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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Don't listen to her



Pişi here.

So I see that The Squeaker
got her hands on the blog
last week,
and whined
about me.
I just want you to know,
there's always two sides to the story.

I do tell most of my story
earlier in this blog:
the whole shabang about being taken off the streets,
being passed around in houses
in Ankara
til I came upon the Big Two Legged One,
sort of by accident,
or Fate.

I'm Turkish, so I do
believe in Fate. 
kismet
one of the few words
in the English language
with its origin
in Turkish
(and before that, Persian,
before that, Arabic,
you know the route. . . 
it's an old word, and it should have been
my name)

But it's not.

So here I am, fated to live in
an apartment
5,307 miles,
that's
8,541 kilometers
from the place of my birth.

I can look out the window
(and hey, look at what I saw yesterday
when I looked out the window!



 See that big bug?
What is it?
It's almost as big
as me.)
But I can't go outside.
I would really love
to go outside;
the BTLO thinks I'll get hurt
because I can't hear,
or something like that.
But she's wrong.

I'm not a big cat, 
you see.
I'm small and fast,
built to get myself out of 
tight situations
in a variety of ways,

and yeah,
so I'm a little mean.
I don't take shit
from anyone.

I was the smallest in my litter,
and my litter
was full of boys.

You can just imagine what they did to me.

Just imagine.

Don't censor, just imagine.

It wasn't fun, 
let me tell you.
I didn't want to have kittens,
and I especially didn't want to have
my brother's kittens.

It's bad enough that my father
was one of my brothers
from another litter.

< < < <

So that was why I got nasty,
and fast, 
and started looking for some different digs.

So if you want to find out how I ended up here,
read the earlier entries about me.




Honestly, I thought I'd died
and gone to heaven
when I realized the BTLO
was my human.
She was everything
a cat could want:
she cooks well and shares her food with you;
she lets you sleep in bed in those places against her body
where it's so comfy just to curl up and feel the warmth
of another creature;
and she pets you with those magic hands of hers.
Yeah, she has
magic hands --
when she pets me on the head,
she makes my sore eye
feel so much better.



Quite honestly, I didn't want to share her
with anyone.

At least not a cat.

> > > >

So the first time I realized
she expected me
to share her
was with this guy:


Monty was his name.
He was called by his true,
Jellicle name, and
he had the 
BTLO
first. 

A little while after we moved into our house
at our current place,
8,542 km away
from the place I was born,
she brought him to live
with us.
Imagine my despair,
here I was in a land where
there were cats whose heads
were the size of me,
and this one,
this extra special
boy cat
had a pact
with the BTLO
made before she ever
moved to Turkey.

He was the Boss,
the Top Cat,
He had seniority,
and I was in trouble,
or so I thought.



To say the least,
I gave Monty a lot of trouble:
I hissed I spat
I attacked
I was super bitch,

and I began to realize it was stupid
because
Monty was a gentleman.

Well, he did try to do those things
that my brothers did to me all the time
once,
and when I said no,
he slunk away
and never tried again.


(rare footage of me and Monty together)

Sometimes I wondered why he didn't try something again:
Was there something wrong with me?
Wasn't I good enough for him?

So I acted like a bitch a little more,
and he just
didn't.
He'd wait until I had eaten,
and then he would eat.
He'd watch me while I was asleep,
and play a little, I know,
and when I woke up,
then he would sleep.
He watched me from far away,
and when he started catching mice
and leaving them for me
to play with.
I fell in love with him
a little bit.

But I had an appearance to keep up.

I'd growl and snarl at him,
but if he left the room,
I'd call him.


I watched the Big Boy
get older
and sicker.
I watched him fight
all the medicines
they gave him.
I knew he was dying,
and I watched 
the BTLO
keep petting him
and loving him
and hoping
her hands 
could save him.

But they couldn't.

So she stopped
the medicines
and let him die
proudly.


^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

I didn't want to tell her that I missed him
when he died,
but I was really sad.

I'd go under the chair
where he slept when he didn't feel god
and look for him.

I'd call and call,
even though I knew he wasn't going to come.

It was great to have the BTLO to myself again,
but
well,
she's not home a lot.


^^  ^^  ^^  ^^  ^^

And then along she came:
Queenie.
This is what she looked like
when she first moved in.



She kept growing and growing
and her hair kept growing and growing.

Little did we know,
when she first came home,
that
she'd turn into this:


Note me
hiding behind the chair,
the same chair
Monty used to sleep under.

I hissed
I spat
I growled
I attacked,

I acted like a bitch a little more,
and ol' Squeaker just
didn't.
Well, actually,
she let me have it
a couple times.
Just a quick swipe 
on the side of my head,
and it hurt.
The she walked away
and gave me
the silent treatment.



But generally,
she waits until I have eaten,
and then she eats.
She watches me while I'm asleep,
and plays a little, I know,
and when I wake up,
she goes to sleep.

She hangs out in another room a lot,
because, I think,
she'd rather be alone.



I sit in my room,
and I call and I call for her,
but sometimes she just ignores me.

I guess I've scratched her a little too often.


I've learned to love her
a little bit.
Or a lot.
But the problem is:
she doesn't understand
why I felt I had to fight so hard
when I did.

It takes time
to make up
after big 
misunderstandings
like that.

So,
I'm trying:
I let her sleep in the bed with
the BTLO and me;
I let her eat 
people food
with the BTLO and I,
but she's not allowed on the table.
I am.
I even eat cat food with her,
and sometimes I play for her,
when I know she's watching,
and she plays a little, too.


Yeah,
there's two sides
to every story.

That's a little more
of mine.


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