Insane Cat Posse

Uh oh. I feel eyes on me, like I'm being watched....

Rockland County rednecks like lots of things: Hooters, hot wings, beer (all in one great location), huntin', big trucks with flashing lights and awesome monster tires with stripper silhouettes on them mudflaps, and dollar stores. The dollar store in my town is no different than, say, a Wal-Mart is out west. There are pairs of scratchy polyester pants, cheap plastic shoes; in fact, a bevy of plastic goods that "off-gas" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgassing) at such an alarming rate, you get a headache if you're in there long enough. It's an unhealthy but sometimes necessary place to shop, for financial reasons.

Ah!! Scared the bejeesus outta me!

And just like my truckin' neighbors, the t-shirt rack rarely disappoints. It's a wealthy mix of loud cheesy prints, sayings, and slogans, most of it overly jingoistic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism) nonsense about flags with colors that don't run, big deer heads, guns, and camouflage prints that relay strong fears about "foreigners", and that's just the male shirts.The women tend to like chocolate and cats; lots and lots of cats. This one design is so particularly egregious, such a high temple to offensively bad taste, I had to snap a few pics. These cats' eyes follow you, and they are angry; oh so angry. Beware. Halloween is a'comin'.

A Tale of Two Kitties

The bird hunter at his afternoon post.

I noticed early on that a certain tomcat living on the second floor of a particular old house in a small Hudson River town likes to watch small sparrows cavorting among two large bushes planted in the front yard. 
I loved his hunters' intensity, watching his little head spin around to catch the birds' quick-flighted movements. Does he see me? 
I catcalled out to him from the lawn, waving my hands around. Yes, there's his head moving my way. He definitely sees me. Nice as the cat is, he didn't interest me much. I'm the type who prefers a furry snow dog by my side, but C'est la vie. I love animals, especially cute lil' house pets.

Tomcat on his windowsill. Wait, is that another cat?!

Then, one day....there she was! A second shyer kitty, hiding behind the smaller boy cat at his hunting post on the windowsill. She was harder to attract with my calls for attention, but I finally got her to look at me before she left for the quiet corners of the apartment she shares with her Tomcat. My neighbor told me their story one dark night while I watched the sun set, under the decorative eaves on the lit porch. 
They are indeed brother and sister like I thought, two rescue kitties that were part of an abandoned litter his friend found in a cardboard box by the side of the road. At first he collected one, then he went back for the sibling, and I'm glad he did. They form a perfect match set: he, the smaller wiry hunter; she, the quiet but bigger, gentler girl.

 

Oh! I see a second kitty! Looks like the girl sister!

We talked about a lot of things that night, touching on subjects lightly and quickly, like people born to the same clan. And just like my innate sense about animals, so are my gut instincts about humans: his people also come from Maritime Canada, off an island called Newfoundland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_%28island%29), 
like my Acadie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Scotia). How did I know? 
By their names, Cassidy and Evangeline. 


Read it here: http://www.bartleby.com/42/791.html.

Wild Calico Kitty

At the beginning of the summer, I saw two little kitties wandering around the basement of a white house, on a street I always walk down. One was black and white, and the other calico. I still see them occasionally during the daytime, but they're a lot better at hiding from prying human eyes, which makes them really hard to spot. 

Sometimes I wonder if they live in one of the big, old houses on the block, so they can be tended to by one of the kindly retirees who like to garden, maybe leaving them saucers of milk outside by the back door, but I also like the idea of them running around town as a kitty dynamic duo, killing small birds, chipmunks, and other small animals that burrow in among the wood piles.  Fare thee well, hunter.