VENGEANCE

Luna's Tundra

    Really, what I’m talking about in this blog is climate change, and how humans refuse to recognize our interaction with the rest of the natural world.  You’ll get that toward the end. For now, if you like, I’m just talking about cats and dogs, and the weather.  

  We’ve changed the clocks to summertime, and that means it’s almost spring, right?  RIGHT?   

  Well, not really.  In my part of the world, everyone is hunkering down for a snowstorm tomorrow, though right now it’s sunny and almost balmy, in strange contrast to the snow that’s still everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  

   Not that I’m hankering for spring, and my garden and getting rid of my boots, and walking the dogs through meadows instead of over the continuing, infinite tundra.  No. Of course not. 

    Luna, of course, is perfectly content.  She loves the snow. Labrador Retrievers were bred from Newfoundlands and Springers to create a dog who loved the water, was agile and active, and would do things like retrieve fishing nets from icy cold waters, and clear the ice from the edges of lakes and rivers.  Luna, who apparently bred true, will attack ice on our pond with gusto, one of only two times where she’ll show anything like aggression. The other is if someone presents a threat to me. She’s a sweet natured dog, but don’t mess with her pack leader.   

GOT the ice!

    If you have a healthy respect for the kind of damage a dog can do, you’re smart.  At least a million dog bites are reported each year, and maybe a dozen people are killed by dogs.  On the other hand, cats are not known to kill by attacking, which is one reason why cruel people and cowards often abuse them.  

    My personal experience tells me that when cats act with aggression the motive is different from what you see in dogs, who attack either to guard territory or people, or from fearful aggression and a lack of training.  All the cats I’ve known were aggressive in a more deliberate, pro-active way.  Psychokitty, for instance, sized up everyone who came to my house, and if she thought they were no good, she’d stroll over to them and pee on their shoes.  As it turned out, she was always right. 

    Then, there was my black cat Chaos, a mighty hunter whom I once saw devour an entire squirrel except for the tail, which he brought to me as a gift.  When he was part of my household, a friend made the mistake of giving me a parakeet as a birthday present.  As soon as I brought the bird home in his cage, Chaos looked at me as if to say, “You’re kidding, right?”  

    To his dismay, the bird stayed in a cage. He could walk up to it, brood about it all he wanted, but the bird itself was out of reach.  He began to hunker down morosely in front of it.  There it was, boxed lunch, and he couldn’t figure out how to open the box.  As time passed, he would physically droop whenever he passed the cage.  Sometimes I’d catch him pawing at the door, then shaking himself and walking away.

    Then, one day as I opened the cage to put food in, the bird suddenly flew out and began swooping around the room.  Immediately Chaos was there, and before I could move a molecule, he leapt up, caught the bird mid-flight, pierced it once in the heart and dropped it.  He looked at the lifeless body for a moment, gave a small kitty trill of triumph, and walked proudly away.    

    Though I was truly upset about the bird, I couldn’t help but admire Chaos for his tenacity, and his aim.  Cats do not forget. And they do let you know when they’re displeased.

    Photon did this once when I went away for a weekend, the first time I’d done that since I got him.  He was the kind of cat who wanted everyone to stay within the boundaries he proscribed, and when I took Luna for walks he’d pace the windows and the doors, meowing frantically until we returned.  I’ve learned since that cats who live in colonies take on different roles, some of them becoming nurse cats for those who are sick, some becoming the cats who prevent fights, and some securing the perimeters, making sure nobody goes beyond their territory.  Photon was surely one of those.

    When I returned from the weekend, Steve greeted me at the door.  

    “Look what your cat did,” he said, and gestured broadly.

    In front of me I saw all the stuffed animals that belonged to my son when he was a child, stretching in a perfect line from the kitchen, through the living room. I’d kept them in a basket, and he’d taken them all out one by one and lined them up, then beat each one thoroughly.  Steve watched him do this. 

    “What?” I asked Steve.  

    “Photon’s been beating them all weekend,” he replied. “He's angry that you went away.”

Don't Mess With Me

    I looked to the end of the line.  There was my son’s stuffed Alf doll, a figure from a TV show about an alien who hated cats.  Photon was  trouncing it solidly.  We watched for a while in silence. Then Photon grabbed Alf by the back of the neck and dragged it to his lair, totally ignoring me, making his opinion known. 

    Do cats actively seek revenge?  Some cat experts say they have the intelligence to plot and plan, and they also have a sense of fairness.  But they also say cats only act badly when they’re trying to control a difficult situation. This, I think, is something we can all understand.  When the world gets out of control, we also try to bring it back into frame.  If cats act badly, they have reason to do so.   

    And here is best incident possible to illustrate that.  

    

    It happened in the suburban neighborhood where I lived when my son, Matthew, was ten years old. For a while we had a stray Tomcat hanging around, a handsome fellow with long black and white hair.  He’d lay in my driveway, indolently rolling around the tarmac and purring.  Of course, I fed him.  He’d rub against my hand in grand manner, as if he was the Duke of Essex, willing to grant audience to his subjects.  He never caused any trouble, and I enjoyed his grand style.

    One of my neighbors didn’t care for him so much. She worried that he’d bother her two cats, though he’d never gone near mine.  But she was a worrying kind of woman, so she bought a trap, baited it with tuna, and caught him.  Then she drove him 25 miles away and let him go.

     Two days later, he was back in my driveway, sunning himself, looking not at all the worse for wear.  I fed him, petted him, asked him how he was doing.  He purred at me that he was fine, deigned to rub against my hand and meow.  After a while he rose, yawned, and strolled away.  I wondered how my neighbor would react. The next day I learned her reaction wasn’t the problem.  

    When he left my house, he went and sat under her back porch.  As she stepped onto it after work, he attacked her, clawing her badly enough that she had to have eighteen stitches in her leg.  Then, he went away again – this time for good.

    Had he come back all those miles just to let her know he was miffed? Greeted me amicably, then waited under her porch to maul her?  If so, what does that teach us?
    I’m thinking of a commercial that was popular when I was young, about margarine.  In the commercial, Mother Nature was the main character, and she was angry that someone would make a substance to imitate butter, part of her arena.  At the end of the commercial, she sent down lightning and said, “Don’t mess with mother nature.”

    Yeah.  All that. 

    As I mentioned before, when cats were indiscriminately killed in the middle ages to suit the new patriarchal religion, the result was an increase in rat popultion, which increased the plagues that killed millions of humans.  In so many ways, we have to learn this lesson over and over again, both personally and politically, and cats, half domesticated, willing to live with us but not to serve us, are perhaps our best teachers.

   As debate rages in the Senate and Congress about climate change

, and those who survived Hurricanes Irene and Sandy shake their heads in wonder, dogs serve to remind us that we interact with nature on a daily basis, and cats remind us that nature is still bigger than we are, that Mother Nature doesn’t forget, and that she will respond when we act unfairly in any way.

    Here’s to the dogs.  Here’s to the cats.  Our best teachers ever. 

    My novel, Something Unpredictable, is an environmental romantic comedy that has something to say about the choices we make and how they affect the planet.  If you feel strongly about that, CALL your representative and let them know. They get paid to represent us, after all.  And here's a simple recipe to keep you going while you do.  

       Avocado Sandwich

      Really simple, and very satisfying.  You can add slices of tomato or onion or both if you like, because you know the rule: PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Simple and Happy

1 avocado
1 clover garlic, mashed or grated
About two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
A slice or two of your favorite cheese (I use cheddar or brie, depending on my mood)
2 slices of your favorite bread
Salt and pepper to taste

Mash the avocado with the garlic, add the vinegar and mash some more.  Toast the bread.  Slab some of avocado mis onto the bread, sprinkle salt and pepper on top, layer the cheese over this.  If you're using the onion and tomato, put this on top. Smush the other slice of bread on top. 

Now you can either put the open faced sandwich into a microwave and set it for a minute to let the cheese get melty, OR put some butter in a skillet, heat it up, and then put the sandwich into the skillet and let it get all melty that way, like a grilled cheese sandwich.  

Either way, it will taste good, and remind you that nature gives many gifts, which we should appreciate, and return the favor.