The sad case of reverend Masterson

Reverend Masterson was a highly revered member of his presbyterian community in the county of Fife. Convivial and rotund, he ambulated between the homes of his parish, paying frequent visits in particular to recently widowed women and young damsels in distress, who were in need of a quantum of solace. As far as anyone could tell, he was also a devoted husband and faither. Nevertheless, one day, upon returning from his usual service-to-the-community round, he was spun into his own web of lies by his wife and hoisted upwards to a corner in the ceiling where she unceremoniously sucked him dry with her sharp canines. After a week or so, he was properly crispy and she cut him loose with her knife-long nails and let him resume his responsibilities. The congregants did notice that there was something a bit off about Masterson's general demeanor, the first time he held a Sunday sermon after his "treatment", but they couldn't tell exactly what it was. And the widows and the young damsels in distress, were henceforth both sad and relieved.

Magnum

Doing tongue work on the polity of the ice cream,
racing to the bottom of the ice cream stick,
against raging time and a remorseless sun above,
droplets fall to the ground, like golden beads from a TIG welder,
- the chocolate coating lost the plot, it never stood a chance -
a hungry dog runs up and down to catch the sad remains,
but way too late, for all intents, the thrill is long gone.

Joely Pants' dream

Joely Pants is sleeping soundly on the blanket, while treading the fine line between dreaming and dreading, the two modes of existence, he's most familiar with. I walk around the rooms of the house in a steady pace, no sudden movements, creating a predictable tapestry of homely background noise so as not to break the spell. This is his dream, culled off the top of his head: "There's a nice birdie, totally oblivious of me crawling on my tummy towards her. A few meters to go and she's mine forever. Oh, no, I think she's spotted me. She's looking askance at me, in clear disapproval of my endeavor. Now I must stay completely motionless for a good while...if I can...so she'd think I'm part of the turf and don't harbor any antisocial urges. While I'm lying like that, in wait for the right moment to strike, I might as well snooze a little and dream about times gone by, when there were a bunch of us and I wasni on me own. Norsky was here, Aerial was here, Wimbelina, my sister, was here and even our mom, Bonnie, was here. Those were the days, and I kinda miss them, despite me then being at the bottom of the social structure. Now, I'm the top cat alright, but there's no joy in it, it feels kinda vacuous going on living without the pride. Maybe that's why I yowl so much these days. Ffs. it can be quite annoying even to me, but once I get started, I keep going at it. The birdie is gone too, and I'm hit once more by bright, brutal reality. I guess, I can stop pretending to be a furry rug. I should rather get back to base for another round of delicious dietary pellets. The humdrum noises of a cockamamie human are reaching me now. No respect for an auld feline at all, as per usual. Time to wake up!"  

Fifteen Stray Elephants

The fifteen stray elephants in China who recently left their habitat are still wandering about towards an unknown destination and are said to be in good health: Kris, Robert, Bruce and Caitlyn are the more mature and experienced elephants. They lead the herd and are the first to taste the fresh food, the authorities put out for them en route, to avoid unnecessary clashes with the locals. The bunch is followed by youngish Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall and Kylie and a few more whose names also start with a K. The whole world is watching with breathless excitement their movements across fields, villages and towns. Hopefully, they will make the cut and line up for another season of The Truman Elephant Show.

The amazing return of Kika the cat

Regular readers of this page, should there be any, have already met Kika the cat in a previous post. She's an incarnated homebody, a somewhat shy yet majestic cat that is used to live indoors in an apartment on the third floor in the city of Hertzliyah. It was therefore even more of a shock when she disappeard one fine morning, over three months ago. You see, she had an appointment with the vet, but managed to wriggle out of the cat carrier and escape, much to the chagrin of her owners Ilanka and Shani. A thorough search was conducted, as is customary in such cases, but Kika was nowhere to be found. After many weeks of sorrow, worry and despair, Ilanka and Shani were hitting rock bottom. They decided therefore to adopt another cat, a ginger fellow called Henry, to fill the void left by Kika. However, Henry had no intention of settling down in Hertzliyah of all places, having far greater ambitions in life, and he was making no bones about it. In the following weeks, Ilanka and Shani were frankly bullyragged by malcontent Henry and hence saw no other option than returning him to his owner. More time elapsed, days turned into weeks and weeks into another month before something quite extraordinary happened: Reports were coming in to headquarters about Kika roaming around the yard and the wider yardage of the street. Now even more timid after long months of freedom and deprivation, she never paused for smalltalk with her owners or the neighbors and was quite impossible to detain for a longer discourse. After a week or so in that manner, Shani summoned a professional cat catcher, who was equipped with a special carrier a cat would care to investigate and before she knew it, therein sat Kika, to the delight and great happiness of her owners. In the ensuing weeks, Kika was still not her old self, but the word is, she's catching up and is much more at ease these days. A truly happy ending this is, and may it stay that way! 

Old man sea

I'm an old man now, but the sea was wasted on me. I've never liked it much, though it looks great from every angle and is always ready for a photo op. I still recall my first encounter with a red hot Medusa and the escape from someone with a sexual orientation in the toilets on the ferry Ask and how I landed on Omaha Beach under steel gray skies and howling bullets. I really like the most Rema-1000 vanilla ice cream-boats, those with the crispy chocolate coating and the thin chewy waffle that Jesus' disciples sailed into the Mediterranean, all the way to Laodicea and Colossae. I never cease to regret not having acquainted myself with the Delphinidae family, and all the pebbles I mistook for amber.

Life unto life

Nothing quite compares to the smell of a well disinfected body M/W in the morning. The fragrance of life unto life (Corinthians 2:16).

Life is like...

Life is like a rubber band. Stretch it in one area and the other areas become lax. Stretch it in all areas and the rubber band snaps or else loses completely its limberness.

A review of a Stollen cake from Lidl

The first thing that strikes one is the size of the beast. It is really a big and heavy log that weighs down the shopping basket. You blush a little when you place it on the conveyor belt, hoping that people are busy thinking about the fast approaching Christmas, while you yourself, with one last agonizing effort, fumblingly and bashfully pour it onto the belt. The size also raises some quality concerns. Good products (and good people) are mostly found in the more modest size ranges (because real confectioners and God don't fritter the ingredients away). But here Lidl surprises.Their Stollen cake definitely holds up and can match up with its namesake from Aldi. Truth be told, I haven't held a blind tasting and my last Aldi Stollen was ingested a couple of decades ago, but I seem to remember that Aldi's was heavier and drier, while Lidl's is generously provided with a sticky mass that is supposed to be made of marzipan. My only cavil at the Lidl cake is, there's too much icing sprinkled on top of it and it spills all over the place. The idea behind that could be, that it is meant be noticed that a Stollen cake from Lidl was eaten here. To sum it up: This is a sizable and affordable cake that could sustain an Irish family through a long and cold winter. But a little disspiriting is, it's called a Stollen cake. Rather, it should be called a Christmas cake. For unter uns, what is a Danish Christmas without the proud Stollen cakes from Germany?

Zed and Kate

Zed Spector# was a diligent contributor to the sites FanFiction.net and archiveofourown.org. He wrote especially about some of the more outlandish and psychopathic side characters from the paranormal and panoramic book series Harry Potter and A Game of Thrones. It actually went very well with that. He had gradually produced dozens of short stories which attracted a small but faithful entourage of readers. With his growing experience, he was able to predict with quite good precision how many reactions a narrative would generate and whether the criticism would be laudatory or denunciatory. One day he came to the idea to send his stories to a number of publishers under a pseudonym, ie. under his legal name, Mark Sparrow. But he never got any response. In his despair, he called one day a publishing house and asked for a clarification. A young editor explained to him patiently that there were already lots of similar stories freely available on the web on the same topics, i.a. by a certain Zed Spector#, and that his short stories were devoid of any originality. Zed got really upset and decided to remove his contributions from the pages of Fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.org He also changed the names of his fictional characters and deleted any trace that could link them to the originating stories. He also hired a writing coach online and started entirely from scratch, so to speak, to rewrite and edit his texts. A year later, he emerged as Kate Marlow ESQ., and the stories were now mostly about intimate if inanimate relationships between different genders of the same, opposite or other. He submitted once again his collected works to a number of publishers and this time he seemed to get his hook into something. Two small publishers sent replies and wanted to set up a meeting. Kate became all excited. He hurried to tell his mom about it. After all, he was only fifteen years old at the time, and it meant the world to him, to make her happy and proud. A few weeks later, he began hearing his stories trumpeted on television and radio. This was rather unexpected and almost too much of a good thing. He thought a lot about how this could have eventuated. At first he thought, his PC had been hacked. Later, he thought, a publisher had stolen his works. To this very day, he is not entirely sure. What he does know with great certainty, is, it's difficult to protect ones privacy in the modern world.

Two tomcats

A.B.d.P. Johnson, wearing a dressing gown and nothing else due to the heat wave which in recent days had ravaged the United Kingdom, lay relatively lushly in his chaise longue in an attempt to get along with his sciatic nerve, that had been teasing him for some weeks. The doctor had said stress, something about knowing your limitations, and prescribed some pills. Therefore, A.B.d.P. Johnson knew there was absolutely nothing wrong with him and that he could just as well continue to get pissed off by little things (the kids) and small pebbles in the shoe (girlfriend). It was still early in the morning, everything breathed peace. There was complete silence in the residence except for a lone buzzing fly patrolling the airspace above his head and the star war unfolding inside it. It was widely known that A.B.d.P. Johnson was extremely quick-witted and that many a V-2 rocket had left his forehead towards a distant galaxy. He himself, was proud of his cognitive speed and unpredictability and considered himself a cheetah in a bamboo forest populated by dull pandas. He was now composing his inaugural speech, which was to be held later that day. Of course, he wanted to re-use some exquisite formulations from previous occasions, but was at the same time on the lookout for another apt sentence that would send a clear message to his opponents and to the entire population - "what I said, said I" or something to that effect. His encyclopedic and agile mind ran hither and thither between ancient poetry and modern philosophy with detours to religion and science. Ideas arose and collapsed successively and rapidly as civilizations so that he could barely keep track. In the midst of his enhanced brooding, the hot weather and the vexing sciatic nerve, he could suddenly hear another screeching sound, like a radio dial moved between two radio stations, and gradually this sound ceased and turned into a more regular rhythm; de Pfeffel, de Pfeffel, and TOO-TOO, TOO-TOO, which he no longer was able to perceive, but which the fly around his head registered as the sound of a scottish locomotive at close quarters. He was now dreaming of Larry, the Downing Street 10-cat, lashing out its paw at him while trying to stroke it. There was no love lost between the two tomcats.

The Cannonball House

High up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, you'll reach Castlehill, an ancient part the fair city with a varied and truly horrific history (previously a site of many a witch burning). One of the still existing attractions of the hill is The Cannonball House. This 17. century building has been dismantled and re-erected at least once through the ages. It is called The Cannonball House due to the fact that an old cannonball is protruding from its gable facing the castle. There are a number of theories regarding the question as to how the cannonball got itself into the wall. Some say, it was a loose cannon from the castle that fired a stray shot during the Jacobite siege of 1745. This theory has alas a very narrow evidential base and has been rejected by people who know their ballistics. Others maintain, the ball was never shot into the wall in the first place, but instead inserted into it by engineers, to mark the height of the water reservoir on the other side of the street. This could well have been the case. However, against this seemingly better substantiated theory stands the fact that another, smaller cannonball used to be tucked into the wall as well, as if to illustrate to passersby how the moon encircles the earth. No one seems to have felt the need to explain what could be likened to a stellar constellation on that particular spot. Perhaps due to the fact that the smaller cannonball is no longer in lieu. It was probably forgotten under a restoration or nicked away by a boy who kept it as the crown jewel of his marble collection. It is no small temptation to furnish further conjectures pertaining to the cannonball in the wall of The Cannonball House. To name just a few, it could arguably have been the case, that the cannonball is the self same ball that Baron Münchhausen sat on, before getting off at his destination of choice. Indeed, why not? The law of inertia would see to it, surely. Another bold conjecture entertained by certain gossip mags, suggests, the cannonball is in fact, no cannonball, but an aul' curling stone, the movement of which The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal  Church, elected from the diocese of Edinburgh, failed to curtail, when he contested the Edinburgh Makar on a frozen and uneven lake. A still hotly contested proposition that. At this stage, it is perhaps becoming apparent, that the cannonball in the wall is no longer merely a physical object. It has long since passed into the realm of metaphysics, where anything, as in anything, goes. The children of Edinburgh are actually encouraged by their elders to engender novel speculations about the cannonball as an exercise in creativity, and a yearly champion is chosen by a committee headed by J.K. Rowling. So much better than burning witches and more environmental to boot.   

Ben Hecht and I

Ben Hecht and I go way back, like forty odd years or so. I recall waking up one morning and discovering I'd turned overnight into a young man with a foreign sounding name in my head. I had no idea who the man was, but the sound of his name was nice and soft, like foam or fog in a tired head after a night of restless dreams. For months and even years, I'd brood out of the blue and in public places over the source of that commendably succinct name, wondering how the heck it found its way into my poor head. It became a sort of dormant obsession that would occasionally come to life by contact with certain stimuli or irritants. A first such contact was made on the way to Kefar Shemaryahu, on the outskirts of belle Hertzliya, Israel. I was then embarking on a new albeit short lived career as a gardening assistant. The gardener was a friend, who may actually be proof reading over my shoulder as we speak, so I will refrain from disclosing incriminating details. Suffice it to say, he never payed me for my three days of labour as a gardening assistant and that I have no axe to grind with him at this point in time. We were sitting in his car listening to the radio, when we passed a big street sign saying Butcher Hecht, Home Deliveries. I believe butcher Hecht was back then mostly renowned for selling so called "White Meat", i.e.,  pork meat, a rare commodity at the time. Pork or no pork, now I felt that I'd uncovered an important piece of the puzzle and that Ben Hecht could plausibly have Butcher Hecht as a source or at least as a partial source. Many years elapsed, I had other things to think about, and also things I tried not to think too elaborately about. Ben Hecht was not one of those things. I was sitting in the TV-room in one of the dormitories in Aarhus, Denmark, watching a Hitchcock flick. When the credits came rolling down, I saw Ben Hecht's name, and understood at long last, that I'd unknowingly picked his name from the screen many years previously. Mystery solved, obsession gone! Or so I thought. My latest and most memorable encounter with Uncle Ben, happened no more than a few days ago. I was watching a documentary about the american-polish sculpturer Szukalski. It happens to be the case that Ben Hecht was a close friend of Szukalski and wrote glowing articles in praise of his work. At some point, the two parted  ways radically. Szukalski became a right wing nationalist and anti-semite in Poland, while Hecht became a right wing zionist promoting in words and deeds the creation of the state of Israel. In honor of his efforts, a ship was named after him, the S.S. Hecht, transporting jewish holocaust survivors to Palestine in the forties. The ship was boarded by the english, the crew (a mixed group including among others a black american and two men from Norway) was jailed in Acre while the refugees were sent to a camp in Cyprus. Later on, the S.S. Hecht changed hands and names several times and was put to other purposes. I can neither confirm nor deny, that I was a passenger on that ship when wee, and that the captain showed me how to steer the wheel and use the gyroscope. 

Requiescat in pace Norsky

This is a just a preliminary communiqué regarding dear Norsky who died a few days ago:
Norsky found death on the road which he always regarded as an extension of his turf.
Most drivers respected his rights, slowed down and let him pass, but one didn't, a few days ago.
Like others without steady employment, Norsky led a fascinating life: He owned several people, lived in several small towns and was well versed in at least three languages. He was clever and brave, even if not always pleasant towards the other peers of the pride.
It will take time to overcome his demise. Full recovery is not to be expected, this side of life.

Eh, what's up on cat tv during Easter?

From at cat's perspective, (and what other perspective is worth contemplating?), Easter is a huge improvement compared to the danish Fastelavn, a yearly carnival taking place a week before Lent, where you masquerade and hit the cat off the barrel. In earlier days, you may have used a real cat, nowadays you use a dummy. Be that as it may, it is still brutal watching small kids pounding the barrel to get to the cat. You can feel their primordial murderous instincts brought up to the surface with a little encouragement from their loving elders. In Easter by contrast, all you get is a peaceful egg hunt and the occasional rabbit or witch hunt. No more of the ugly cat bashing, at any rate.
During this Easter, I had occasion to investigate what cats like to watch on tv. Up til now, I was under the impression, they couldn't care less about tv. Not even the most exciting series like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, could stir any visible response from my magnanimous and impervious darlings. But then I did something I usually refrain from, namely, watching a nature program. It was a norwegian program about natural life in some remote part of the world, forgot which one it was. The scenery was breath taking as I had precious little air to my disposal, sitting as I was on my stationary bike while watching. Then came some nice yellow birds on screen and a strange thing happened: Norsky attacked the screen, and when he couldn't find no bird nor the banana tree on screen, he went looking for the birds behind the screen. That was pretty shocking to witness on the one hand, but also quite intriguing. The question was whether Norsky is just dumb or is he in fact clever, going after the televised birds. After all, it takes some perceptual acuity to discover the two dimensional birds on the screen to begin with. So I did a little research online and discovered that a good many good people out there have had similar experiences to mine. Cats seems to respond only to a narrow range of noises, usually sudden, high pitch sounds. But what they really like watching is birds on the loose. On Youtube there are several specially made cat-tv vids for cats, all containing delicious birds chirping, hopping around and munching grain. I showed Norsky one of these vids on a tablet screen and bingo - Norsky tried again to fetch the birds from the screen. I had to arrest him to save the poor screen.
This tale is a sobering memento to all you cat people out there: Your cat could in fact enjoy some home entertainment, if you just find the right stuff for it. Doing otherwise is tantamount to spiritual deprivation. So let this Easter be the turning point in your cats life and let the good times start rolling. Bonnes Paques to all!

Cats on the set

Just a short memo about cats on the set. In the movie The Godfather, Marlon Brando is sitting with a cat on his lap. Brando gives it an expertly hand treatment and the cat purrs and rolls around. You may think this scene was carefully scripted and rehearsed. In fact, the cat was a stray in the studio, nobody knew it, it was placed in the last minute on Brando's lap by director Coppola and it immediately started working. But it didn't earn any credit or goodies for its performance, as far as we know, and the job was a one-off. Now in da movie A Man Called Ove, there's also a cat, this time a long haired one, who is likewise absent from the cast list. Why that is, is hard to tell, since that cat has quite a big role in the movie and is in some ways a reflection of the main character. Like Ove is an obsessive life saver, the cat also is a life saver. It saves the life of obsessively suicidal Ove. If you cut to the chase, the movie is actually about the man saving cat and the old crusty curmudgeon is but the side dish, even if a tasty one. To be completely honest, I did find mention of the cat in the trivia section of the entry about the movie on IMDb. It is stated there that the cat's role was played by two ragdoll cats, Magic and Orlando, both of Polish origins and probably blood related. You might argue that omitting Magic and Orlando from the cast list is yet another example of structural racialism and homocentrism that runs contrary to the ethos of liberal Sweden. On the other hand, the movie tried to be including in other ways. You had mentally ill people, gay people, handicapped people, middle eastern people, old people and two Polish cats in it. So on the whole, we shouldn't complain too much.

Letters from a lost doll

Shortly before his death, Franz Kafka took a stroll in a park in Berlin with his last companion, Dora Diamant. In the park they met a little girl who was crying bitterly over her lost doll. In those day, poverty was rampant and deep and a missing doll unlikely to be replaced with any other. So Kafka took it upon himself to ease the girl's pain by other means. He told her, the doll is alright and had just sought out another family. She'd written a letter about it to the girl that he'd bring to her on the following day. And so it was. For three weeks in a row he came unfailingly to the park and read out loud the doll's letters to the girl, each day a new letter. The girl soon forgot all about her pain of losing the doll and was awaiting eagerly to get a fresh letter instead. To somehow put an end to the story, Kafka wrote a last letter in which the doll is leaving her new home in order to get married. That is roughly what we know about the contents of Kafka's doll letters. Not much to go by, admittedly. We therefore take the liberty to amplify and elaborate on this skeleton of a story about a story and give the old bones a new lease of life:

Dear Lucy, this is Anni, your old doll, writing to you from the town of .......where I reside at the moment. I was anyway looking out for a new family for some weeks so it wasn't too bad you leaving me in the park the other day. How soon was I adopted! My new owner's name is Lina and she has recently started going to school. I'm her only doll and she's very happy having me. She walks around the house with me and never leaves me out of sight. At night, we sleep together, side by side. She closes my eyes, and we fall asleep immediately. I'm in good health, eating plenty three times a day and doing my doll exercises in the nearby park. Just wanted to let you know that I'm okay and haven't for a minute forgotten about you. Miss you millions. I will keep you informed whenever I can. Stay put and the letters will flow your way.
Your best friend, Anni the doll.

Dear Lucy, this is Anni again, your old doll writing to you and hoping you are not in despair anymore, because I got lost from you and was later found by another family. Did I mention Lina had a father and a mother and a little brother called Heinzi. Her mother is very dedicated to cleaning and cooking and her father is helping her out at the moment, because he's unemployed. He still goes out every morning to seek a job, but most days he comes home early with a the same sad face as the day before. Lina and me call him Herr. Sourpuss behind his back. We both hope he soon finds something to do so we can have other things to eat than Sauerkraut. It becomes a bit boring after a while. But hey, I shouldn't complain. I know I'm dead lucky to have found a loving family who have space in their hearts for scrawny, little dolls in dire straits. I hope you too are doing well, Lucy, I miss you and think about you and the fun we had together many times a day. Bye for now, talk soon.
Your best friend, Anni the doll. 

Dear Lucy, this is your Anni doll, the one and only. I had such a bad dream last night. What was bad about it was waking up. As long as it lasted, I was merry and gay,  playing and moving about in the park with my Lucy girl. The sweet swish of the swings, the action packed play houses and the ever so busy slides, the birds chirping away on the trees and mothers and nannies chit chatting leisurely at the outskirts. Boys kicking the ball in random directions and chasing it with a lot of pushing and shoving until they for a moment come to a sweaty standstill before the next burst of untamed energy. And the darkness in the damp room, where I found myself without knowing who I was or where. A total panic sweeping me and uncontrollable sobbing. Lucky for me,  Lina woke up and took charge giving me a comforting hug and calming me down somewhat. So even though I was very pleased to meet you so unexpectedly, I'd have to ask you to please stay longer next time around! I miss you so very much.
Your best friend, Anni the doll.

Dear Lucy, it's me, Anni the doll, writing to you again. I hope, you've been well. It's been a while, I'm so sorry. The thing is, we've been kinda busy recently. Clara and Magnus, Lina's parents, have decided to open a small business together. They are offering cooking, laundry and gardening services to whoever can pay, just to earn a little money for the household. Lina and me are trying to help as best we can after school with different chores in the house and going on small errands around town. Even little Heinzi is trying to be helpful, but he's too small, so we ask him to sit still or play with his tin soldiers in another room. When the day is over, I'm usually very tired and sometimes I even lose and arm or a leg out of sheer exhaustion, but Lina comes quick to the rescue and assembles me before I lose a vital body part for good like those poor war veterans we saw the other day, begging for money by the cathedral. It was so utterly sad and our pockets were empty just then. I hope we can give them something one of these days, if only it'll be some bread. Take care you too.
Your best friend, Anni the doll.

Dearest Lucy. Today, I got the parcel you've sent me - a large batch of home made cookies for the wounded soldiers by the cathedral. They all arrived in one piece and have been delivered to the famished consumers earlier the day. It was a delightful surprise for the poor sods, I wish you could have watched the scene with us. My own little doll stomach is a bit bloated now, in sympathy with them wretched devils.
Magnus says, nothing will change for the better before this corporal with the mustache from Munich seizes power in the country. But Clara disagrees with him. She says the corporal is a mad donkey and things could soon worsen if the head of state is aff his rocker. Lina and me believe Clara is right, but we don't dare say anything lest Magnus will feel defeated by his own kin and lose what's left of his feeble self confidence. I've gotta run now, we are going to the doll theater soon, Lucy and me. It's Kabuki, maybe you've heard of it. Take care, and thanks so much for the cookies. Your best friend, Anni the doll.

Dear Lucy, your Anni the doll's calling. I hope, you are good and well. I had this frightful visitation last night. A ghastly ghost showed up in my bedroom claiming to  represent the as of yet unborn shadow writer of my own letters. Such a preposterous imposter! The ghost looked dismal and pale and not very vivacious. I got very upset with his cheekiness and slapped him hard across the face. Soon, he dissolved through the cracks in the wall and I could go back to sleep. A most annoying intruder. I'm certain Lina will be delighted to push my dislocated arm back in place, tomorrow. In the mean time, I'm sleeping on my good shoulder. I surely hope, you had no such encounters. Life is hard enough as it is, one should think. Take care and the best doll greetings to your old folks and to fuzzy Alfred, the loyal shepherd dog. Stay in touch! Anni, your one and only.

The takeshift bed

My bed has turned increasingly into a takeshift bed. Like cars by the traffic lights come and go all day long, so do the members of the crew come and go on my bed. Yesteryear's clear hierarchies and patterns of dominance are under pressure, all solid things are falling apart, the old certainties have gone and anarchy is looming large.
You never know what to expect anymore. Yesterday, I went to sleep with Aerial and got up with Joely Panther. How did this come about? Was it a peaceful takeover or did they have a bloody row? I swear I didn't feel or hear a thing. Today, Norsky is in momentary possession of the coveted terrain. But for how long? At some point, he'll have to change his position and then the territory will be up for grabs. Who will be the usurpor this time? And who will get ousted? Wimbelina perhaps? Not long ago, she was the uncontested queen of the bed, but these days, Joely Panther is proving himself to be the most avid shift taker. It goes well with his sleepy demeanor. And with the new winds of change blowing our way from across the ocean. We try to stay calm and composed amidst all this turmoil. We'll need all our strength for tribulations to come.

New name to Joely Pants

Joely Pants just got himself a brand new name. He's solemnly baptized Joely Panther as per now. Two recent events gave us the impetus to take this course:

One was the surprising discovery made by a joint israeli-french research team concerning the effect a person's given name has on the person. It seems that other people can pick out merely by watching a photo of the person, what the person is called, among several choices. The researchers conclude that a person starts resembling his name while growing up. To be honest, I think that the effect found could be attributed wholly and solely to the families socio-economic standing. People are quite good at sniffing out to what echelon a person belongs socially and since names are not evenly distributed socially, but differ according to education level and like parameters, much of the mystery is solved. But what do I know, perhaps Sitting Bull did in fact become more Sitting Bullish during his day.

The other event was a recent vid showing how a very angry black leopard called Diabolo was treated by animal communicator Anna Breytenbach. She sure has a way with animals. In one communication session she vetted him dry of info. He told her, among other things, that he didn't in particular like his name and wished it changed. Diabolo's owner -  Jurg Olsen - who has a wild cats refuge in South Africa, consented to giving him a new name - Spirit. Diabolo or Spirit as he's now called, has metamorphosed completely. He used to snarl and growl angrily all day long, but now he's much more social and content. No small miracle.

I hope a similar transformation will take place with Joely Panther, once he hears his new name. I just wonder how I can explain away, all the times I called him a stupid cat. I had no idea back then, that he had discursive abilities. Well, you learn as long as you live. I guess.

These cats are bound for glory

After another stressful week, full of falsehoods and false allegations of falsehoods, it is rather soothing to find refuge on the pages of Giacomettisfriends on a Sunday morning. Here, you meet no liars of any consequence, no major gamblers or big shot ramblers. Here, there are no twisters and no tweakers, no mean spirited serpents, no devious civil servants, only a bunch of righteous cats, wailing their gospels in the deep of night.
People can't tell a lie from the truth. Cat's can't even tell a lie.
Whatever they do, they do it from the bottom of their hearts..and from there bottoms. That's it, and that's that. Sae let the Lord be thankit.