This is Desdemona...a special frind of mine!
She is a lady of mystery, even though I know she is smart
and talented and very lovely! She has written a book, and
it has been placed in the Cats In Space Library
at CLAW, and it is very interesting and fun to read.
Since she remains aloof, I can only admire from afar
the "Lovely Lady in the Photograph".
For Desdemona from Genghis Kahn
Genghis writes:
The lovely Desdemona responded to my plight and graciously
sent this lovely story of her life.
Dear Genghis,
Finally I have been able to sit down and write about my remarkable life. Henri had taken up so much of my time with
his constant whining. "Show me how to use the keyboard,
please, please!" That cat has no sense of alphabet, which
letter follows which...Well I let him get at the keyboard,
but you have no idea how many spelling corrections I had to
make before pressing that "SEND" botton. And the grammar!
Well what can one expect....
I was of noble birth as you have probably surmissed. Because of
unfortunate circumstances in my early youth, I was separated from my first
set of persons. I fell out of the automobile and landed in the middle of
the street. Quickly, I scurried to safety at the side of the road. They
didn't know I had fallen from the back seat when the door was opened. They
drove away and I never saw them again. How terrified I was! Being of
noble birth I knew nothing about stalking birds or hunting rodents, not
that I had much taste for such things, being of noble birth...I met up with
an older cat named Fluffy who was very kind and helped me find food and
shelter. For many months I followed her from street to street, from
garbage can to garbage can. Many months had passed when I met a strong and
handsome young tom cat named Scooter. I fell in love. I said goodbye to
my friend and went off to find happiness with my new love. Unfortunately,
I found a litter of kitties instead. Scooter went his way and left me with
his kittens to raise. I went back to the old street to find my friend
Fluffy but many weeks had gone by and she wasn't there. None of the other
cats knew where she had gone. I searched and searched, meowing her name,
begging her to answer me, but I never saw her again. Life was very
difficult. Finding enough food for my five kittens took up most of my
times. I hardly had time for sleep. Grooming? I had little incentive to
wash my paws or face. Two of my kittens died under the wheels of an
automobile, another became very ill and passed away while I was out
searching for dinner. I felt very sad. Life did not seem good. Then one
day a big, noisy truck pulled up along the curb. A person jumped out and
scooped me up in a net. Another took my to kittens and put them into a
box. I was terrified! I fought and clawed and hissed and screeched.
Hours later, I was in a cage, my two kittens sharing another cage next to
mine. I was prodded and poked and stabbed and finally, the humiliation of
all humiliations, I was put in a tub of water and scrubbed! I must admit I
looked much better after that....The rest is history. Some persons came by
and took my little ones home with them. I waved my paw "goodbye" but they
were so excited, I don't think they saw or heard me. Weeks went by. A
person stopped by my cage and I heard her whisper under her breath, "What
a fine cat you are! I'm going to call you Desdemona."
My life is comfortable. Except for Henri and that brat Sidney, I've
little to complain about. Long before Henri arrived on the scene, I had
developed an interest in writing. I would watch closely as my person
tapped the keys and made letters appear on the screen. Soon I had the
keyboard memorized. One day when she had left the room, I tapped my paw on
one of the keys. I tapped another and another. I had written a word.
Then I wrote a sentence. Then I wrote a paragraph. What would I write
about? Those cold , bitter nights I had spent outdoors and gazed at the
sparkling lights which hung from the heavens had been my inspiration.
First I wrote a few short stories and then went on to greater pursuits. It
took me months to finish "Because of the Cats" because it required a great
deal of research about humans. Thank goodness for the Internet! They still won't let a cat use the library in our town!
I'm interested in gardening. Often I join my person there and direct
the placing of new plants. The ones I don't care for, I dig up. I know my
person welcomes my advice. She never replants the ones that I have torn up
and shredded. She too is of noble birth and has good taste. Except for
her lapse in judgment when she took me to the Cattery, I have few complaints about her.
I do and must devote some time to educating Henri. Sometimes I feel
it is a formidable task, but I persevere. Manners must be taught. A cat
must not chew with his mouth open. A cat must cover his nose when he
sneezes. A cat must not snore when he sleeps. A cat must always take care
when using the litter box and not spread litter all over the floor...Must I go on?
With deep purrs and head butts, Your Desdemona.. famous cat author.
Meet another friend
Henri!!!
Dear Genghis & Nikita,
My name is Henri. It's spelled that way because it has more class. Actually, it was Desdemona's idea. She siad she didn't want any ordinary old cat sharing her food bowl. She very vain and snooty. She thinks she's the best cat in town. She thinks she special because she wrote a dumb story. Any cat can write a story if they sit in front of a computer all day staring at a blank screen. It's just natural you want to fill it up
with something.
I decided to write too. However, since I was a real cat about town, I decided to write romance stories. Good Cat, I sure know a lot about romance! I had a few of 'em in my life time!
When I was very young I had a regular home. I lived with a human and a few other cats. The human (I think it was female) met another human and they decided to move in together. The other human had a d*g. That was one big d*g, let me tell you! I'm not afraid of d*gs but my human thought I would end up as d*g food so I got put outdoors. Now I was just a little kitty then. They put food out for us every day and sometimes I even got a
chance to eat some of it. I began to explore and found some interesting things on the next street. Then I discovered girl cats and I began hanging around with some of them. When I finally got home, all the food would be gone and I would be really hungry. So I started hunting mice and stalking
birds. Then came the garbage cans. I learned to tip 'em over and get some of the food out of them. Some of it was okay but some of it smelled really bad. But it was food and it more or less filled my stomach. I lived on the streets for about four or five years (human). I didn't bother to go home anymore because the humans wouldn't talk to me. I don't think they even knew who I was....I was pretty skinny and my fur was sort of dirty and
greasy. I guess they didn't like me anymore.
It was so cold in the winter. I used to sleep under porches and
bushes, but the ground is always cold. A winter rain would make me cold to the bones. A lot of times I didn't have anything to eat. No mice and the garbage was to good either. There was a lot of competition for that moldy old stuff and you have to share you know. Summers were bad. No water to drink except from a dirty puddle, maybe. I was getting older and even
though I had a lot of friends over on Wooden and West Side Street, it was getting harder to fill my stomach. I nearly passed out from the heat in the summer and froze in the winter. Some of my friens didn't make it through the winter anymore. I found old Snuggs half inside a tipped up garbage can. He just died there. I poked him with my paw and he was all
stiff. He wouldn't answer my meows. He wouldn't play with the feather I had found. He just lay there all stiff and cold. And I knew he would never get up again...
That happened to a lot of my friends. You see 'em one day and pass the meows and the then you wouldn't see 'em anymore...The older I got, the worse it got. I kept getting thinner and my fur was all matted and dirty.
Then I met HER.
I used to see her now and then. She's not much to look at but she has a nice voice. She can't meow or anything but she used to talk to me and try to pet me. I never let her get too close. I thought she might hit me.
I knew SHE lived in the blue house on the corner and sometimes I would walk past it just to see if she would come out. One night she did. It was in September and it was rainy hard, really hard. I was so cold and I was so hungry. Then the door opened up. SHE was there with a bowl of food in hands. I could smell the food. But I was really scared to come up to HER.
She put the bowl down under a table and then went back into the house. When I knew it would be safe, I went over to it and ate all the food! Boy, did that taste good! I sort of hung around, sleeping most of the night under the table. The next morning, SHE came out with a HE and put down another bowl of food with a bowl of fresh water. They put a soft blanket under the table for me to sleep on. HE build me a house out of wood and
painted it green. THEY put a blanket in it, all clean and soft.
Then in November, when I wasn't afraid of THEM anymore I went up to HIM and said,"I would like to be a house kitty." HE looked at me. "Are you sure?" he said. "You would have to share the house with two other cats and a d*g."
I said, with my very best meow, "I can live with that."
