Nine Years Ago Tonight...

 

...I netted this kitten outside a convenience store and brought her home with me.

I fell in love with a kitten that lived in a convenience store parking lot.  After 2 weeks of trying to get her, I used a landing net to grab the little darling.  A woman there went ballistic over this and accused me of hurting the cat.  Her massive boyfriend stood by and I was really worried.  I explained what I was doing and why, but this skirt kept running her mouth.  When I left with the cat I saw her writing down my license plate number.
The cat is named Mischa.  She is on my knee while I write this.

To our minds cats are insane.  Their logic is not ours, their manner of affection bizarre.  When we were all boarded up during the hurricane, Jango cried out all night Why?  Why I no go out?  Why?  Why?  Jinjur was very troubled by the storm,  Mingo fell asleep, and Mischa spent the night stalking the others.  What fun she had!

When the lizards are sunning themselves on a window, Mee-Mee throws herself against the glass trying to get one and torture it to death. Last night I took most of a cockroach from her as her idea of play is just too savage for me.  I dislike roaches but it was a living creature and cannot help what it is.  Mee-Mee was livid.  When I pet her, she licks my fingers and then bites my wrist as hard as she can.  Then she shrieks and runs off.  She follows Mingo around and attacks him.  He just cries out and lays there. 

My new cat Mischa, aka Memee, is coming along just fine.  She stalks me through the house and hunts my toes by night.  Last night she came down and sat in the living room with us, a first.  I have a bell on her so I have some idea where she is.  In the above, I am trying to figure out how to repair a broken small guitar so that it works.  Behind me is the Lydia Ann lighthouse, which cannot be seen through my window, is about 15 miles away, does not look like that and the window faces the wrong way anyway. 

My brother took this great picture of Mischa laying on a couch blanket.  He claims the leopard pattern is a visual echo.  

Mischa is doing her job and very well at that. 

There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists
Could re-create the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?

 

Adieu.