Munchi, Salawatte’s multi religious Christmas miracle

This little brown cow was given in fulfillment of a vow to a local Hindu soothsayer, protected by Buddhists, rescued by Muslims and saved this Christmas.

On 20th December a social media SOS went out through the Animal SOS Facebook page about a little skinny brown cow running loose in Salawatte, a marshy area in Wellampitiya, who had a terrible wound in its face from a rope having been tied too tight . The SOS was shared by more than 200 concerned animal lovers and no one seemed to know what to do. I did not see this post till much later.

On 21st December as I was just leaving for work one of my neighbours squirmed apologetically up to me and said there was a cow in trouble down in the Wela ( marsh) at the bottom of my road.  And that he had once seen me rescuing a puppy with a broken leg.
Possibly since regular Salawatte people are beyond such eccentricities I'd been noted by my neighbours as one of those crazy animal supporting busybodies and possibly classed with NGO traitors (Jaathi Droheen), feminists and homosexuals... You got the impression that a few hundred years ago I would have been burnt at some stake along with my poor rescued cat, if Salawatte had been a British village…

ANYWAY, so, I went and inspected the Cow.  

My so-called smartphone stubbornly went blank and the Cow ran away. I was taken up a different route around the marsh and into someones garden.  he cow who according to my informant did not trust men, came much closer and I was able to take some better photos. The injury was simply horrifying especially after people shrugged and giggled and said she had been like this for months. They did not seem too concerned that she was suffering silently, banging her head into walls in an effort to get rid of the rope, and leaving the place bloody. They were uncomfortable that now she was actually bleeding and messing up the place. She was ownerless and there were two camps of people one which claimed that she was a released "charity-merit-cow" people had donated to the local oracle or Maani, and the other more sinisterly that she was a cow destined for Haji slaughter which had escaped.

Here are the photos. They are rather disturbing to most people. However one local woman even said to me "whats the matter? why are you trying to catch the cow?" "Does it have a wound?" by which Im convinced that some people in my neighborhood need to be more in the present.

 

I could feel all the rapid labeling going on behind me but I could not walk away. I was also determined to be a complete and utter nuisance to every sniggering person in this neighbourhood until this matter was solved. So I hatched Operation Munchi . Not to be confused with the biscuit company which are not involved. Plan A was to capture her, cut the damned rope and medicate her.

First we had to catch her.

Fifteen phone calls and another two Facebook posts afterwards I was to understand that 1. private vets and clinics are understaffed/have no handlers/do not care/are on vacation. 2. the local police do not know about it so it didn't happen/also do not care. 3. the wildlife authorities are not allowed to mess with cows since they are classified as domesticated. 4. scores of people wanted to help but didn't really know where Wellampitiya was (you can find it on Google maps, seriously folks). 5 a few armchair activists recommended Embark which made me want to swear, as seriously where do people get the idea that Embark catches cows? Is their mandate, and the word "bark" not clear enough?

Someone else kindly recommended a dog catcher with Ketamine injections on a long stick  but the truth is that this terrified cow wasn't actually going to hang around waiting to be poked with injections from a long stick and also one has to be very careful with sedating a cow/or giving them oral medicines due to their complicated digestive systems. Munchi for some reason also hated and was terrified of men particularly. I dont want to even begin to speculate why this is but truly when any man walked around she was very uneasy and she very well knew the difference between men and women. Moot point, no vet was going to run around in the marshes of Salawatte trying to catch a runaway cow.

Urgent SOS this cow is running around in the marsh in Salawatte and won't let anyone touch her. We need professional help to catch her and cut that noose which has eaten into her face and throat. SPREAD this post

BY 11.50 on Thursday I had sourced village experts who said they could noose her and tie her to a tree. I ran my own Facebook appeal and begged someone recommend a humane and clever vet who will visit Wellampitiya and perform a mini operation. Then I sent a notice to Daily Mirror which was to be printed the next day. 2.30pm update again I had called three known vets who all said we should contact the Kolönawa Govt Veterinary office at IDH junction. Locals said they had already contacted, and I too called them but the Govt vets demanded the Cow be caught first... and the Salawatte men had tried one whole morning to catch her but no luck as she runs away.  I was to hear this sorry story repeated by a number of burly men. This was Wellampitiya, a town well known for its thugs, criminals, shootouts and drug rings and all these large strong men were telling me that they could not catch a small malnourished cow. At the end of the day I believed them - I was pretty sure they would honestly have tried especially when they were short of pocket money or when they needed something to nibble with the daily evening drinks.

By  3.48pm Thursday I had called Kolonnawa Govt Vets, they said to call the Wildlife Department or to catch the cow, otherwise they are unable to handle. THREE leading local private Veterinary clinics said they cannot handle cows saying that handlers were not available but I got the distinct impression that they didnt have cattle handlers anyway (?!?)etc.  5.15 update I sourced a three member team from Hanwella, a tuk tuk thug and two proper buffalo farmers, and was worried that this might involve some temporary trauma as we had no sedatives and those men didn't look the type who would be sensitive to the needs of this traumatized little cow

7 pm update awaiting the cowboys from Hanwella....

My next update was at 10.22 on Thursday night and I wrote it on a laptop in the dark. The lights having gone in Wellampitiya due to a lamp post collapsing. We had had run about for THREE WHOLE hours trying to catch this cow. FIVE strong men and me in a skirt , trying to catch one cow. the skirt is because allegedly she trusts women,but it didn't quite work out that way and half way through the operation the heavens decided to open up with the storm of the century and TWO of the strong men stood with the REST of the Wellampitiya community HUDDLED UNDER TREES not getting wet. So much for their so called efforts over the previous months. I won't write here what I think of the men of Salawatte/Wellampitiya!

One of our local supporters took this opportunity to steal the handphone of one of the Hanwella cowboys, because, of course, no good deed goes unpunished, particularly in Wellampitiya. Since there was no local support for example such as some one to give directions in the roads, or lend us an umbrella; the cow went up and down and round and round and the people who were supposed to help us remained hiding FROM THE RAIN IN A GROUP, I was soaked to my skin which I dont really mind but my phone suffered some  water logging. My good friend Zeenath did everything she could to give directions and coordinate but the cow outwitted us thoroughly. Worst of all, a bunch of saboteurs came and told the cow handlers that this was A COW EARMARKED FOR HAJI SACRIFICE which had gotten away... Which I assume was  supposed to somehow make the situation acceptable?/??

UPDATE 11.22 on Thursday A local radio station had contacted Mr Alwis (our Salawatte contact who first alerted me to the issue), and hopefully something would finally be done - I waited.

Zeenath and me hatched plan B which was to use gentle feminine charm and befriend our feisty little herbivore and try to catch her. She was after all practically eating out of our hands, it's just that she would not let us touch her neck ropes. This idea had its flaws because whereas she is a gentle soul, when she starts to run it is like a small truck without brakes and anyone who gets tangled in that setup could very probably die. By this time I had alerted my animal activist friends, and we were constantly brainstorming as to what could be done.

Update 8 AM Friday morning. The Hanwella cowboys had been alerted to the routes taken by Munchi who is a creature of habit, and they had cleverly erected a small neck trap which would tangle her on the way to dinner. This had worked and there she was, annoyed but quiet enough. Things developed from here very quickly. - the Salawatte menfolk grabbed her and sawed off the terrible rope that was cutting her flesh (Thankfully I did not see this brutal operation and it was over very quickly) and she was secured for a vet to come and attend. Friday was frankly one of the best days of the year as far as we were concerned. (There was of course a complication of a local drunk who came and untied her and let her run away again, but since she had a long rope trailing after her she was relatively easy to recapture after a lot of cursing and swearing from me embarrassed the locals and she was PROPERLY secured)

Photos from after the rope was cut

 

On Saturday the day before Christmas a professional team of vets from SkyPet came over and in an two hour operation, calmed her, painlessly secured her tighter, sedated her, cleaned the wound thoroughly and gave her a set of strong antibiotic injections which would last a week they said. Her would had indeed been maggot infested which is unsurprising considering the time it had been neglected.

By Friday more than three hundred people had shared, commented advised and encouraged us on my FB posts, and Daily Mirror had kindly run my appeal which resulted in a large number of calls coming in offering to help (providing the cow was captured of course). Two anonymous donors, Muslim and Christian, sent funding to fully cover all medical and other expenses and all my friends pitched in, in so many ways.

Munchi is right now munching away at the bottom of my road, on the way to recovery and you can view videos on my FB page. My friends and I have learnt so much over the last week - what cows eat, what to do if you need to catch one, what the Govt and other authorities will and mostly will not do, and that there is a lot of love and kindness out there from places where you may not expect to find it. We are still learning and might need crowd support when it comes to the tricky issue of wading through local politics and paperwork and finding permanent safety for this poor gentle soul.
There is also the issue of unregulated releasing of so called "merit cows" in the city, which just adds to the population of starving animals walking around eating garbage and being a nuisance, which is presumably why someone had tied her face in the first place- this will need intelligent solutions.

The experience also it taught us that a few determined ordinary housewives can sometimes prevail where lots of strong men have failed.

For inquiries pls contact Chandrika 0772299979/hanwella7@gmail.com Zeenath 0757115387  or Mr Alwis 0771814144

We need this story to be as public as possible so as to ensure that Munchi is safe from harm, so that we can find a safe place for her to stay where she will be left in peace. Phase 2 of Operation Munchi is tackling the lethargic local bureaucracy and evading certain salivating Salawatte sections. Please stay with us and dont let Munchi be lost in the red tape.

Thank you EVERYONE especially: Zeenath Amanath, Christine Perera, Nadeesha Paulis, Dr Asanka, Dr Pasan, Dr Percy, Jennifer Rodrigo, Marilyn Wouters, Sakuntala Sachithanandan, Sriyanie Wijesundera, Nadeeka Dharmaratne ExPats Furniture Service and Daily Mirror IShani, Sahana,Keshan, and everyone commenting, sharing and cheering us on, and of course the Hanwella Cowboys without whom this could not have been achieved, not forgetting our very blessed anonymous donors… Three cheers for Munchi!

My Seven Greatest Movie Cats of all Time

​Cats have been with us for thousands of years and ever since the Ancient Egyptians actually started worshipping them they've developed major attitudes as well! No wonder then that Hollywood (and Disneyworld of course) find them movie star material and feature full length flicks on the exploits of these suave, svelte and saucy supurr-stars…

Puss in Boots: has been a source of wonder for practically hundreds of years, from his humble beginnings during the Brothers Grimm era of fairy tales and gaslit graveyards, right down to the more recent swashbuckling daredevilry of Shrek's side kick and then a film star in his own right, in his own film-named Puss In Boots, of course (2011). A nimble quick thinking sharp witted orange cat of real finesse with sword fighting skills to boot.

Tom from Tom & Jerry for an eighty year old celebrity who has survived from 1940 to the current day, perhaps its simply all that running that has kept Tom (and Jerry) healthy and fit to date! Tom who started out more cat like but evolved into a cat-faced biped for reasons unknown, is also alas one of the most undeniably violent cats in the movie world and has tried everything short of nuclear war upon his small brown rodent nemesis. His plots inevitably backfire leaving him blown up, barbecued or bisected, which since its a childrens' cartoon and since cats have nine lives,has no real effect on him except in passing. It also has no effect on his optimistic confidence that he will get Jerry the next time round, which of course makes for the reason for one of the longest running cartoons of all time.

Sylvester the Puddy Cat is a cat of breeding as evidenced by the tux, and much like Tom is hyperactive and indestructible.Perhaps this is what happens when cats decide to walk upright!

Orion from MIB- although by rights entitled to being pompous about it, since he has the entire universe in a marble round his neck, Orion is a moggie of an appealingly humble and unassuming nature who genteelly disappears after unfortunately losing his marble to a Bug, so that the story goes on to a sequel...

Simon's Cat A more recent addition to pop-cat-culture born 2008 with a fandom now reaching millions world wide, this is a permanently hungry and somewhat fat regular white cat who resorts to various subtle and not so subtle attacks to get his way in life. As with real life cats, Simon's Cat often simply walks away from anything boring displaying a very cute asterix-like butt hole.There's charming comic music in the background that adds a quintessentially British flavour to each video and the youTube channel is based on a cat named Hugh, owned by  who lives with British animator Simon Tofield.

Sylvester the Talking Kitty Cat

No relation to the Puddy Cat of the same name, this is another real life internet sensation rivalling the popularity of Simon's Cat, and more explicit with his language skills than all the others put together. Sylvester is real and he talks. The videos were put together by Steve Cash who says there "aren't that many" as he prefers quality to quantity - indeed some of the footage would have taken a great deal of patience and catnip to put together. The cast of this hilarious YouTube movie series are Sylvester, Shelby, Random, Steve and R.I.P. Gibson.

Garfield: probably the most famous tabby of all time, fat, lazy and also orange, this lasagna- eating striped walking cushion began as a comic strip as long ago as 1978! Garfield lives with a gullible human named John who feeds and attends to him, and Odie, Johns other animal companion who is a haphazard hyperactive pooch. One of the finest animal Zen masters Garfield's  life involves eating, lazing, and commenting calmly on life as he sees it. Occasionally he is forced to exert himself when the overzealous Odie tries to communicate with him...whereupon he expertly deflects his attention and smoothly escapes. Well -the escapes are *usually* smooth unless his pot belly gets stuck somewhere...

Old Traditions Revived

- those horrible family activities you thought you had seen the end of…

Photo from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/445786063088678182/

My darling daughter, in answer to that email of yours…

Im 36 years old. that means Im 21 years older than you,. Admittedly its not much but theres a whole two decade of experience that you can draw on from me that you don't have to go through experiencing your self.

this means that you don't have to make the same gruesome mistakes I did. you don't have to get hurt the same ways I did (I mean you can get hurt in new and different ways , I can hardly help you there - but two people in the same family falling in the same pits would be quite disappointing, don't you think?. ) That's why I like to Talk to you at dinner time, at least twice a week and Communicate.

See this thing called Communication is important, or so Ive been led to beleive. It began when apes decided that by making certain patterns of noises they could actually share feelings, experiences, knowledge and affection. ITs not just a monkey thing either - even fishes do it. But humans do it the best, or are supposed to. that's what I'm told.

now why is communication important?

1. we understand each others lives and can provide the correct kind of love and support among family members that we need

2.we draw on each others knowledge and experience and can share information

3 we co ordinate who does what and settle minor family arguments before they become too nasty

4we can recap on what other family members look like, so that we can later recognize them

ok Im only joking in the last one, anyway , basically, as a Mom,  I try my best to bring about the situations in the house where its easier to communicate. That's why once a week I become a really boring drip and insist that all the games, videos and telly dramas are switched off and we have lunch and dinner together, looking at each others faces. Not only do we get the chance to communicate effectively but we can chew our food properly and swallow slowly, for once....I know this is quite tedious but on the bright side,  assure you it wont go on for very long - in about 5 years who knows what can happen to us? you may be off to America for your degree(highly probable), I may have eloped with some hairy biker chap (unlikely), or we could be so poor that we cant afford a sit down dinner but must have one meal a day which is lunch and then have a weak dhal soup for dinner. ...(very likely at the rate the cost of living is going up)....

Now I would like you to put yourself in my shoes for once.

Imagine yourself sometime later, all grown up and you invite me over for the weekend. Youve done your shopping, arranged your house and made nice stuff for dinner and you would like to have me over for lunch....I come in say hello brightly and then go to my room and start reading a book, and only come out for potty breaks and to serve my food and take it to my room and eat. –how would you feel? hopefully you wont be too bothered because you are cool and modern; which brings me to the question of why did I bother to come over in the first place? when I could have just sent you a bright cheerful email from where I was....very trendy and happening isnt it - liberated modern nuclear family very laid back and easy going....why take the difficult path when things are so easy anyway?

well the answer my dear, is that sometimes its just not the same. A bit of concern, and involvement and genuine caring is good for you and its something you should learn to give and not just receive..

and why is home cooking important?

well interestingly I haven't done things the difficult way all my life. I tried those easy and smart things too, freezing, thawing, reconstituting, microwaving all the instant modern short cuts available to the 21st century housewife  and some of them just don't work. There is nothing like "warm chicken soup for the soul" when you are in pain and here I do not mean that you should kill some innocent fowl *somewhere to be happy - I mean that warm home cooked food is therapeutic. Those pizzas and burgers and fries all smell good but try it day after day and it just makes you want to scream. Hotel food is wonderful to look at but try it for a week or two and see how much you will like it . So by rejecting to learn how to prepare food in your own home who do you think you are fooling? Do you seriously think that you can depend on parents and relatives to cook for you for ever? so then why dont you come and involve in the process and discover the joy in actually making something nice in the kitchen- its not half as glamorous as Quantum physics or Java Coding, but when you are lonely, or when you want to make someone happy, when you need to pamper your children someday or help someone sad, it certainly helps to be able to cook something nice and appetizing. And that doesn't come automatically, you need to work at it a bit beforehand and practice, I'm afraid.

And why do we pray?

You know, in a scented corner of the house with lamps or candles, when its such an old fashioned thing to do. Well, I lived some years without doing that and trust me it kills the spirit of a home. If that prayer corner is neglected and no one bothers to keep those little lamps lit, its like a tiny heart being put out. And once it goes somehow its not that easy to bring back, trust me I have tried.

You know, I m a Busy Working Lady who spends about two third of her life in an Office environment, and sometimes I keep on neglecting so many things that could make my house that much homelier. I regret that because I know what things could be like and I miss how they were. Miss being able to wake with the dawn and hang about in the garden doing nothing, miss being able to cook at leisure with no deadlines, miss being able to sit down and read my religious books in peace, when I feel like it, but sometimes when you get caught in this rat race it happens. All I can say, my darling daughter, is if you possibly can try and keep with those traditions that you have the time for. Don't let go of them, because once they go , its so difficult to bring them back…

…most of all, don't forget the family communication.

…………………………………………………………..

* and did I mention that I am SO proud of you for becoming a vegetarian! That takes self discipline!!!

Daily Mews

THE DAILY MEWS

2009 January 1st

Had a terrible night with all the explosions. I saw Shabby, the mad pooch next door, trying to get inside the filing cabinet -he was practically gibbering with terror at the cracker sounds.

Apparently its human people who actually do this and they consider it fun.

Can you beat this..

January 3rd

Such violent times! I got smacked today for jumping on the Hewmie Feeding Platform. They gather together there and eat their meals from separate plates most of the time without fighting. But they don't let us onto it.

Considering the bosh they write in the animal welfare websites about how they love us and treat us like family members and stuff, this is NOT FAIR, I tell you.

January 5th

Patchy tried to take my eye out for coming within swipe distance of her.

Old bat does not realize that her biological batteries are almost dead. She should be grateful that such a svelte young tom as myself even allows himself to be so much as flea-jump distance of her. I admit I just wanted to get the drumstick that was between us.

January 11th

Heard my humies discussing holiday plans which is worrying. Whenever they don't supervise, the kussi woman treats me like dirt. I realize this is probably because my Hewman spends more on me than some families spend on their kids. But what can I do. Pichau just lucky I guess.

January 20th

This is a good day for me. My Hewmie wanted to write about my thoughts to the premier local Sunday newspaper. He sat around for a few hours getting digital visualizations of me chasing my tail and of me sitting under a newspaper. ...crazy I know, but then someone did say that people with too many cats are crazy ...whatever makes him happy- I'm not complaining. A daily supply of saaleyo and a bit of sunshine here and there is all I ask for. 

February 7th

'Patchy is behaving rather odd, running about and catching imaginary hoonas (gecko).She looks "hyper" I wonder whether they will have to take her to the petinary surgeon again. She is a darn old cat whichever way you look at it.

When she first came in, I'm told, she had this episode where she started running around the kitchen floor and putting her lucky paw inside her water bowl to capture movement in it. I'm told this hyperactivity is caused by an odd virus which was cured by antibiotics. Darn odd if you ask me.

February 8th

My Hewmie's sister Hax came home today and raved about how well the local Municipal Council seems to have organized things. She had been pleasantly surprised by how efficiently such a complicated office was working. There were notice boards everywhere telling people where to go for any particular service, and people were polite and helpful. She had taken a total of 15 minutes to check if her rate payments were up to date. Mause said she should definitely blog about it. Whatever that means.

February 14th

`Valentine's Day was good and night was better since the roaches had decided to have a party. We caught four and played with them.

They are so fun, I almost feel guilty, I am doing something I shouldn't be and I automatically ran for the window when Hax stepped in one while trying to get her sandwiches ready.(She did make rather a strangled noise.)

On the telly box I heard David Attenborough referring to these cockroaches as a "Marvel of Evolution "which was there long before the dinosaurs" and probably will be there long after Hewmies ruin the planet and get themselves and all the rest of us obliterated.

This is interesting because if the planet has only got ( radioactive) cockroaches on it , and we might all have to be reborn as cockroaches. Maybe life will be simpler or maybe life will actually be the same but on a smaller scale.

After all who is to say that cockroaches don't have perfectly complicated and interesting lives, with love, marriage and family not to mention death and mortgages, in them. It's all a matter of perspective. Hey; am I being profound or what!"

Feb 15

I hear yesterday was an important day for the humans, something to do with their mating rituals. They are strange creatures and instead of kuppa-mania they have a thing called choklut. Which they produce and give to their females along with flowering red plants and shiny stones.

This makes the females happy and of course the rest is anatomy. I wonder what Patchy would think if I gave her a bit of choklut. I hear that the choklut thing is not good for cats or for pooches.

A large choklut can kill a small dog, and another mistake hewmies keep making is giving us paracetamol. This is dumb and someone should put an end to it. At least the famous paracetamol company should put a small cat skull and crossbones on their pill boxes and say THIS IS TOXIC TO PETS

Memo to Self - somehow spread the word that paracetamol is poisonous to cats.

Feb 17

I understand that it is Patchy's day for Wettinary attention. She doesn't like this and gets rather savage. If you put her in a basket she *caterwauls, *there is no other word for it. Our hewmie madam put her in a small school bag and left the zip open a few inches on both sides.

Then they drove her over to the Wettinary Clinic, keening miserably and making everyone generally depressed. The hewmies are dumb but they are also kind hearted subjects and want the best for us; they did a thing called inoculation to her saying that she would be safe from mad dog disease.

I don't understand why cats would need to be safe from this but it's very serious I hear. It doesn't actually hurt much, the inoculation thing but the table is cold and the lights are really bright and hurt your eyes and the Wet is a very mad man who you have to be careful of.

Patchy tries to hang on the inside of the bag and not come out even when the bag is turned upside down and shaken. I don't know about you but I think this old cougar is pretty darn lively for that age...I mean according to cat years she is something like 65 and I'd like to see any hewmie female of sixty five hanging on by their nails while being shaken about inside a gunny bag.

No wonder the ancient Egyptians worshipped us, we cats are pretty fantastic.

Memo to self: I hate the Wet.

 

February 21st

Last night things were rather strange. The "KARANT" went according to what my Hewmies were saying. I don't know what kind of thing this is and where it went but it made them behave in a strange way.

My Hewmie could not do his usual cooking. He banged his shin on the coffee table and hopped about. He finally set fire to a small wax pipe and walked about with it while making us dinner. I think this Karant is important to hewmans otherwise they are uncoordinated like toddlers.

Come to think of it they are quite silly vulnerable bipeds although they think they are bosses on this planet. Without their technology they are practically blind, hairless and they can't even smell a rat.

I hate to admit it here but if they didn't have fire sticks and clothes and were a little smaller than we are we would be eating them by the dozen, just by reflex and apologizing later. They do look so helpless. But I admit some of them are kind.

February 27th

I remember when I was a kit, and long before I learned that it is only acceptable to climb my hewman's hind leg if he had trouser -longs on. I used to get unbearably over-excited when he made my salmon and suddenly claw my way up his hairy hind limbs when he was wearing only trouser- shorts.

Man, Goodness, he would howl and stamp about that close to swearing. His kitchen woman is better, she wears a long flapping sail of cloth called a SKERT which is much easier to climb and she doesn't scream much except when I put my head into the "LICK- WIDIZER".

I don't know what that thing is but they put the chicken wings in it and then make a big sound and they produce the most delectable sloppy fishy mush.

And then there are the hewmie cublets. They are strange silly dangerous things and I heard that one of them put Patchy inside a Krisco tin. The boy one. I need another page to write about all the weird things these young life forms get up to.

They like to throw us food though so they are not completely bad.

 

February 21st

Last week Koookie developed some rather disturbing holes in her skin and spent a lot of time itching and licking. Kookie is one of my Hewmie's resident mutts. They had to take her to the local petinerary surgeon.

Mistress Hacketty used a large polythene bag they found wrapping the new fridge and then she kept it in a cupboard for this purpose in future. This whole polythene problem makes me mad.

Hewmans have made a horrible slimey material which makes a horrible high pitched noise like siri siri -, which they throw around everywhere which stays pasted to the ground and trees and things and never goes. Man, you can't even shift the sand a bit to take a dump, there's this clingy stubborn stuff wrapping clumps of sand!!. I hear they say it is so bad for the earth we live in.

I really won't be affected much since the most I will live is 15 years, but don't they care about their own cublets? these hewmans say they love their offspring. They are constantly having babies one at a time and taking them about to clinics and to grandparents' houses and showing them off and all.

But don't they think about their futures, they have to live more than twenty five or fifty years or even seventy five don't they? so why do they keep messing up the earth with this polythene layer? Polythene aught not to just be banned it should be criminalized I tell you and anyone caught smuggling polythene given a pretty long sentence.

February 26th

Today my Hewmie family watched a movie called Slumdog. I wanted to watch it too because I don't know why some dog anywhere should get a lot of prizes but it turned out the film was not about pooches.

It was about people from Indian slums. Well, if you think the people are having a tough time in slums you should try talking to real slum dogs in poor countries like here and see, their lives are living hell.

The best way to continue to survive would seem to be to get some real rotting skin disease where your pelt is practically history and raw bits of skin are falling off you- then you go on and on living (and itching ) forever...

Cats of course don't live in slums .We use our brains and vote with our feet and go somewhere where food is decent. We have standards, again another of the reasons Egyptian nobility treated us like Gods.

 

March 1st I remember reading a joke somewhere about how to give a pill to a cat. It said something about 17 steps which always ended in the pill being lost and the administrator being hospitalized, which was not only funny but quite typical. Cats are tough creatures which is why they have survived for thousands of years among humans and in spite of being quite tiny in comparison to almost anything around, except perhaps rats. And these tough cats don't ever accept that they need medication but they occasionally do. Our Mistress Hacketty I saw recently has found a solution to this. She merely grinds whatever pill it is and mixes it with bees honey and rubs it on Patchy's pelt. This is gruesome to even watch. Patchy being the clean and self respecting feline she is, cannot so much as sleep until she has licked off the resulting mess and this takes a lot of determination and the occasional grimace of disgust which is hilarious to watch. But at the end of the day the poor cat is clean and shiny and the medicine has been licked off. I guess a cat caught in an oil spill won't last very long, eh. Unfortunately for us we are a race of animals completely obsessed with our pelts to such an extent that we constantly need to keep licking it spotless. March 8th Today is International Women's Day. I find it strange. Hewmies have a day set aside specially for the female of their species. In fact I think, hewmie females are a strangely disadvantaged lot. Nowhere in any other animal species do you see the female being abused, starved, ill treated, incarcerated and even killed just because she is a female. Most of the time in the animal world females are welcome as they are the ones who bring fourth young and half the time they are courted lovingly and even respected. And of course no one wants to mess with an angry mother...but it is strange that with all their power hewmie mothers seem to be very subservient and tolerant. March 14th Today mistress Hacketty got a bit annoyed because the baby cublets would not come for dinner. They like to sit near a square light, which makes them keep looking at it and their paws hit the floor in front of it with a lot of tapping. It makes them quiet and crazy a bit like kuppa-mania but it has a much longer effect. Sometimes they sit in front of this thing for hours. Then when they come to eat they are not very bothered about the food and their mother has to remind them that they are lucky to be in the world's top 5% of the population that can afford dinner. This of course makes me smirk, since, being her cats, we are in the top 1 % that can afford to be picky about dinner. Hee hee...

 

 

March 11th

Oh horror of horrors, and may the kind blessings of Bubastis protect me! I went in this morning for the usual spot of salmon and pampering and guess what a horrible sight met my poor shocked eyes! The kussi woman has brought along two filthy little orphaned catletts from somewhere! They look about six to eight weeks old and were tumbling about like little furry meatballs in the living room and I could see Pitchy looking through the balcony windows with that fixed expression he gets when he is getting ready to kill something.

Of course, I don't approve of cattibalism on principle, but in the circumstances I feel it might certainly be the strategic and practical thing to do. Our young master can certainly not afford to feed two more cat gobs with the current recession (poor fellow has already delayed his marriage about three years as he cannot save up enough for a half decent ceremony what with us eating him out of house and home) and these two will certainly result in our salmon being rationed. Misery. What to do!

March 13th

I am seriously worried now, she does not seem to be affected by their inconsiderate pooping and the smell in here.

Pitchy tried to swallow them once or twice but got severely chastised. Instead of getting rid of them, the Mistress makes cooing noises and says "sin, aney" and feeds them out of her plate.

I am so jealous I could claw the sofa to shreds. I think that's what I will do pretty soon. Grrrrrr.

March 15th

I know I should not be so smug , but sometimes the smirking actually aches...the two Precious Darlings have been answering the call of nature, all over the living room and mistress Hacketty was on her STOMACH this evening with the Kussi Woman nearby passing damp newspaper blobs dipped in detergent, trying to reach a spot below the provision cupboard.

This has a crawl space of about two and a half inches and they really could not have picked a worse place to do this in the whole house, except perhaps in the laundry basket.

With any luck she will be heartily fed up of their nonsense and go and keep them near some temple.

I hope I was never a kitten, that's a really horrible thought if any

 

The story so far : two cute, orphaned kittens have landed in the Hacketty household and Poozer is feeling insecure, neglected and very resentful.

March 17th

Its been three days and 14 hours and these little horrors are still here. I was calmly walking towards the fridge for my daily salmon, today, when one of them started coming after me, saying "momee, momee!" the cheek, the sheer disgust of it all! Do I look like their mommy ? I am a TOM CAT for mewing out loud! It was such an embarrassment, not to mention , extremely unnerving. I started to scrabble the hell out of there without looking behind me and before I knew it I was on top of the pantry cupboard and marking

territory near the ceiling just by reflex. Then the mistress poked me with a broom and started screaming and threw me out. Not only was that very bad for my self image, that broom was smelly. Revolting, the things that happen because of these two...

March 22nd

I am pleased to report that although he feeds them till they look like two well stuffed walking samosas, and although the rest of the world is suffering global recession and Soaring oil prices not to mention insecure fishing futures, the master is not scrimping on food for us.

Bless his cotton socks. Burp. (and speaking of cotton socks, Patchy should be ashamed about what she did to them)

March 27th

There they are. I wonder why the hewmies have resorted to putting a food cover on top of them. I hope this doesn't mean they are fattening them up to eat. Silly thought, what must I be thinking.

( In fact that is an evil thought that makes me feel unholy, I think I should wash my whiskers with soap!) Hewmies prefer chicken.

I must say we cats are a very lucky race of animals. Buffaloes have to work, dogs get chained and chickens get eaten every time hewmies feel happy. Cats on the other hand are usually treated quite nicely.

 

Midnight April 3rd

It worked! Can you believe it! I finally caught a Hik-rat*. I had anyway been thinking for a long time all these days-. With this increased world food prices and the generally high cost of saman tins, I had decided to put my effort into foraging and hunting so as to help Marmar with finding food for us. We do appreciate what he does for us, almost everyday he wears long leggings and gets onto his noisy growling metal chariot and goes somewhere with a green sack which has some writing on it.

When he comes back the sack is full of grain and short metal tubes which when you hit them out comes lovely soft succulent smelly saman fish. This he does for us often.

He must be a very efficient hunter as he never comes home saman-less! This put me to shame at the amount of years a healthy young tom cat like me, supposedly a very efficient predator, has been living off this kind ape descendent, without doing any predating.

Therefore I decided to somehow catch a rat and it worked! The fact that it was a hik-rat and therefore grey and appetizing looking is an even better plus point! I shall keep it near the front door to make him happy the first thing as he steps out in the morning. Its head was kind of squishy but I adjusted it and I warned the other cats not to touch it..

April 4th

Aiyo, look will you. Misstress Hacketty, the dear master's sister came charging out in the morning no doubt thinking about the staff van she was late for and skidded in the hikrat**. She screamed with happiness at the start when seeing my generous present and then - she picked it by the tail and flung it over the wall into the neighbor's garden. I don't know what to think!! She must be jealous or something that's all I can say! But then she normally loves us!

April 7th

I am still sad about what she did. You think you know a person and then they go and do something like that to you. It makes me quite disillusioned. I wish people would be more straightforward. Now take, for example, her Evil Tall Boyfriend who stays the weekends.

He is openly honest about how much he hates cats. He woke her up today by saying he had thrown Patchy off the balcony… then he said it was a joke and had to dodge slippers. He thought it was funny. But, from all of this I gather that Mistress Hacketty must love us anyway in spite of the fact that she threw my hard earned hikrat over the wall into the next door land! I don't know if I can forgive her for that.

* Editor's Note: he probably means Hikk meeya or field mouse. Poozer is obviously not too scientific about the proper names for his food.

* Poozer's Note: I am not sure if this is correct grammar. Maybe it should read "skidded on the hikrat" anyway – she put her foot in it. You get the picture.

 

April 16th

If you're wondering why I was rather silent the last couple of weeks, it was due to this horrible local festival of explosives. Every April all the hewmis in this country, pale, yellow or dark, brown start at a certain time to throw small explosives into the sky.

The hewmie kidletts especially enjoy this and some of them throw the little blasts at us! And the air becomes very sneezy and dry.

I hate this scary April festival and so do all my furry relatives. Even the blooming mongrel populations spend this time cowering under cars etc. If I am not mistaken the hewmie babies hate it too as I hear a lot of them mewling after the cracking noises...

April 26th

Baby cats, have you noticed, do tend to be disturbingly accident prone. Cats may have nine lives but I think they use up seven or eight as kittens. As for life threatening circumstances I think I've seen it all, beginning when Gingernuts was found swimming inside the commode at No 47- the current two are no exception either.

LG (Little Grey) fell off the balcony this morning literally straight into the clappy jaws of the Kraken below (that's what I have named the cat killing mongrel living in the backyard at Number 47) luckily before it could chomp its trap shut on her, she bounced out and ran for a small hole in the wall where the plumbing pipes are accessed.

There followed, of course, half an hour of hysterical kitterwhauling and marmar had to come out in his jammies and push around all the construction timber and 'tahadu' looking for her.

I saw her standing bravely in the hole encouraging his efforts but he just could not place the high pitched sniveling until he had moved half the masonry. He's a jolly good fellow I must say. May he always have a good salary and access to saman at the local supermarket!

 

 

Daily Muse

 

 

by pissu poozer

 

May 7^th

Mercy Me! And such a relief, I mean, such a shame! The little mistress finally took the extra kittehs away in a white plastic baby box . The place is much cleaner as the balcony could be arranged again and that reeking poop tray could be done away with ! But of course they will be back next week since they are mobile kittehs.

 

Now would you believe it what the humans are up to this time? Candles , lamps bulbs lights all over the place! All quite beautiful actually this is a religious festival full of light I think which is celebrated in many lands in the universe. In this festival the Hewmies burn pretty lamps for the birthday of a long ago gentle religious large Person called Buddha, ( who also said not to harm kittehs). Its such a relief that there are no explosives and sky rockets, I don't mind any festival, lights or not and Buddha was after all a very nice kind Person who said to please treat all your pets kindly. Because they are beings too and they feel pain if you hurt them.

 

May 9^th

Our gentle confused mistress was talking about China today at dinner. She said some people eat cats and dogs there. Its true I think on the interweb we saw movie spots of how they do bad things to poor doggs and kittehs and they have no laws preventing this. Poor petts are put in small wire cages about ten at once and later beaten to death and stir fried. It is strange what people will do for them to get a good taste. I heard mistress get very angry and worked up and say she will not buy anything made in China, but Im not sure how that would solve anything…Im thinking, why has not Hewmann, who can be kind and noble too, not spent a big grant of money on scientists inventing some artificial meat which tastes good and feels chewey and makes them happy without having to be cruel to their furry friends? Or at least used this thing called engineering genetix and made some meat which grows by itself without any life with suffers.

I think the good scientists of this kind Buddhist Ceylon island should start this idea!

 

 

 

 

Daily Muse

 

 

by pissu poozer

 

May 10^th

Our mistress wants to volunteer for a nice working group called PETA.  I think that means People Who Treat Kittens Kindly but I'm not sure exactly. Im sitting on the monitor watching her send them her resume by an e-male. ..the monitor is nice and warm so I don't mind where she sends her resume.

 

May 19^th

 

Here we go again. There is a big happiness or something happening in this hewman world. AGAIN people started making loud cracking noises and showing this happiness. I don't like crackers, none of my fellow felines or even the smelly canines like it, I keep on having to point this out -even the poor baby hewmans hate this. Anyway this time, there were big bundles of hewmies in lorries going around singing and waving lion flags . Quite scarey , the sight and noise made the hairs on my tail stand out! Anyway after I asked all the other street cats they said the Hewmies in this world were happy that a big Tiger cat had been shot and killed with great difficulty after he had been hiding in the jungle.I assume this is a hewman -eating tiger that's why everyone seems relieved. Thank goodness! But there are new problems. .. Now I don't know what to think but I sure get scared when I see hundreds of young male Hewmies in shorts with hairy legs, shouting and singing. Brrr. Im going to stay indoors for a few days that's for sure!