Category Archives: cats

About my cats, feline diseases, cats in general

reverb10: brisk moments

Okay, I signed up for #reverb10. It’s the now annual event, the continuation of #best09 from last year. A prompt a day, all month long, to contemplate 2010 and reveal 2011. In the way of my world, the evening after I signed up, I discovered a new Twitter book club and I joined in for that, too. So this will be a busy month.

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

This one is hard, very hard. I mean, I can think of one moment vividly but it’s not a nice one. I accidentally poured boiling water on my hand a few months ago. It’s still healing. That definitely stabs my memory, but I’d rather it didn’t. So let’s not go there.

Nice moments are so much better, don’t you think? Some very nice times stand out, but they aren’t vivid memories. I recall them in swirling pastels, not streaks of bright colors.

I was reminded just a few days ago of times I feel invigorated and full of life. Brisk walks. I don’t walk nearly enough these days. I walk to do errands at work daily but most of the time it’s more of a stroll with company. Last Friday I was out on my own and temps were low, so I walked fast. And I noticed how great I felt. I was locked in my own world (that’s how I walk solo), so I can’t tell you the details. But I can recall the moment I noticed. I was walking by a parking garage on a dirty city street, nothing picturesque or quaint, no harmonious sounds, just street traffic in the distance. But the air was very brisk, the world was very crisp, and I felt good.

I used to walk a lot, long ago. I grew up in an area with dense population, no busing where I lived as the schools were not miles away. So I always walked to and from school and my walk was close to a mile for many years, over a mile each way a couple of years. For college, I lived in one of the dorms on the outskirts of a spread out campus and walked a lot each day, miles, back and forth between home and classes a few times a day, mostly long treks, not short bits that add up. But now I live in a town where I’m too far from work and from stores to walk to work and to run errands. I should take up walking as exercise and I have tried from time to time, but it never sticks. For years I walked my sweet kitties, taking my mostly indoor boys out for supervised outings several times a day. That was my walk time, but we mostly meandered around my lot and in the woods behind my house. I truly treasured those times and felt alive then, too, but they were not real exercise. And without my guys, I avoid going out where we used to go. Maybe last week was a reminder to move on and start walking again.

best of 2009: moment of wonder

I’m trying something new for me this month, a web community challenge: Gwen Bell’s The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. Find the best the year has offered me, and review, remember, contemplate, reflect, and celebrate it. There’s a question/topic each day.

Today’s prompt is December 8 — Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude…The state of your mind? How did you get there?

There are a few deer who frequent my backyard off and on during the year. They live in the woods that are around the houses here. One is a lame doe (she manages very nicely on her three good legs, thank you). who brings her offspring around each year. I Iike to watch from the kitchen window, and sometimes I try to photograph them, though I generally can’t get very close or they run off. They seem more tolerant of Juliet-kitty, so I also have to watch out that she doesn’t wander too close. Juliet is getting very brave with the visitors and has started moving slowly towards them a few times, especially when there is only one in the yard.

One afternoon in October, a young deer was in the yard along with Juliet and I was watching from the side stoop, trying not to startle it. But Juliet was curious about the visitor and edging closer. I moved out slowly and spoke softly, trying to entice Juliet to come back to me and also hoping not to run off the deer. Juliet ignored me, but the deer looked up and watched me. And it remained in place. I never got right up to it, but I did get fairly close. Then afraid to spook it, I stopped and we looked at each other for a few seconds. My moment of wonder…this was not a tame tenant of a petting zoo, but an animal of the wild. And I’m a city-raised kid and kind of clunky and clutzy…I never get near to the wildlife in my yard. I felt a bit of awe getting closer to its sphere. Then I retreated carefully, slowly, gently so that it would stay, which it did a while more, before it moved off back to the woods and wandered on.


This is Juliet and one of the deer, not that day. I was nearer to the deer for our encounter, probably as close as Juliet is here.

two cats

two cats are sleeping.
one stirs and rustles a bit,
the other lies still