For the Birds, Tasty Tidbits

Hi Isabelle,

So you like my birds? They make me kinda hungry. You should hear it here. We’ve got so many songbirds it’s like a predawn symphony, with an ol’ hooty owl keeping tempo in the background.

I heard the birds are all gone in London, so said a British girl who moved to Los Angeles and carried on about how wonderful it was to hear birdsong again. CJ was in London Town a long time ago, like nine lives, and said mostly there were pigeons. I’ve never seen a pigeon. CJ says they look a bit like quail but not as pretty. We’ve got more quail around here than you could shoot a gun at, but I’ve never caught one, too skitterish.

I did catch a bunny rabbit the other day. Brought it into CJ’s room to show her and I think she palmed it. I put it down and it scooted under a chair and just lay there panting. CJ takes a peek and next thing I know, it’s gone. I looked and sniffed around for quite a while, but couldn’t find it.

I don’t get it. Rabbits are vermin too. Somethin’ needs to prey on them or they would take over the world. Just like mice or rats. So how come I can’t eat “cute and fuzzy” bunnies? (Think I just answered my own question.)

Speaking of owls, CJ read Wesley the Owl, even met his wife, this writer Stacey O’Brien from Southern California. The thing I was wondering—is that kosher? I heard a guy named Edward Lear from your neck of the woods, wrote a poem about The Owl and the Pussycat getting married. Any truth to that?  Hey, I’m a cat. I’m curious.

xSmoke

P.S. What’s a bong-tree? Also, CJ was wonderin' if they still call girls "birds" in London?

Who's the Rat what Stole the Cheese?

I was born under a café, what they call a greasy spoon, where CJ worked part-time as a cook. I knew her voice and sometimes I saw her take out the grease bucket and dump it in the recycling barrel. But I didn’t have nuthin’ to do with her, not even when she brought me here to her house. She said she was allergic to cats but said I could live in the little house and catch gophers that were digging holes all over her yard.

Well, I’ve got to tell you, I’m a born hunter. Must be, because I was just weaned when I came here, although my momma used to catch mice, not difficult living under an old restaurant. They had a cheese rat once. Some guy broke in and stole a whole 10-pound brick of Swiss cheese and the cash register. He couldn’t get the register open and started throwing it on the ground, making enough racket to alert the police if we’d had any.

CJ wanted to write a story about it for the local paper, but the editor said no. The editor said they did not print any bad stories about this little town. Can you imagine? What kind of “news” paper is that I ask you. CJ worked there part-time, too. Like, ‘Who’s the Rat what Stole the Cheese?’ (The kitties know but they ain’t talkin’.) People would love to read that. That’s what sells papers for goodness sakes. CJ said the last owners got run out of town for writin’ something bad about the lumber industry and this editor was scared that could happen to her. Scaredy-cat, sheesh!

Livin’ in that broken down in-law apartment was fine with me. I didn’t want to live with no human anyway. But I was gonna miss my littermates, or so I thought. CJ put down this warm pad covered in flannel, an electric heat pad she said it was. It was awful nice for sleeping on. She left me a bowl of water and dry food and brought wet food every evening. When I heard her coming I would scoot through a space in the wall and hide under the house. But sometimes I wasn’t so fast and she saw me, or I would peek out and see her.

You know what? Curiosity got the better of me and one day I just had to take a look in the kitchen. I could always hear her moving around in there and hear water running and stuff. So I peeked in and what do you think? CJ puts down some fresh chicken livers for me. I ain’t never sayin’ NO to fresh chicken livers. That was kind of it. I moved into the house and I’ve been here ever since.

Did you know that feral cats are willing to adopt a human if you get them young enough and treat them nice? It’s a fact. I got me a pretty good human.