Cats are Communal

In which we consider communities and cats, poets, balancing acts and acts of grace, towering trees and dancing joyously.

Cats are awfully communal creatures, domestic cats, anyway. I've read somewhere that tigers are solitary beings, only coming together in order to mate. Perhaps that's true. But Felis catus, the domestic cat, is without question a communal being. I see this in the dynamics of the ThirteenCats feral colony, as well as in the behavior of my own four house cats. And I think this bent towards community has something to teach us, if we can but grasp the lesson.

The feral cat colony is definitely a colony, a community of individuals. It is definitely not a herd, nor a flock. It is not an authoritarian state. The cats don't seem to have one leader they follow, indeed, who ever knew any cat to follow anyone or anything?

The Lens of Gratitude

In which we consider trees and Dutchmen, and allow the cats to teach us somewhat regarding the focus of our personal lenses.

Handsome on his house

The routine of the feral cat colony has been disrupted somewhat over the past few days. Cats are creatures of routine, and, as per the recommendations of Alley Cat Allies, we feed on a consistent schedule. I feed daily at around noon; other neighbors and caregivers feed at different times. This provides some structure for the cats. They know when food will be on the back deck, and usually they're waiting for me.

Our schedule has been, as I said, disrupted over the past few days. If you've ever read the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, you'll have heard of the hearty Alianthus tree, also known as the Tree of Heaven. And if you've ever met the breed personally, you'll remember. You'll know exactly what I mean when I say the tree is essentially impossible to kill. Hack it down, it grows back. Poison it by painting something like Ortho or RoundUp on the bark or leaves, and it will indeed die down, but it's back in the spring. "Hardy" doesn't even begin to describe the tenacity of this tree.

Not that I'm a tree killer, mind you.

The Mindfulness of Cats

In which we learn a lesson from the cats, consider our minds and our fears, and resolve on a small step to make ourselves and our world a more wholesome place, or, how the scientists begin to figure out what cats have known forever.

Sasha in a basket

As my deadline approached and interruptions mounted, I began to feel a tight cramped pain in the small of my back. It got my attention, because, well, because it hurt, for one thing. The other thing was this: I've come to recognize that tight little back pain for what it is; my body's escalating cry for help when the first several pleas have gone unheeded.

Sure enough, as I took my fingers off the keyboard, gave my mind over to the body's complaints, I began to feel the other flares my flesh had sent out but that I had ignored. My shoulders were up around my ears. My breathing was so shallow as to be barely happening. There was a tic, tiny little muscle spasms, under my right shoulder blade. My jaw was clenched; I was gritting my teeth. I was also irritable. If anyone had found the temerity to walk into the room at just that moment, my southern social conditioning might have kept me from biting their head off, but it would have been a near thing.

Advice From Our Friends

In which we discover an interesting suggestion regarding the care of our feline friends, and have a good, healthy belly laugh to boot.

As I continue my decade long liaison with the neighborhood alley cats, I am constantly in search of  any and all information that could potentially be of benefit to them. To this end, I read several lists and websites devoted to catly topics.

Some of the information I find is useful, some inspiring, some funny, some cathartic. As with all information gathererd by whatever means, I have to sift through it, picking out the good bits and discarding the bad. You shouldn't check your brain, after all, when you open your browser.

The other day, I was reading  feral_cats, a yahoo group to which I subscribe. It is devoted to helping feral and stray cats (they're not the same), and to providing support and information on Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). One post I ran across soon had me laughing hysterically. The minute the spousal unit arrived home, I grabbed him.

"Listen to this," I said,