Tag: Cats

A blank look means you’re in another world

I can see how it is that a writer’s life can be a lonely one.  That’s why, I guess, so many writers have an animal as a pet, someone to talk to, or just feel as though you are not alone in this quest.

I’m often sitting in front of the computer screen, or in a large lounge chair with my trusty tablet computer, writing the words, or staring into space!

Sometimes the words don’t make any sense, sometimes the thoughts leading to those words don’t make any sense.

Sometimes the most sensible person in the room is the cat.

I’m sure his thoughts are not vague or scrambled, or wrestling with the ploys of several stories on the go, getting locations right, getting characters to think and do their thing with a fair degree of continuity.

The cat’s world is one of which chair to lie on, where is that elusive mouse be it real or otherwise, and is this fool going to feed me, and please, please, don’t let it be the lasagna.  I am not that cat!

Unlike other professions, there is no 9 to 5, no overtime, no point where you can switch off and move into leisure time.  Not while you are writing that next masterpiece.  It’s a steady sometimes frustrating slog where you can’t just walk away, have a great time, and come back and pick up where you left off.

Stories have to be written from beginning to end, not a bit here and a bit there.

It’s a bit like running a marathon.  You are in a zone, the first few miles are the hardest, the middle is just getting the rhythm and breathing under control, and then you hope you get to the end because it can seem that you’ve been going forever and the end is never in sight.

But, when you reach the end, oh, isn’t the feeling one of pure joy and relief.

And, yes, perhaps you’ve just created another masterpiece!

I think I’ve got a plan

You see, it’s the result of a New Year’s resolution which I only told myself, mainly because I didn’t think I’d be able to execute it.

The plan, that is, not some of the people around me.

Be more organized.

Have a writing plan for each story, a synopsis if you will, something that can be used to plan and write to, instead of the hodgepodge of trying to remember where I was, or what I was intending to write as a follow on.

And it’s working to a certain degree.

In the morning, an hour to check social media, Instagram, WordPress, twitter.  I don’t bother with Facebook because everything I’ve tried there has failed, and I don’t think it’s for want of trying, it’s because Facebook will not give you reasonable coverage.  If you want that, you have to pay, and even if I did, I would still not get anything like I’d want.

Best left for the Fake News we keep hearing about, or people who want their details sold off to the highest bidder.

Then it’s time to write some new blog posts, I have more than one blog, each a different subject or aspect of either writing or traveling.

Rest.  Sometimes.

Afternoon, writing.  Yep, I have managed to get a few words on paper and editing the next two novels.  Bandy words with Chester, the cat, and generally come off second best.  He had the best ‘I don’t care’ face I’ve ever seen.

Then chores, dinner, what laughingly can be called TV, then maybe some more writing.

There, how’s that for a plan.

And…

How long do you think it will last?

 

Conversations with my cat – 5

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This is Chester.  He’s contemplating the mess on the floor.

I’ve asked him many times to stop unraveling the extension cords or to play with it as if it was a ball of string.

I’m not sure he understands the implications of playing with electrical wires.

Yet.

He is recovering from the visit by our grandchildren.

Sometimes, when they’re very quiet, he assumes they have gone.  He comes down to see what’s for dinner, or if there are any ‘snacks’.

Then, suddenly he realizes they have not gone, and panic sets in.

Sometimes he gets away.

Sometimes he is trapped, and forced to take large doses of child affection.

Yesterday, it was very close.

 

It’s late, I’m tired…

But…

There’s more to this story.

Or that’s what I keep telling myself, struggling to stay awake and write the next sentence then the next sentence, and the one after that.

Long after I should have gone to bed.

Does that sound like your life?

Of course, it doesn’t.  The rest of the world is sane, goes to work, come home, have dinner, watch a little television or play with the children, or maybe not, then go to bed.

None of this writing business, trying to finish the page, the scene, the chapter while the ideas are fresh in your mind.

Only your mind isn’t fresh, it’s been a long day, an argument with the significant other, a bigger argument with the cat, there’s the washing, the cooking, the cleaning…

When do I get five minutes for myself?

At the dead of night when everyone else has gone to bed, getting their eight hours sleep.

In the dark with only the screen to light the keyboard, I’m trying to find the way around the keyboard and turn out what has to be the next international best selling thriller.

The dog next door barks, it means the cat got out and is terrorizing it.

A door slams, it’s old Joe getting home late from the pub, probably drunk again.

Yep, right on target, the vitriol of a bitter woman, and I have to say, I don’t blame her.

Then I hear it, that voice from the deep, “Poppy.”

The youngest of the grandchildren, the very devil to get to sleep.

Writing for the night is over, time to read other people’s stories.

Conversations with my cat – 4

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This is Chester.  Hiding.

He is the proverbial ‘scaredy cat’.

He is in hiding, buried at the back of the shelving in our walk-in robe, one of the few places he thinks the grandchildren don’t know about.

Think again, Chester!

He pays scant regard to the fact he molts hair all over our clothes.

Efforts to fill the hole have been met with stiff resistance, the ‘blockage’ finding its way to the floor.

A bit like the blankets he doesn’t like on his bed.

Chester is 16 years old.  He has had a tumultuous relationship with my grandchildren, who, at first, wanted to terrorize him, and now, older and wiser, want to make friends with him.

Sorry, no can do.  You had your chance.

But …

He’s warming to the 15-year-old.  Perhaps because she is as tall as us, he is confused.

Her efforts to get him to sleep on the end of her bed have failed.

Perhaps we should switch beds, and I might win that battle after all.

 

 

Conversations with my cat – 3

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This is Chester.  Back on the bed.

Another argument lost, another smug ‘I’ve got the better of you, again’ look.

Time to move on, pick a battle I think I can win.

Food.  There’s the old wives tale, that cats love fish, and it’s true to a certain extent.

Chester doesn’t believe fish live in cans or plastic packets, despite how it’s dressed up.  Fresh fish, he’s into it, but there always seems to be a measured reluctance to eat something out of a can.

I think he regards us humans with disdain when our food comes out of a can or packet.

He refuses to eat the leftovers!

Then there’s chicken, or its more expensive neighbor, turkey.

He loves turkey.

I’m sure he’d eat quail and spatchcock too, but no, he’s a cat, and cats have to get used to eating chicken.  We’ve had this discussion, one too many times.

And just for good measure, I told him if he thinks he’s coming to Italy with us, he’d better get used to the idea of eating pasta.

Of course, always with the last word, he said, quite nonchalantly, ‘then you’d better call me Garfield’.

Grrrrrrr.

Conversations with my cat – 2

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This is Chester.  T for Tonkinese, capital T for trouble.

If you think you can win an argument with a Tonkinese you are sadly mistaken!

So, we got over the abandonment issues, and have moved onto the sleeping arrangements.  There seems to be some misconceptions on Chester’s part.

He thinks the bed is his domain.

Right.

We have provided him with several very comfortable, warm, and inviting places about the house where is he quite welcome to sleep, or keep a watchful eye over his domain.

That’s right, I thought I owned the house.

He has his own bed in our room where he can stay when he feels lonely, but it seems he has to be near us.

When he’s not walking across the bed, and us, or ‘resting’ on our feet.

And if we move, you’d think we’d taken a big stick to him.

Come to think of it …

Just to show his displeasure at his bed, the blankets always seem to be on the floor, and when I ask what happened, it was, of course, Mr Nobody.

After I’ve picked them up six times in a day, I ask him what his last slave died of?

And there’s the Siamese coming out, a snarl, and then aloof dismissal.

There is banishment to the great outdoors, but that’s another story.

Conversations with my cat – 1

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This is Chester.

Don’t be fooled by the benign expression, I’m getting the ‘your conversation better improve, and quickly’ look.

I guess it’s the talkative Tonkinese in him, tempered by the crabby Siamese part.

But …

We were talking about the state of the world, and he agrees it isn’t looking good, especially for travelers in Europe.  Of course, he is averse to either of us leaving him alone for any length of time, so he would say it was unsafe and we’d better stay at home.hat

I suppose that selfish part comes from the Burmese in him.

However …

I have scratched Germany, Austria, France and England off the list for the time being and consider it’s time to see a lot more of Italy.

We’ve been there several times, to Rome, in summer, to look at the Ancient ruins (Chester was rather impressed when I showed him a picture of the Collosseum), to Florence several times, just for the ambiance, and to Venice simply because we love it.

Then, we have also spent a few days in Tuscany, in an apartment very close to the town center of Greve in Chianti.

Chester, of course, was dismissive, but, he says, if we agree to take him with us …

 

 

Conversations with my cat – 19

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This is Chester, he thinks he is invisible.

No one has told him he’s not a zebra, and that he doesn’t have stripes the same color as the blinds.

I’ve told him over and over, just because he cannot see me, it doesn’t mean I can’t see him.

But, once again, we have to play the ‘game’.

I should be writing, but once again Chester has successfully distracted me.

If it was a cunning plan on his part, it worked.

 

Conversations with my cat – 18

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This is Chester, he’s lurking in the shadows.

This is near the front door, so I wonder if he’s waiting for someone, or keeping guard, or he’s spotted something outside.

The grandchildren will be here soon, and I haven’t told him they are paying a surprise visit.  He has a habit of disappearing the days they usually come.

We both hear a noise outside.

He goes into stealth mode.

Then I recognize the sound, of letters being shoved into the mailbox.

He shakes his head.  I think he was expecting a mouse.

I hear the back door rattle and the loud sounds of the grandchildren arriving.

He lifts his head, stands, and bolts.

That’s the fastest I’ve seen him move for a long time.