Merry Christmas 2015

Pam’s Pictorama: First, if you haven’t received yours yet, please know these cards are still making their way across the country and the world. We started off with a good lead on getting cards out this year, but somehow the month ran away with us once again.

Of course, Cookie and Blackie are featured on the card. I have never had cats from the same litter and the idea was that they would get along better – right? Not our kits – life is a constant battle over turf and access and it was an obvious theme for our card this year. Every night, just as I turn the lights off, a battle begins and eventually I hear Cookie scream and up I go, yelling for them to knock it off – usually waking poor Kim in the process!

Early in December one mad, daily romp through the apartment ended up with Cookie racing up Kim’s work chair to get away from Blackie (a favorite Cookie maneuver) and BAM! the top broke off the chair! Staples supplied a new one within days (the old one had come off the street so it wasn’t like it owed us much) – and then a fight broke out over the lovely, huge chair box which awaited opening the following weekend. I share below a series of photos of Cookie and Blackie fighting over the box spot which I took originally to amuse my mom – and ending with Cookie winning possession of the old chair before it was whisked away.

Merry Christmas and may we all triumph in 2016!

Cookie Owns the Chair Box

A Blackie Takeover!

Cookie in Action

Blackie Retreats

Cookie, Queen of the Old Chair

Cards of Christmas Past

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Source: Cards of Christmas Past

Kits!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Hard to resist a photo of kittens and I fell for these little fellows, not once but twice! The high fidelity of these snapshots jumped out at me and I thought the two photos should stay together. I purchased them separately, a week or so apart.

Looks like this group was quite the handful. Two tuxedoes – what a haul! I am a sucker for the black spot on the chin of the one. The tabby is the one who looks like the hell raiser of the group; the white one is the sweet guy. Purring fluff balls!

The cuteness of kittens is clearly a necessary design of nature given the upheaval they generally cause. I remember when I first acquired my cat Otto as a tiny kitten – stinky, messy and determined to tear the apartment to pieces – her good looks saved her on many occasions as she scaled furniture and sometimes walls. She had jumping projects – for example she practiced repeatedly until she could jump to the top of the fridge from the floor. A loud crowing meow of pleasure when she made it! Just about the time you think you can’t stand it another day, bam! They have graduated and are magically less stinky, cleaner and civilized enough for everyone to get along.

The first cat I really remember as a kitten was my orange tabby Pumpkin. A gift from a friend whose Persian cat had strayed, he was an angelic ball of fur, small enough to be held in one hand and spend his first few nights in a Kleenex box. He eventually grew to the size of a small dog, with a huge striped tail and immense, sturdy cat paws. He allowed me to carry him around, but no one else dared pick him up. Pumpkin was a one girl cat. (That is until my father, in retirement, wooed him with smoked salmon and won his undying affection.)

Our Blackie and Cookie are barely out of kittenhood – Cookie still chases her tail routinely and needless to say they speed through the apartment for a rousing game of kill-the-guy several times a day. They are the first litter mates I have had since childhood. They are best friends who love to hate each other – that’s what being a kit is all about it seems.

We are out of town as this gets published – far away from our cat kids. Miss you guys! See ya soon!

Speaking of Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Before the internet and cat videos, there were cat postcards! This one from 1917 is bizarre and fascinates me. It is dated 1917 on the back and addressed to Mademoisell Zhiere Dreval a Jounnel (?) Vienna. I cannot read the French inscription and, oddly, there is no stamp despite the note, date and full address. However, it is clearly the front of this card that is of interest. A soldier surrounded by these Louis Wain-esque cat heads – depicting the moods of cats!

Let’s start with the obvious – why a soldier? Were these handed out to the French army in WWI so soldiers would be able to judge the various states of cats they might encounter along the way? One has to wonder – very wise of them if true.

In clockwise direction, starting with Doux they translate on Google as follows:

Doux = Sweet
Ardent = Burning
Gourmand = Greedy
Vorace = also translated as Greedy
Inactif = Inactive
Bouillant = Boiling
Fougueux = Mettlesome
Actif = Active

Gourmand and mettlesome are my favorites! The moustached soldier seems to be providing some sort of hand signals as well, mystically floating as he is, in front of a lurid sunset or sunrise.

There was a popular British book, The Language of the Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, which was published in 1884. It lists the meanings of various flowers – I was fascinated by a reproduction copy I had when I was a child. I wondered immediately if this was a play on that. I have grabbed the title page below.

The truth is, all cats have their own expressions. I have labeled some of ours as follows: Queen of Everything, Huffy Puffy Stuffy, Piss Cat Ears, and Grumpus. Detecting a trend here?

Bonne Annee!

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Happy New Year! Featured here is a small clutch of New Year’s cards that I purchased last year while contemplating the then New Year ahead. The ever sensible French have a cultural preference for New Year cards over Christmas cards – thus allowing themselves more time to enjoy the holidays. I have two examples from France above and two are British. Evidently dancing black cats were all the craze for ringing in the New Year in the 20’s which is the period of these cards, ’29 (black and white cat) and ’25 (three black kitties) are the postmark dates on those that were used.

The Bonne Annee card is dated December 27, 1929 and is addressed to Mademoiselle Dora Cordova, L’rue Guy-Patini, Paris, X. The brief message, as closely as I can read it, is Meilleurs voeux et vous (?) souvenirs, Yoorssie (?) Lehmann. The other, in English, is dated 4:45 PM, December, ’25 but the day is obscured. It says, From your Loving Sister in Law and Family with best wishes for the new year and better Luck. From Ada xxxxxx. It is addressed to Mrs. Thornton 22 St. James Street, Walthamstow.

I love the tubby black kittens – especially that party trio! But my favorite is the very mischievous brown and white fellow. He has a sort of Devil-may-care Maurice Chevalier charm about him. Quite a New Year’s bash at his house! Something makes him just short of cute. While I don’t think I am capable of tossing my habits aside and moving to New Year’s cards, I like the thought. Non-denominational well wishes for the coming year make more sense and cards arriving during the brief lull between Christmas and New Year’s or just beyond seems nice. As a small child I was always quite serious about the changeover in years – solemnly writing down resolutions, something I no longer do. Somehow I approach the whole affair with some trepidation as an adult. So, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, here’s to 2015 to one and all!

Wild Cats at Play

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This illustration hails from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, February 26, 1881. I purchased it as a single sheet for one pound sterling in London a number of years ago. I usually wouldn’t be attracted to such a violent image, but it is just so impressively drawn I couldn’t resist. Poor Mr. Rodent thing (woodchuck?) doesn’t have a chance. The cat fangs are very well done (Blackie likes to show his fangs too – luckily mostly when he smiles or yawns, which he does a lot for a cat) and you can almost feel the fluff of the tail. There’s a latecomer kitten in the upper right corner. Just in time for a meal on the hoof, so to speak. Look at those claw paws!

One has to wonder why something called the Illustrated and Dramatic News would feature this particular illustration, and I have no answer. The articles above the illustration have nothing to do with it. There’s a mention of not very much thoroughbred stock in the market at present and a small piece, The Duke of Edinburgh on Swimming. The weekly paper existed from 1874 until 1945 under that name and continued under subsequent titles until 1970. On the internet I learned that Louis Wain graced the pages on occasion and Oscar Wilde was mocked there.

I purchased a number of things that day, the result of spending several hours happily immersed in the basement of a bookstore in the theater district of London. Most memorably I purchased a number of early film and other magazines for Kim I believe. It would be one of my first stops on a return trip, with the fervent hope it is still there and the boxes in the basement are brimming.

Up a Tree

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: My personal experience with a cat up a tree is that it is an anxiety induing experience for both the human witness and the cat. To me it is a perfect metaphor for that dreadful mistake we all make once in a while – who hasn’t found themselves at least metaphorically up a tree? After all, everything about a cat is well designed for getting up the tree – and poorly outfitted for getting down. Having said that, many a cat’s hide has been saved by a quick run up a tree where a dog or other predator could not follow. While I have never had to resort to calling the fire department, nor even taking out a ladder, growing up with cats in the suburbs we periodically would find ourselves standing in the backyard trying to convince one kitty or another to make the slow trip back down the slippery trunk of a tree. These fellows look like they might make the trip up this tree on a regular basis however. It did not excite my anxious nature.

The back of this photo postcard is a bit hard to read. The postmark is Boston, November 3, 1909, 9:30 AM. It is address as follows: G A Orustredt, Bridgeport, Conn, general delivery. It reads: J. P. 11/2/09; Friend Gus [sic] Received your Postal last evening and feeling o.k. Indigestion better, the girls are all feeling fine they all send Regards. [sic] So you are on the old camping ground again hope you wont stay too long. We will expect you back in Boston by xmas anyway. I am Forwarding Letter and Postal. hope you will receive them O.K. Friend G.A.G. I guess maybe the indigestion had a negative impact on his punctuation? And no mention of the cats in the tree in the photo.

Plenty Joes

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This one is in pretty bad shape – and Kim even helped out by taking it into photoshop and lightening it up! I couldn’t help it – I love this image. These two little fellows, Peter and Plenty Joes (possibly the best cat name I never heard before) are such adorable little guys. They look like they have a little attitude to back up those names – especially Plenty Joes. No surprise that I find kittens quite irresistible, but anyone who has adopted one or (God help us) two at this age know that they are quite a handful – and I can only guess from looking at these guys that they were no exceptions! Blissfully, Cookie and Blackie have entered the easier to take adolescent stage – and only try to climb the walls to knock the pictures off occasionally.

Girl and Her Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I realize that there should probably be a whole category on this blog of photos only I could love. This one would go in I suspect, but maybe you will love it too. This is a small snap shot from Great Britain of a girl with a sizable, fluffy kitty in her arms. This cat reminds me of a wonderful Tuxedo who our cat Cookie is unofficially named for – a huge, wonderfully good natured boy cat who belonged to my friend Bridget, who lives in Massachusetts. That Cookie met an untimely end, they think due to a fox or something along those lines. I was heartbroken when I heard and thought of the name when we got the kits. (Our Cookie doesn’t take after him at all however, tuxedo or not – her skin seems to crawl when you pet her, assuming she lets you, and she has a horror of being picked up.)

I guess it wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that my happiest hours as a small child were spent with the family cats. I too would carry them everywhere. We had a lovely white cat with black cow spots whose name was Snoopy. He let me carry him around and dress him up and all sorts of things. I would tell him everything and I prized his attention, especially when he would decide to sleep on my bed. He was a dignified cat of some girth. He would walk in that slow deliberate way cats have sometimes. (See my post Passin’ Through.) He was very tidy and kept himself very nice, whites very white. When we adopted a young kitten who didn’t seem to understand that he was meant to clean himself, we placed him in a bathroom with Snoopy overnight and he had him ship shape by morning – and more or less comprehending the self-cleaning nature of cats.

Snoopy also met an unfortunate end – killed by a dog. If Kim was here he’d say cat life is cheap and sadly he’s right – especially for the outdoor guys. Still, no one understands you or loves you like your cat and when you are a kid your pets can be a whole universe.

Happy Hooligan

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Pam Photo Post: People love to take photos of themselves with their cats (look through the paper and see how many people, when having their photo taken, grab up the cat for the portrait or family photo – as they should of course!) but the other impulse is to immortalize the family cat. From blurry tintype and daguerreotype (those cats just wouldn’t stay still long enough for slow exposure) to the several hundred of Blackie and Cookie on my iPad today, it is an irresistible inclination for cat lovers.

Cyanotypes like this one had speedier exposures and were less expensive than the processes of even a few years before, so they were very popular and the family cat was a frequent subject. This card of Happy Hooligan and the little story about having moved into the new house nearby – but most importantly that it ends with Happy as Happy can be! – is a great little cat tale. I have tried to buy others similar to this, but always get outbid – everyone loves a cat with a little story I guess.