Victoria Loved Cats and She Kept of Bringing them Home and... I Was Tolerant But... I Never Cleaned the Litter Box or Fed Them... I DID Chase them Down and Wrestle Them, Stuff Them Into the Cat Carrier Bag So They Could Go Visit the VET.
Amelia, Meadow, Shasta, Max, Eck, Sherbet, Emma, Pongo and The Black Cat that Lived Next Door.
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| Amelia - Giant Cat and Barn. Double Exposure with a Film Camera in Chico and Cutten |
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| Meadow and Shasta in Cutten |
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| Max - Digital Visual Echo |
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| Eck Looking at You and Psychedelic Art - Mister Blinky |
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| Emma - with that Trippy Graphic Explosion Effect |
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| Pongo and Emma at Home in Eureka, CA |
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| Black Cat from Next Door - Cutten, CA |
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| CAT - Connect the Dots - Free Coloring Book Art by gvan42 Based on the Famous Sculptures In Los Gatos, CA |
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| Cat Sculpture Los Gatos - Free Coloring Book by gvan42 |
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| Gregory Vanderlaan Sleeping with Max the Cat |
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| Meadow and the Magic Mirror Not a Reflection but a Time Trip Potatoshop Trick! |
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| Meadow Helping Me Play Farmville on the Computer |
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| ECK sleeping on the warm TV |
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| Emma on my Piano Bench |
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| Fat Freddy's Cat Cartoon by Gilbert Shelton |
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| Cat in the Hat Meets Miro - Dr. Seuss Parody |
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| Drawing of a Black Cat with Pattern Fill by Gregory Vanderlaan |
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| Shasta the Cat Surveying his Empire |
and then Victoria Posted on Faceborg...
There are some circumstances that are beyond the scope of my rationalization, and I was privy to one yesterday. Pongo was sitting in the window pictured below, as he is wont to do, and one of the hummingbirds flew right in front of his face. He didn't flinch, begin tapping his tail, or start making creaky door noises. They just stared at each other in companionable silence, until a second hummer showed up and the quiet conversation continued. All was calm, all was bright. Then they zoomed around the corner to the feeder for lunch. He didn't follow them with his gaze or interest.
Pongo is 6 years old and I've had him for 3. He was picked up by the Sheriff's Dept. (ie: on the street) and later brought to Sequoia Humane Society where he spent 8 months before coming home with Emma and me. While at the shelter in the cat room, I was talking to the volunteer and he came and sat in front of me, so I bent down to say hi and give him a pat, but he wasn't having it. That's ok, Little One, that's ok. Later, getting ready to leave the cat room and make preparations to bring Emma home, I realized he was sitting on my feet! I'd been so tied up in watching the other kitkats playing and conversing with the tech, I hadn't noticed! Well, whattya know! We're bringing home two kitties today! His ears were torn up, his back had a long, healed scar with no hair, as did one shoulder, and he would flinch if I tried to touch him for a year. Now he sleeps on my lap, plays Calvin and Hobbes with Emma, and is the Earnest Guardian of the Household, particularly for Meadow, our 18 year old. The scars have hair, though solid black, sad reminders. And, he's never purred or meowed, but that's ok, Little One, that's ok. It reminds me much of the boy in Jeremiah Johnson who also did not speak. So it brings me to yesterday when there was so obviously a communion between Pongo and the teeny birds. Being a natural predator, he didn't have the need or desire to hunt them, and I found that remarkable from someone who, possibly, was once hunted.
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| My Dad - Justin Vanderlaan - at the Cats Sculptures in Los Gatos, CA |
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| Copies of the Cats Sculptures in a Shopping Center in Los Gatos |
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| Me - Gregory Vanderlaan on the Road to Mount Shasta |
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| Sign at Panther Meadow on Mount Shasta, a Sacred Spring The Origin of the Names Shasta and Meadow... My Second Ex-Wife was working as a Data Entry Clerk in Chico and One of the Other Employees Had a Litter and We Took Two Grey and White Kittens. I Was Given the Task of Naming The Kittens and I Called them Panther and Meadow. Well, I was Overruled because She Said: "No House Cats Will Be Named Lion or Tiger or Panther." In General, Shasta Was My Favorite Because He Was A Disobedient Large Male Cat. JUST LIKE ME! When We Moved from Chico to Eureka We Almost Lost Shasta. We Were Staying at A Cheap Motel in Fortuna and When It Became Time to Leave We Couldn't Find Shasta. LOOKED EVERYWHERE... I Was Ready to Give Up But My Second Ex-Wife Crawled On the Floor and Found Him Inside the Box Spring... Whenever it Was Time to Go To The Vet, I Was Given the Task of Capturing the Cat and Stuffing It Into The Travel Bag. OFTEN That Was An EPIC Struggle... With Shasta the Cat I Had to Wrestle Him and There WAS DOUBT as to Who Would Win The Wrestling Match. When Shasta was Very Near Death, He Would Walk Around the House in a Straight Line Until He Bumped Into a Wall or a Piece of Furniture... Then He Would Randomly Turn Right or Left and Continue Walking. That Worked Unless He Walked into a Corner of the Room When Neither a Right or Left Turn Worked. SO... In That Case I Picked Him Up at Pointed Him in a New Direction. One Night After I Had Retired He Walked Around Like That For Hours. I ALSO Walked Around Picking Up Trash and Putting It In The Dumpster... Eventually He just Lay Down in One Spot and I Sat Down in a Spot Where I Could Look at Him and I Contemplated The Meaning of Life For Hours... That Was A Meaningful Night... and Then He Got Up and Survived a Few More Days... Then He Stuck His Head into a Pile of Stuff in the "Junk Room" and Did Not Move for Days... I Told My Second Ex-Wife That It Seems Like Shasta Has Died but She Said... "We'll Just Wait a While." At That Point I Took a Vacation to Chico to Visit Friends For a Couple of Weeks and When I Got Back, Shasta Had Been Cremated and Was in a Wooden Box. I Buried Amelia in the Redwood Forest Behind our Apartment in Cutten. That Was Difficult Because Roots Criss-Cross Everywhere and I Had to Chop Them With the Shovel. When She Was Very Old She Was Deaf and Blind but Still Knew Her Way Around the Yard. I Guess That She Had Memorized the Location of Everything and Could Travel Without and Trouble to Go Visit Her Favorite Places... During My College Years I Read the Book "A Language Older Than Words" by Derrick Jensen. A Deep Ecology Story About Inter Species Communication. (and Environmentalism) - Amelia Walked on the Computer Keyboard While I Was Writing a Term Paper About That Book... and I Left those Random Letters in The Report. With an Explanation of What they Were.. I Have No Pictures of Sherbet. He Lived With Us On Highway #99 North of Chico and Walked Across the Road. Got Run Over by a Truck. As The Cats Die We Replaced Them With Others. Emma and Pongo Came from the Humboldt County Animal Shelter and They Already Had Their Names. https://sequoiahumane.org/ I Have Never Been Inside the Shelter. Volunteers Walk The Dogs Past Our House Every Day... We Live a Few Blocks Up The Hill... and We Wave at The Dog Walkers... VIDEO: Shasta The Cat Running Across The Yard in Cutten, California: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQUHWAVDTv0 |