Speaking of which, James Montgomery described night as a lively masquerade of daytime. We leave our subscribers to decide on the liveliness or otherwise of this issue of Orphan Scrivener, internationally renowned for masquerading as a newsletter.
Read on!
MARY'S BIT or CAT-ASTROPHES
Speaking of little cat feet, years ago I cat-sat for a week on behalf of a family whose feline, according to legend, had once gone a little way up the chimney, fortunately without injury to cat or chimney.However, that particular week the cat's luck ran out as it left the house via the kitchen window on Thursday morning and was never seen again.
In my childhood one or two cats also mysteriously disappeared -- was it perhaps something we said? -- although on one memorable occasion the cat returned, only to expire under my chair from the effects of the poison local racing pigeon fanciers were wont to spread on the roofs of their pigeon lofts. And then a couple of weeks before I emigrated my cat was struck by a car but managed to make its way back home only to expire on the front door step, as I found to my horror on opening the door.
However, the current feline in residence has been smiled upon by Fortuna, since she's been pussy-footing around for twenty-one years now. Her birthday was on 15th September, chosen because it was the approximate date she would have been born given when she was weaned. As it happens, September 15th is also Agatha Christie's birthday but the coincidence did not strike me for some years.
This year it also marked the date when, as Eric observed, if human Sabrina could legally drink alcohol in her birth state of New York. We may only whisper about the cat nip headache she developed one Christmas...
Apparently the oldest recorded cat was just over 38 when it died, so Sabrina is still a lively young thing by comparison. In her youth she was in the habit of launching a vertical takeoff to catch a fly between her front paws and usually succeeding. Nowadays she rests on her laurels to such an extent that on one occasion when a field mouse ventured indoors she and it were nose to nose and she did not even raise a paw to admonish its temerity.
It may be Sabrina considers herself too elderly to jump over the moon with a stringed instrument or go out of her way to gaze at a royal personage. As for catching flies, we'll see that acrobatic maneuver again before the cat licks her ear, as they say.
No, nowadays she prefers to stay earthbound, or rather Eric's-knees-bound, for she's velcroed to them whenever the temperature drops below a certain point. And talk about dirty looks when she has to get down.
Speaking of talking, had she been Dick Whittington's companion, she'd never have advised him to such effect that he became Lord Mayor of London, for originally she rarely produced more than a squeak. It was after she recovered from being tranquilized for the long journey in a laundry basket when we moved to Pennsylvania that she suddenly found her voice. Now she exercises it often by transforming herself into a furry alarm clock and squawking if she thinks we are too long abed.
Sages through the ages have pondered on what it is cats think about when they look inscrutable. My theory is if they're not wondering when they'll get their next kitty treat it's a rueful contemplation of their descent to their present lowly position from the glory days when they were worshipped in Egypt to such an extent they were transformed into dear little cat mummies when they shuffled off their furry coil.
Sabrina, however, while she sheds fur furiously at times has not yet reached that point, so we expect she'll be around making kitty nose-prints on the windows for a few years yet.
NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER
...tick tick tick...what's this? The ticker tape blank again?...tick tick tick...stay tuned....tick tick tick....
