A Visitor Comes to the Shackteau

With the pleasant fall weather we have been leaving the windows open on the screen door of the Shackteau for the cool breezes to come and waft over our felines. There has been a side effect.

Neighboring cats have been coming by to pay their respects our Lamont, Pawline and Patrichia, pass the time of day, and share a story or two.

It really exists

One evening when the furless ones were abed, Jake a farm cat came to town. He had heard through the catvine that there were three very intelligent and intriguing cats, one reportedly ruggedly handsome, living in a place called the Shackteau. After getting directions from some feral cats about town Jake made went to the place called the Schackteau. A husky, meow, drew the inhabitations to the door. After proper introductions were made, by Lamont of course; he takes charge of most situations. They began the visit.

They cat-chatted about their various lives. Lamont, Paw and Patch gushed on about their luxurious abode with a fireplace of their own and air-conditioning, gourmet meals and of course the furless servants who waited upon them hand and foot and proper furless servants should. They went on about the petting and brushing they received everyday and the electronic toys they used when the furless ones were asleep, especially the computer that Lamont and pretty much mastered at this point. Lamont made sure Jake understood that because of his careful and undaunting research that he gave frequent lectures to his two sisters about the ways of the world near and far. He went as far to invite Jake to one of the lectures. Jake said he would think about it.

Jake in turn told them about his life on the farm. “Pretty good place to be as well,” he said. “We don’t have some of those high flauntin’ gadgets that you cats seem to have, at least not where we are. It could be they have such stuff in the house. I never go to the house myself,” continued Jake, “I’m perfectly content being a barn cat. Oh I go to the house when they set out dinner for us and other goodies at various times, but I just don’t hang there much. I find it more fun to run around the farm exploring things, that you cats, can only read about on that computer thingy.

“I also like to hunt, “said Jake, stretching out and standing a bit taller. I mainly hunt mouse, but I also go in for bird hunting and occasionally bigger prey. It’s lots of fun. I sing a little song about the mouse hunting.

‘Love to eat them mousies,

Mousies what I love to eat.

Bite they little heads off…

Nibble on the tiny feet.” *

                                                                                by B. Kilban

“Oh my,” said Patch quietly.

“We used to do that, “ piped in Paw “before we moved into the schacteau. But I don’t think we enjoyed it as much as you seem to, we just had to. Nothing against your obvious hunting talents,” she purred, “but I really prefer to have my meals catered. However, we do like hunting bugs that find their way into the Shackteau. We like to bit at them, even if we miss most of the time.”

“To each their own,” said, Jake and wisely added. “Guess it’s a good thing to enjoy where you are.”

“True enough my good cat, true enough,” enjoined Lamont.

“I agree,” added Paw but then added, “though I admit at times I do long for the outdoors. I used to escape from here from time to time you know. But every time I got wet, cold and hungry, and while I put up a fight, I was secretly happy when the furless servants caught me and put me inside again. I don’t think about it much now. If fact, I really avoid going out if they open the door enough to where I could sneak out. I guess we adapt.”

“Well,” said, Jake, “I’ve got to go back to farm now. It was nice to chat with you cats. I hope we can do it again sometimes.”

“Anytime,” Pawline replied. “We’d love to visit again.”

“Thanks,” said Jake, “but now I’ve got to go home and feed my litter. They must be meowing their heads of for mother’s milk. Bye now.” And Jake meandered off to his farm.

by B. Kilban

“Nice cat,” said Lamont, “It was good to visit with another cat and get the perspective on life. I hope others will come around and do the same. We could learn a lot from them. Such as, why on earth, did his furless servants name her Jake?”

Jake and Stamper and Gretel

[Breaking with my long held Irish position of that stories that are made up or stretched are far superior to true stories, I am going to tell you an actual cat story of my youth, which came to mind as I considered the story was going to tell. It will follow.]

 Despite rigorous research I do not actually know how many farms have cats on them. But in my youth I don’t recall a single farm that did not have cats. Farms have cows, cows give milk, cats like milk (even if it is bad for them), therefore cats are a plenty. They love to weave around your feet as you carry milk cans from the barn (we milked by hand) to the house in hopes that they would trip us and they could gorge themselves on milk.

One of the cats we had on our farm we named Jake. Jake was a fine motley looking cats, now that I think of not unlike our Patchtricia and Pawline, though its blacks may have been blacker and its color more colorful. But after Jake had a liter of kitten on the front porch we had to change her name to Jakey. Jakey, despite her name change did not take to having or rather caring for kittens. She would just have a litter each year on the front porch and then leave. We would often try to save these poor little abandoned critters with eyedroppers of milk but it never worked. Jakey was a poor mother and we were unfit stand-ins.

Also on the farm at that time we had a dog named Gretel, a fine dachshund. She never had any puppies though we had tried to have her bred. One year Jakey deposited her litter on front steps and Gretel came over and inspected them. In fact, she picked one of them up and walked off with her. We would see her frequently about the found with this motley slobbered upon kitten in her mouth. This went on for some time; too long for that matter, the kitten should have gone to catland heaven long before. Then we noticed that occasionally, Gretel would stop, drop the kitten from her mouth and the kitten would come around and clamp itself onto one of Gretel’s nipples and nurse away. We found out later this sometimes happens in the animal world for one species to adopt an infant of another species and develop milk and nurse them. That is exactly what happened in this case. And yes, I really am telling the truth here.

It turned out the Gretel was a great mother and her kitten grew up strong. My mother named the kitten Stamper. This was in regards to Lady Macbeth who, from Shakespeare’s pen uttered the words about a cat, “Make that damned cat quit stamping around the house.”

Gretel and Stamper, the best mouser on the farm, stayed buddies all their lives. Gretel eventually when blind from cataracts but they would continue to play. Gretel would go chasing Stamper full throttle when Stamper would suddenly stop and jump left or right and significant distance, as Gretel would go roaring by. Gretel, sensing something was a foot, would stop, sniff the air, and then roar off in the direction of Stamper again. They played this game for hours.

 [The story as I said is true, but it has enough incredibility to it to satisfy my Irish love of story of which truth is irrelevant.]

Post Script. Are you familiar with the ”Farm Affect”? The Amish who live in northern Indiana have some of the lowest rates of allergies and asthma in the western world. Researcher Dr. Mark Holbreich says the scientists believe this is because they spend so much time exposed to things on the farms, such as cats, especially cats. For more complete information go here.

Bast and Other Cat History

“I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.” ~ Hippolyte Taine

Lamont assumed his lecturing position atop the step thing and spoke to his sisters Patchtricia and Pawline sitting with rapt attention below, except for frequent grooming of theirselves and each other. Or, in other words they put up with their pontificating brother.

“I have been studying cat history some more at night while the whiskered furless servant, Oooo, is away. We cats seemed to have been first recognized for our importance in ancient Egypt as I have mentioned before.

“The Egyptians believed that their main god, Ra, died at sunset and went to the underworld to be reborn each morning in the East. Lions, our bigger cousins, would look into the setting sun and keep the sun’s ray it their eyes, as we modern cats have eyes that reflect in the dark. That light would enable them to go out at night and kill the evil serpents. Thus we see the importance of the Sphinx who immortalized we cats in ancient Egypt.

“These Egyptians also worshipped Sekhmet a goddess with the head of a lion, she was the goddess of war. They also worshipped Mau as a personification of Ra. Mau, by the way is the Egyptian word for cat.” His sisters eyed him with some interest at this point and then resumed their grooming.

Sekhmet

“Now I could go out with other cat related dieties such as Tefnut and Mafdet but let me move directly to the great Bast, a domestic cat such as ourselves, the daughter of Ra and protector of cats and those who took care of us. There was an annual festival in her name in Bubastis, a very popular festival I might add, where hundreds of mummified cats were buried.

Bast

Lamont scholarly continued to his somewhat rapt students and siblings, “In Egypt children were often consecrated to Bastet when a cut was made on their arm and a few drops of cat blood were poured into it. There is one of these in Tutankhamen’s tomb.

“All of this has led me to wonder if we should require our furless servants to worship us? They certainly seem to pay us fair homage, so perhaps that will do.

“Oh yes, have you noticed my sisters, that watching furless ones of TV, they seem to emulate we cats with their makeup. Again, in ancient Egypt the women believed the ideal beauty was the beauty of a cat and used makeup to make themselves have a more mysterious cat-like look.”

Paw and Patch looked up at their brother quizzically. “Really, our unwhiskered furless one does not seem to do that. But as you say there are a lot of commercials where the females do seem very cat-like in their makeup. Feathering or smokey eyes seems a bit catlike. Eva Mendes definitely looks cat-like.”

Eva Mendes

“Ah, my dear sisters, you are beginning to see. There is even a website I have found that teaches these furless females how to make cat-like make up; and several sites such as these: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/hairstyles-beauty/skin-care-makeup/how-to-get-cat-eyes#slide-1,  http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Your-Makeup-Like-Cat-Valentine, http://www.maybelline.com/makeup-looks/Night-Out/Cat-Eyes-Lesson.aspx, http://www.maybelline.com/makeup-looks/Night-Out/Cat-Eyes-Lesson.aspx, well the list goes on and on.”

“My oh my,” chimed in Patch, “these female furless do seem to like the cat look. They almost look whiskered.”

“Well, dear sisters, that concludes my lecture for today. You may look forward to our importance in Norwegian culture, witches affinity to cats, Islamic attention to cats, the Burmese cat legends, as well as Siamese, Malaysiand, Japanese, Ngariman and Australian cat lore. There is also be a bit on our relation to clouds and I think you may be particularly intrigued the our part in Noah’s ark.”

Paw’s and Patch’s eyes widened for a moment, then they rolled over and took a nap. With a condescending look from atop his perch, Lamont laid down for a nap himself. Lecturing is hard business.

Politics or Just Plain Cheating?

When I was in seminary in one of our classes we did a mock presbytery (representatives of churches of about 1/4^th to 1/5^th of a state; the main government body in the Presbyterian Church; our government is based upon the Presbyterian political system) meeting. We were to debate the giving of funds to the Angela Davis defense (you can dig out the history of that on your own.). We divided the class into small groups to work upon our positions and strategies for the meeting.

I volunteered our group to set up the classroom for the meeting. The classroom had windows on one side, a raised section in front and then three levels of section facing the front. I made sure our group got the group of seats on the second section by the windows. Why? Because if you were in the front of the room that is where you eyes were likely to look first.

The moderator for this meeting was the president of the college. He didn’t know most of the seminarians but he did know me.

Then we began our strategy. We decided we would oppose the funding for the Angela Davis case, not because any of us believed that was the right thing to do, we just wanted to see if we could pull it off.

This was our devious plan. As soon as the meeting started, I would rise to be recognized by the moderator, and since we were the most visible and he knew me, we figured this would likely work. I would then make the motion (or one of our group, I forget) to oppose the funding this setting the negative agenda of the day. And we prepared our arguments carefully so that we would sound very caring and religious, but maintaining our opposition to the funding. In other words we could effectively control the entire debate on our terms.

Well, it worked out exactly as we planned. We took over the meeting and sounding so convincing that some of our own members began to believe our own propaganda. Finally, the instructor of the course called a halt to the event and asked the class if they knew what we had done. Most were clueless.

I was very glad he stopped the procedure and called us on what we were doing because what had happened scared me to death, even though I was the primary author of the process. I saw how easily, a sneaky group as our own could take over a process that worked against open discussion and discernment for truth, and misuse processes, politics, to manipulate a system. It frightened me and still does.

I tell this story because I think this process has become normative in our national government. Small well-funded groups take over processes blocking open and honest debate that works for the common good, the welfare of all our citizens.

The most recent case in point is the movement to defund the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare). In this case it is not only immoral but also illegal, but it could happen. The is an act of congress, voted on by both house and signed into law by the president. It is the law. It was also upheld by the supreme court as a legal act.

The threat of de-funding would also close down the government in the process. Not a good idea. I would also set a terrible precedent. As members and majorities of congress come and go they could just defund whatever was not to the liking at the time and the government would be more chaotic than it is lacking stability and trust by our citizens and other nations.

If they worked the process properly, as has been done in the past (i.e. Glass-Steagal Act; another boondoggle) they process and enact at new bill to repeal the previous bill which then would be signed by the president. That is the process.

What my underhanded group and I did in seminary can be called just using the system, politicking, or just plain cheating. I think it was the later. I think the defunding of the Affordable Health Care Act is also just plain cheating but folk who have the power and money to often get their way. I hope they don’t this time. It would have long lasting evil consequences for the country.

Oh, by the way, I feel the same way about not enforcing the bill the requires vehicles to have back up cameras, and now the administration is just recommending them. It is the law and should be followed.