Allow Me To Introduce…

 

About a year ago we tried to get another cat from Hidden Treasures Cat Sanctuary in Orland. We picked out a sweet girl we named Agatha. It turned out she was a lot older than we thought she was. We brought her home and did all the recommended things to slowly introduce another cat to an already established one. That was Neelix. Neelix seemed agreeable to finally touch noses with Agatha. Unfortunately she went ballistic and tried to take Neelix out. It became very clear this would not work. They allowed us to bring her back to the shelter and discovered that she already belonged to someone and should not have been adopted out. Lesson learned.

 

Yesterday we went to the shelter again and this time made sure we got younger female cats. They seemed to be very loving and cuddly so we brought them home. So far, there appears to be a détante between them and Neelix. We are cautiously hopeful.

 

 

So here is Marv with Bailey. She’s named after Bailey Quarters from WKRP in Cincinnati.

 

 

And here I am with Ketzel. Ketzel is the Yiddish word for ‘cat’. Gants gut, nisht azoy? (I got that phrase from Google translate.)

 

Cat And The Moon

 

 

June 13^th was the birthday of William Butler Yeats (1895-1939)

You can probably guess why the following is one of my favorites from this poet:

 

Cat and the Moon (1919)

 

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon,

The creeping cat, looked up.

 

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,

For, wander and wail as he would,

The pure cold light in the sky

Troubled his animal blood.

 

Minnaloushe runs in the grass

Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet.

What better than call a dance?

Maybe the moon may learn,

Tired of that courtly fashion,

A new dance turn.

 

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

From moonlit place to place,

The sacred moon overhead

Has taken a new phase.

 

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

Will pass from change to change,

And that from round to crescent,

 From crescent to round they range?

 

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon

His changing eyes.

 

Freya’s Cats

 

 

Don’t know how I stumbled across Freya and her cats, but I’ve always loved any kind of mythology and started looking into it. Because: cats.

 

As with a lot of mythological tales, there are several versions of this. Here are a few nuggets that I discovered:

 

Freya was the goddess of war, love and beauty. One story says that Thor gave her the two cats to draw her chariot. Another one says that when her husband Odr left Valhalla she cried red-gold tears and they formed into the two cats. Tradition gave the cat’s names as Bygul and Trjegul.

 

She rules over the heavenly field Fólkvangr, where she receives half of those who die in battle. The other half go to Odin in Valhalla. Although she always searched for her husband, she never found him.

 

There is a ton more info in various books and poetry, but I didn’t feel like plowing through it past the few bits I’ve shared here. After all, I was mainly in this for the cats…

 

So…in lieu of a real Norse saga I thought I’d write some Haiku.

 

Brave Goddess Freya

Her chariot drawn by cats

Weeping red-gold tears

 

Bygul and Trjegul

Her cats of power and strength

Always by her side

 

Grieving for all time

Searching the heavens for Odr

Never to be found