cats pleasure. The cardboard bits can be made to jump or crawl or twitch. Nobody is fooled into thinking it is a living thing with a heartbeat, but it is animated and can be as challenging for a cat as Luminosity or a crossword puzzle or crossing the street while the light is still green is for a aging human. Anyway, as I sat reading, bait prepared, he crossed the door on his way to the kitchen. I grabbed the wand and slithered on my hands and knees and took up my position under the lintel over the french door that opens to the hallway. I stared in the direction of the kitchen, inching the cardboard bits along the floor ….seductive twitches…my soft voice calling. I can think of lots of other things that would have answered my siren call. Minutes went by. I couldn’t hear him eating. Hmmm. Suddenly I felt eyes on me. He was across the room way over by the computer watching me, eyes glowing. How did he get there? Well, however, he was interested. He gradually came across the carpets and began to PLAY. Doggone! He snatched, he grabbed, he preened, he polished, he reared up like a mighty beast, and he seemed to HAVE FUN. He was within inches of my hand a few times. He rolled over a couple of times. He forgot himself in his delight. He forgot me for a few seconds at a time. I was a virtuoso with the wire and the tubes. I made it do things that make me blush with pride. We were like that on the floor for what seemed the length of a plane ride to Chicago. He tired, turned his back, and headed for his upstairs lair. This morning he was behind the kitchen garbage can and skittered away when I started to make coffee. Who knows?

 

Charlie update, January 14, 2014.

 

I am stealing a few lines from Robert Frost’s The Wood-Pile. Seems apt though he is talking about a bird.

 

“He thought that I was after him for a feather–

The white one in his tail; like one who takes

Everything said as personal to himself.

One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

And then there was a pile of wood for which

I forgot him and let his little fear

Carry him off the way I might have gone,

Without so much as wishing him goodnight.

He went behind it to make his last stand.”

 

 

 

Charlie Report: January 15, 2014. This cat is a sort of wizard. He disappears at the drop of a foot or the twitch of a hand. He simply is not to be found. Still, we continue to build a relationship. Last night I was (blush) watching the third episode of Downton Abbey. Oh misery. Can it get any worse? Thank God for Maggie Smith’s lines and presence. Bonneville is just wearing thin. Don’t we know that Edith’s boyfriend is going to become a Nazi or already is one? And who could possibly have had such poor judgement as to employ Braithwaite? Or keep Thomas on? Forget the farmers and the sheep, get that staff straightened out! Anyway, there I was lapping it up, when Charlie deigned to come downstairs. He headed toward the kitchen for his nightly pre dinner inspection of the offerings. I snapped off the television sound and fell to the floor to retrieve my wand thing. He saw me move, turned on his white heels, and started back toward the upstairs bedroom. I pulled out all the plugs. I shamelessly wept and whined. Puuuuuuleeeeeeze, says I …..puuuuuleeeze come and play with me. I want you to be my friend. He paused at the far doorway, swiveled, and looked at me. Was that sympathy I saw in his eyes? Understanding? He inched his way back, one tufted foot after another, and then had a good dancing, lunge workout. I was my best…working both mouse on a string AND wire cardboard thing at the same time. He was close enough to me that the next leap/lunge would have put him on my knee. The phone rang. Damn. Stay tuned.

 

But there was more. He came down a couple more times and ate. I had done with Downton Abbey. Then he went upstairs. When I went upstairs, I had something to put in the linen closet and sort of shoved it in. I distinctly heard a triple meow come from the back of the closet and then the exasperated words “Here we go again.” It scared then puzzled me. Can Charlie throw his voice? Can he speak English? Is he somehow back in there and irritated with me? I didn’t figure out til this morning (after tearing everything out of the closet) that I had activated an old Cosmo babble ball toy that was stuffed into a box full of pillow cases. How many years that thing had been in there I don’t know, but it had one more thing to say before its battery died.

 

Now I remember what Susan said about my reading of Calvino and irrational spaces. I am so ready for all of this

 

January 16 Some cats bring their human companions gifts of dead mice–or tails of ground squirrels. I had that in mind when I went to the kitchen this morning and found a scrap of my own yellow writing pad paper placed neatly in the center of a folded cloth napkin that marks the place where I sit at the table. The paper had been torn from a tablet by the telephone on the counter and upon which I note grocery items to be purchased or things that must be done during the course of the day. This scrap had some smears on it. They smelled a bit like old liver and could have been made by paws or even a tongue.

 

Written on this fragment was this:

 

As I in grim and sullen night

Creep toward her limp and listless form

I am surprised by quickening pulse

That coaxes me to make her play.

 

Clearly Charlie is not sleeping through my afternoon studies of Frost and Shelley and, as of yesterday, Yeats. He is listening and maybe even taking notes. This cheers me.

 

Last night I did not feel much like playing on the floor. I was engaged in Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. Have I been living on another planet!!! ??? Oh my God what fabulous images. How alive I am to what she describes. And her words and the rhythm. I have to read it aloud. I am in love again.

 

Anyway, Charlie came down for his kitchen visit. He crossed back and forth a few times and I paid little attention except to say good evening. Finally he sat near the door to the room where I was and did not budge. He stared at me. He wanted to play. He allowed me to get up (and he did not flee when I moved), fetch my wire wand, and crawl to him. We had a long session. He touched my knee a few times and I touched one of his paws a couple of times. We were still cautious but he looked at me openly and unafraid from a distance of about 12 inches. That meant I could see the little ragged patterns of the white on his toes (the name Snowshoe Siamese from these white feet) and the beauty of his fur and that he is a well formed fellow.

 

He and Flannery and all the rest brought me delicious dreams in the night: a sheaf of notes written on handmade papers the size of paper bookmarks. The notes were scribed in a tiny cryptic language punctuated by even tinier images of houses and horses. The language was taught, I learned, in a town called Earthlogic, Tennessee.

 

Jan 18

Although a friend and I had an hour of fun and giggles playing with the new babble ball, Charlie thought it childish. He spied it the moment he entered the living room. He poked it once or twice. It spoke some indecipherable phrases. Charlie avoided it the rest of the evening. After the encounter with ball, he went to the kitchen, ate a few mouthfuls of dinner, then came into the room where I sat reading and half listening to a mystery. The wand was ready and at hand. He spotted it and made for it. I slunk to the floor (while turning down the volume of Inspector Alleyn’s voice) and made the cardboard tubes dance frantically before him. What ” imitation of life ” can be made to inhabit these simple objects! They pulse and fly through the air and tremble and slither. He was delighted with the game and even posed for a photograph afterwards. The Photo. From a short series taken with the Kindle, this is the one he liked best. It represents, apparently, how he sees himself: a tad bit kittenish and a large chunk of tease. Where have I seen that come hither look before? Lana Turner? I hope he doesn’t think less of me for having purchased such a rude toy as the babble ball.

 

 

Jan 20

Charlie update. If this is brief, it is no fault of Charlie’s. I’ve been out the past two evenings and have not been available for a lot of getting to know each other time. I thought of Charlie, however, when one of the pieces on the program at the Metropolitan Auditions was “No word from Tom” from the Stravinsky opera “The Rake’s Progress.” The libretto was co-written by W.H. Auden. The title comes from a series of paintings by Hogarth/same name. Charlie came to mind again and again as I thought about “The Rake’s Progress.” I scrawled on my program: “No word from Charlie.” Why??? Something was eating at me. I was convinced there was a connection. Today I looked at the first painting from the Hogarth series and there, lo, was a cat. Front bottom and slightly to the right of center. Could the “Tom” of the song be inspired by a Tom Cat? The libretto would say no…it’s something about a man seduced by the devil who ends up in Bedlam or some such place. Boring and predictable. But I wonder if anyone has really looked into the possibility that this whole opera is a coded story of a woman trying to bring a cat around? Meanwhile, Charlie came down the stairs when he heard me on my mini trampoline trying to work off the vast quantity of food I had consumed over the weekend. Of course, there was also the soothing voice of Inspector Alleyn to lure him. We played a bit with the magic wand. But most wonderful was his fairly new habit of flopping on the floor then rolling and stretching while on his back. He has the most delicious underside/all furry and pale cream/he looks for the world like a teddy bear. There is still no possibility of actually petting. He is a tease.

 

Jan 24 Charlie update. Brief. What does a cat make of a purple feather and a cardboard box? Just think of the possibilities.

 

 

 

 

January 26

 

 

CHARLIE UPDATE. 1. Said his first meow to me. A soft little hello in passing. 2. Has the desire to play with the wand while I’m bouncing on my little trampoline and does. 3. Generally is moving about the house but though more and more comfy has not jumped on me or any furniture. Tidy, sweet and adorable. I posted a picture and some “expert” fanciers declare that Charlie is a Birman/blue point

 

 

 

 

January 29

Charlie report. Brief account, but a new behavior. Himself climbed upon a footstool by a sunny French Door today. He did not stay but a moment. Then stood looking out the windows to the deck for some time, but from the floor. He strolls around the house during the day. Braver and braver or just thinking things here about are curiouser and curiouser.

 

 

 

January 31

 

Charlie Update: A note on patience

Last night I began reflecting upon patience. I thought that if I could wait this long (not really long at all) for a small animal to decide to approach me that surely I could now go into the wild and work with wild creatures…really study them and get to know their behavior much as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey had. This of course brought me round to thinking about what Louis Leakey had told me about patience and women.

During the spring of 1972 (I can’t find the confirmation of the dates that Leakey was in Seattle for the last time, but he died in October of 1972 in London and I know my encounter was during the first year I was teaching at Evergreen), Louis Leakey was to visit University of Washington and address a very large audience at Meany Hall. I had a friend whose family were connected with the Leakey Foundation in San Francisco. It had been founded in 1968 to support the Leakey fieldwork and to encourage young scientists. My friend was a student at Evergreen. When the Leakey speech and trip to Seattle was confirmed, family told the Foundation about my friend and she was asked to take care of Leakey while he would be in Seattle. She invited me to help. Leakey was only 69 (younger than I am now!) but he had been in ill health. He had suffered heart attacks and a stroke and had been attacked by a swarm of bees not long before we met him. One of his feet was swollen and he had trouble getting his shoes on and bending over to tie his shoes. He seemed very old indeed. But he was charming and exceedingly jolly. The Foundation put us up in a University District hotel. We had adjoining rooms so that we could help him dress and hear him if he called out. We were to keep people from swarming over him when he went to the lecture and we were to watch what he ate. We settled in to our rooms and prepared for the evening. I took note of his badly abused suitcase, which was held together by an old leather belt as we selected from one or two items of clothing he would wear that night. Everything he had was a bit shabby. I don’t know if it was during the preparations for the evening when he offered us a drink or if it was later. But I know he did have his stash. Before the lecture we met and attended a somewhat stuffy dinner with University of Washington faculty and administrators and their spouses. We were already on good terms with Dr. Leakey, enough so that we were all amused by the excessive sycophancy and we three exchanged meaningful glances while we monitored the Leakey plate and appetite. We were escorted to Meany Hall. Dr. Leakey was placed in the middle of the stage behind a lectern that was, alas, on wheels. He had his cane for stability. But he leaned heavily on the lectern as he spoke. We two assistants, go-fers, keepers were placed just to the left of him on the side of the stage but still a good many yards from the lectern. I have no recollection of what he said because we two were watching in horror, daring not to breath, as the lectern inched toward the front edge of the stage. The drop off was considerable. We were tensed and ready to race to his rescue, just silently, each of us in our own private misery, wondering at what moment this would be necessary.

Thanks be the speech ended, we groaned and began to breathe again, and audience members raced toward our ward. Our job began, then, in earnest. We got to Dr. Leakey as quickly as we could and walked on either side of him, squeezing close and trying to look as formidable as two youngish pretty nice looking women could, and we shielded him as much as we could. He was not helping. He grinned, tried to answer each shout, and could have spent the night with his admirers.

The night was not over. Turned out there were distant Leakeys in Seattle. The Foundation or Louis himself had agreed to a visit to them. I don’t remember much except that we were somewhere north of Seattle and the University District proper and deposited in front of a modest home in a modest suburban neighborhood. It was very dark (we must have had a driver) and we pranced up to the door with Dr. Leakey, probably arm in arm by this time. The home’s walls were hung with ancient family portraits…oils much like you might see in Downton Abbey. They pointed to these portraits that declared their shared DNA with the old fellow who had spent most of his life in the Olduvai Gorge. The portraits seemed as out of place in this house and this neighborhood as they would have in the Gorge. I have odd memories that this part of the evening was a bit like a scene from Fawlty Towers. There was much fussing and staring and polite distant kept and so much excitement that someone should have been pouring drinks or passing joints around. It was the era. But not in that family at that moment. There was absolutely nothing in sight that Dr. Leakey could or should eat. My friend went to the kitchen and made him a light omelette. He was much obliged. As he ate, the family announced that all of their neighbors had been invited to come meet him. So there was that. They tramped in, seriously, the whole neighborhood, and googled, purred, ate and drank (at last). He was happy.

 

We got him home to the hotel finally.. got him out of his shoes….and into his jammies. He was happy and talkative. I think that’s when we all had a drink. Cognac? I don’t know. It was then he told us about patience. He invited my friend to come do research in Africa.. Like Jane. She could do it he said. Women have the patience for working with animals. It takes years and years. It takes patience. Only women have that kind of patience. You can do it. She could have. She didn’t. We all went to bed, though my friend and I listened all night for any cry or call from the other room. We had sort of fallen in love with him by this time.

Louis Leakey died that same year, in October, in London while visiting Jane Goodall and her mother.

 

 

 

 

 

February 1 2014

 

Charlie update: After thinking and writing about patience (see above) I spent quite a long time rolling about on the floor last night. I remembered the times when, as a mean ten year old, I teased my much younger brother, Judo, by dropping to the ground, holding my breath, and playing dead. I must say, Judo showed quite a bit more interest in this than Charlie does. However, we played from floor position and I was allowed to touch an ear a couple of times. He reached out and touched my creeping hand several sweet times…a soft little pad touch. It was a lot of fun for both of us.

 

You’ve all been so patient. Yes, Charlie has some new tricks up his sleeve. 1. He has discovered the skylight over my “TV Room.” Night before last he stared up at it, unblinking, for at least 30 minutes. I do believe he was watching Downton Abbey as reflected in the skylight/not looking at the TV itself. Perhaps he doesn’t want to let me know how hooked he is on what is afterall a run of the mill soap opera. He plays with me, relaxes in my presence, but still hasn’t hopped up on my lap. Still, we have a little routine. 2. He has enjoyed episodes of sunny afternoon birdwatching from the floor below the double doors that lead to the deck. Occasional tail twitches. He will not be going out, so tantalizing to watch but no harm will be done to the feathered and winged ones.

 

 

Everytime I appear in public, someone asks about Charlie.

 

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Becky Knold I don’t know Charlie, but I love the description of what’s happening here w/ MFK Fisher. mmmmm.

 

 

 

 

Charlie Report. Sunday morning, February 9, 2014. I am missing more than half of Charlie’s life. The evidence (tufts of fur on the rug, back scratcher in an unusual location, imitation mice moved across the floor, sometimes with tails pulled off) is that he plays through the night. Not just a little stroll through the downstairs but vigorous, sustained romping. I sleep through it. He must think I’m a lazy dullard.

 

 

Charlie tries his paw at poetry again: “who played all night rocking and rolling over lofty mountains which in the yellow morning were merely davenports.” He calls it Howl. I say it lacks form and clear theme and is imitative.

 

Feb 14 Charlie Report: No, its not over. I don’t know if it is the increased light, the Winter Olympics, the phase of the moon…or just that I sat still and quiet most of yesterday reading Catcher in the Rye. Something inspired my little Birman friend. It was early afternoon and he was bounding through every room in the house…inspecting couches, window sills, and chairs. He springs lightly and almost soundlessly to narrow ledges. Now while doing all of this, he turns frequently either to a. see if I’m watching and/or b. see if I’m going to turn into a standard poodle and come roaring after him, curls twittering and fangs dripping with desire. That’s really not my style, but I don’t blame him for being cautious. He also stood once and spoke to me in a very low meow …several in a row. This was indeed a red letter day and it was hard to concentrate on Holden and his hunting cap. Oh well. No, he (Charlie, not Holden) has not been on my lap or approached for a scritch. But he is starting to claim a helluva lot of territory.

 

Charlie Report: Monday, February 17. This is probably embarrassing. But I’ll tell it anyway. Well, anyone who reads my posts know I’m reading just about every waking minute. Like I need a more active imagination. So when I go to bed, stories and words and images are darting around in my head, each asking for attention. Things I should write. Stories I should note down. Last night as I was going to sleep, I had a whole novel composed in my mind. I wrote it and read it……… then it disappeared. It was really good. I’ve had precognitive dreams in my life and have often had a new song come to me, sometimes with three or four verses of lyrics. I used to tape them first thing in the morning. So I like dreams and that twilight time between being awake and being asleep. This one in the middle of last night was one of those semi-lucid things. Charlie jumped up on the bed. The very bed I was in. Just as if it was really happening in real time. I felt his whole weight hit my body (something I’ve never felt in waking life). Then he moved around and started biting my hair. I could feel his sharp claws. ( I can’t clip them until he is much more comfortable.) Finally he settled down and fell asleep next to me/pressed against my side. I was thinking WHAT A BREAK THROUGH. After a while I woke up fully expecting to see a cat. It was all a dream. How d’ya like that?

 

Charlie Report. February 19, 2014. Well while I’m still glowing from listening to Frank Deford this morning, I’ll tell you a little bit about old Charlie. This fella’s got some habits now. A little bit, just a tiny bit, predictable he is. The last couple of days, he’s come creeping around the edge of the door that leads to the kitchen. Now that’s not really a door. It is a big open archway with no doors. So when he comes down the hallway, puss-footin’ along, he is just there. And his food is right around the corner. So he looks and determines whether there is anything fresh there in his bowls. Well, how fresh can canned gristle and fat be? It’s not as if he’s gonna find a dead mouse or anything. Still, he checks it out. And now, if I’m in the kitchen, he looks right at me if there is nothing there and he says, “meow.” That could mean anything but it doesn’t. He is very intentional. “Meow” in this context means I want something wet in that bowl and now I know you are the one who will get it for me. So I do. He was, I was told, accustomed to eating around 4. But he has some other ideas about that. He would, if he could, go out and eat about a dozen birds. He watches them through a glass window and I’ve never seen a tail switch that fast. He could beat a bowl of pancake batter with that tail. And once, yesterday, he forgot himself and smashed his nose on the glass he was so excited. Here is something. A friend came to play music with me and didn’t Charlie come sauntering into the room? That was pretty exciting. He likes the klezmer stuff, I can tell you that.

 

 

 

Charlie Report: I was up early today and caught him quickly exiting the couch in the living room. Because he does not shed, it is not as easy to track his movements as it was Frank’s (who left a nest of fur everywhere he paused for more than 50 seconds). Yesterday, the old boy actually purred. We blinked at each other for a while then he let me scratch his head. Just once. Just for a moment. But, Mars to Earth, contact!

 

 

Charile Report: Clearly an active night. He threw a blanket and a pillow off the green couch. Too hot? Not soft enough? Will he redecorate the whole house?

 

Charlie Report: Turns out Charles is a party boy. Sleep-over visitors expressed a hope that they would see himself. He held off until after dark, the tease. Then he stealthed down the stairs and began peeking around a corner, just showing an ear and eye, until one guest saw him. She silently fell to the floor (though it was her 75th birthday/years of yoga folks/it works) with feather and and wire dazzler and began the flirtation. Charlie didn’t immediately pounce. He likes to be seduced. But once he was into it, he was a nonstop private dancer. Tina would be doing a whole new song for this fellow and his moves. The others were watching through the passway to the kitchen and that Charlie would do some astonishing leap then look up to them as if to say, “did you see that! did you get it? did you?” Good grief. He touched my finger a couple of times as if to say…don’t worry..I’m still all yours. Last night when I got home from gallery sitting, I couldn’t find him. He was sitting, still as a bronze of himself, on top of a chair back daring me to see him. He laughed when I spotted him, leaped to the floor, and ran to the kitchen for his dinner.

 

 

 

March 4

 

The courage to take the plunge

 

My dreams often remind me of the times I didn’t have the courage to take the plunge. In my fantasy world, I forget myself and allow my foolish heart free to frolick. In my dreams I tell the woman on that café stool in Cheticamp that I’ll be moving to the area and would like to get to know her. She would have been my Chavela Vargas. In waking life, I left town that same afternoon. In my dreams the smiling woman standing under a portico in Athens in the summer of 1972 would have been my Lota de Macedo Soares . Her gold tooth was gleaming in the early sunlight and her rosy skirts flirted with the wind. I kept walking.   In my dreams a slim, deep, young man who resembled Gregory Peck or Charles Lindberg, a flyer, who asked me to do what I thought then was unthinkable, survives the crash of his small plane, and we become old together living somewhere in Vermont with a dozen grandchildren.

There is something about the courage to take the plunge that my animals have tried to teach me. Cosmo, my Springer Spaniel, took the plunge. I wrote about it in Conversations with the Inner Dog. I thought when he swam one day to my kayak after years of avoiding the water that this must be what it is like to be “awake.” You notice for a moment after the plunge that something is different but then you just go back to being that one you have become. You just keep swimming. And you will always be able to swim after that.

Charlie took the plunge. Yesterday he simply marched up to me (lying on a couch) and placed his head into my left hand. I began to scuff and rub and pet and smooth his back and let his tail pass through a circlet of my fingers and he was suddenly awake and so was I. There seemed to be no inciting incident. I didn’t invite or call for this blessing. Like grace, it just happened. At that moment, because he took the plunge, something deep changed between us. He asked for more this morning.

 

Charlie Report: The courage to take the plunge

 

My dreams often remind me of the times I didn’t have the courage to take the plunge. In my fantasy world, I forget myself and my foolish heart is free to frolic. In my dreams I tell the woman on that café stool in Cheticamp that I’ll be moving to the area and would like to get to know her. She would have been my Chavela Vargas. In waking life, I left town that same afternoon. In my dreams the smiling woman standing under a portico in Athens in the summer of 1972 would have been my Lota de Macedo Soares . Her gold tooth was gleaming in the early sunlight and her rosy skirts flirted with the wind. I kept walking. In my dreams a slim, deep, young man who resembled Gregory Peck or Charles Lindberg, a flyer, who asked me to do what I thought then was unthinkable, survives the crash of his small plane, and we become old together living somewhere in Vermont with a dozen grandchildren.

There is something about the courage to take the plunge that my animals have tried to teach me. Cosmo, my Springer Spaniel, took the plunge. I wrote about it in Conversations with the Inner Dog. I thought when he swam one day to my kayak after years of avoiding the water that this must be what it is like to be “awake.” You notice for a moment after the plunge that something is different but then you just go back to being that one you have become. You just keep swimming. And you will always be able to swim after that.

Charlie took the plunge. Yesterday he simply marched up to me (lying on a couch) and placed his head into my left hand. I began to scuff and rub and pet and smooth his back and let his tail pass through a circlet of my fingers and he was suddenly awake and so was I. There seemed to be no inciting incident. I didn’t invite or call for this blessing. Like grace, it just happened. At that moment, because he took the plunge, something deep changed between us. He asked for more this morning.

 

 

About Llyn De Danaan

LLyn De Danaan is an anthropologist and author. She writes fiction and nonfiction. Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman's Life on Oyster Bay was published by the University of Nebraska Press. She is currently a speaker for Humanities Washington.
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