The Lives (and Deaths) of Street Cats

Lenny is still alive!

I hadn't seen him for a few months, and when I'd seen him in winter & early spring, he looked really ill with cat flu. He's very sweet natured, but somewhat unprepossessing, extremely wary of all humans, and not assertive enough with the other cats to get his fair share of any food that's going. So I was totally surprised and delighted to hear him caterwauling today in true tom-cat fashion (shame I didn't manage to trap, desex, release him back in the days when I fed him every night, and he'd come within touching distance of me). I was in the backyard of the Korean guys' house, feeding Sandy and Tabby when I heard him. I called; he peered over the fence at me; I waved an open sachet of smelly fishy cat food enticingly; he came a little closer; then one of the residents came home with much banging and stomping, and Lenny fled. the returning worker and I bowed to each other. The current Korean guys mostly seem to be neutral about cats, but very tolerant of the Mad Anglo Lady who comes into their backyard to feed the cats (who lived there before they did).


Tabby















Sandy and Tabby had eaten about a third of a 400g tin of cat food each, plus had a handful or two of dry food, plus Sandy drank some lactose-free milk (I took the milk away before she went pop - small, skinny cat with bulging sides from wolfing down food as fast as poss).


Sandy in playful mode













I went back along the road to the park beside the Jungle House (the garden is a jungle; the house is actually quite nice in the middle of all the chaotic plants, stored construction materials and bits of motorbikes) and called again, and Smoky turned up - yay! so she got the remaining third of the tin, plus some dry food (and I gave wee bits of the tinned food to Sandy so she'd leave Smoky to eat in peace).


Smoky rolling, Tabby looking wary (photo taken by Rebecca Green in December 2010)










Lenny hadn't reappeared, so I went back to the Korean house, left the fishy sachet on the side gate at the back of the house, near where he'd been before, hoping he'd eat it soon and that it wouldn't piss off the residents by sitting stinking for hours. (Sandy's habit of using their lovely vegetable garden as a toilet undoubtedly and justifiably does annoy them, but that patch of ground was her toilet before they went and planted vegies there)

then I went to put the Street Cat Food Bag back in my car, and get the shopping bags that I planned to use at Woollies after I'd picked stuff up from my PO box and bought chicken from Lefkas Chicken. I checked down the side of the Korean house as I walked past, hoping to see Lenny eating the smelly fish, but instead saw a white duck. or possibly a goose. I'm not very knowledgable about waterfowl. Sandy looked like she wanted to take the duck/goose on, but it rose up and flapped its wings menacingly, and she thought better of it.














As I got back to the car, Shadow turned up, and dashed around hopefully, wanting food and/or stroking, so I got the last sachet out and gave it to her, fending Sandy and Smoky off with tiny bits of wet food so they'd let Shadow eat in peace. (Tabby is much less assertive, and made do with more dry food) So the four female felines had all eaten, and Lenny had some food that he could eat, if he could get over his urge to spend all his time caterwauling, his understandable fear of humans, and possibly some competition from the goose (or duck).

I stayed at the park a while to make sure that the cute but mangy dog that wanted to eat the cats' food and/or the cats did neither, then finally set off to pick up parcels (ooh! parcels :-D) from my PO box, buy a nice roast chicken for me and my cats-at-home, and buy some groceries at the supermarket. Cute-but-mangy turned out to have an attendant human, who turned up some time after the dog, so I exchanged greetings with her, said how cute the dog was, and how well-behaved he was, not chasing the poor hungry cats, who'd been abandoned through no fault of their own (always good to get in a plug for the cats' abandoned status, work up some sympathy).

My parcels at the post office included a batch of t-shirts from Threadless.com (ooh, I love interesting/beautiful t-shirts! Must. Keep. Within. Budget!), a book I'd ordered from Book Depository (Silver Screen, by Justina Robson), a book I won in an online competition from FableCroft Publishing (The Way of the Wizard, ed. John Joseph Adams), a book sent by my friend Heather in London (I Had a Black Dog, writ & illus by Matthew Johnstone), and a very heavy parcel for my sister (a bunch of doll collectors' magazines, now out of print). what bounty! what joy!

then I toddled off to Lefkas Chicken, where they had No Chicken Left. :-[
however, I'd not only been able to feed & smooch & play with Sandy, feed & stroke Shadow, and feed Tabby & Smoky (boy, I'd love to stroke or preferably brush those two - they have beautiful long fur, that gets so tangled & full of leaves, and must give them awful fur-balls), I'd seen Lenny! so it was worth spending the extra time with the Street Kittehs, and I could get some chicken from Lefkas another time.

shopping at the supermarket was quite straightforward - get enough yoghurt, bananas, salad vegies and double choc muffins to last for the next week (i.e. until I've moved to my new home - eek!), and several rolls more packing tape (even though I'm two-thirds packed, you can Never Have Too Much Packing Tape), and then push the wobbly trolley back to where I'd parked by the park. (Woollies in Campsie is very civilised, and allows shoppers to take trolleys to their cars, even if they're a few blocks away. this is very convenient for customers, and provides a job for the Trolley Man, who drives around collecting the shopping trolleys & returning them to the supermarket)











I gave Sandy, Tabby and Shadow some more dry food (I'd seen cute-but-mangy finishing what I'd left for them as I came back from Woollies), and peered hopefully past the waterfowl down the side of the Korean house to see if the smelly fish had been eaten, but couldn't really tell.

Still no sign of Henri or Sibby (not sighted for a couple of months), or Dragon or Shelly (not sighted for at least five months) - they might just be avoiding me, or be eating elsewhere, or may have sadly met their end on the road, as several others from their extended family have.

Street Cat Diaries

hello blog! sorry I haven't spoken with you in ages (and that I keep drafting posts and then leaving them unpublished because I am Filled with Doubt).

tonight as I drove home along the City West link I was amazed and delighted to see what looked like a huge rising crescent moon, but was actually the full moon in almost total eclipse, golden against the lilac sky, and perfectly poised, from my perspective, centred above the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

it was a gorgeous sight, but no less thrilling to me than seeing the street cats in Marlowe Street a little earlier this evening.

'Street Cat Diaries' was the name suggested by Facebook friend Tim Roberts for a blog about Sandy and the other street cats of Marlowe Street Campsie, who I got to know in September 2009. I didn't actually blog about the kittehs, only posted about them on Facebook a lot, which I now regret, cos it'll be hard to retrieve all the status updates and comments to put the story back together.

wow, it's just struck me that Sandy befriended me more than 15 months ago now. and I first glimpsed her and her five sisters in February/March 2009, when they were probably two or three months old.

in the interim, I began feeding them occasionally; gradually got to know them; gave them names (who knows what their real names are? but I named them for my convenience, and so my friends would know who I meant more easily than if I said "the other short-haired blonde one, not the really friendly one"); bought more and more cat food so I could feed the six sisters and various toms every night; was banned from feeding them on the property (I was renting a flat in a small block where the 90-year-old woman who'd had the flats built 40 years ago still resided, and the property manager, her daughter, visited once or twice a week); realised the catlings were going to be reproducing soon; started to trap, desex & release them; and became firmly attached to one of the second generation kittens, who befriended me despite his mother being so frightened of and hostile towards humans that the neighbours across the road called her Hissy, and I called her Dragon.

friendly, brave Treasure and his at-first frightened sister Rosy now live with me, in a pet-friendly flat that I moved to after the younger landlady gave me notice, as does their cousin, Sandy's daughter Fern.

... (intervening chapters to be compiled/written later) ...

anyway, today was an amazing, intense day in many ways. I hadn't seen Tabby or her daughter Shadow for ages, and was really worried that something bad had happened to Shadow (e.g. dog attack or hit by a car), because she'd seemed in good health, and usually came running to greet me and ask for food whenever I visited Marlowe Street. So when I pulled up by the park in Marlowe Street and saw first Sandy, then Tabby, then Shadow, I was thrilled!

the three cats gulped down a 400g tin of Whiskas between them, and had some dry food too. Sandy was happy to play & smooch with me, Shadow let me stroke her (as long as I stroked her when she had her back to me - seeing a hand come towards her scares her too much), and Tabby even let me stroke her once (but I desisted after that, cos it obviously upset her).

while I was feeding those three, a woman stopped to admire the cats, and asked me about them. I told her that the cats had been born in 'that backyard over there', and the people living there had sort of fed them, but then left them behind when they moved out. the woman was impressed that I had fed them every night for six months or so while living nearby, and that I came to Campsie every week or two to feed them since I'd moved away (personally I feel privileged to know the kittehs, and I miss Sandy a lot).

we had a great discussion about how animals have feelings too, cats being related to lions and leopards (who can run very fast) and that cats aren't obedient like dogs, but they can still be very loving. the kittehs meanwhile were eating, washing, looking at me for more food, playing (in Sandy's case), and taking cover in the nearby 'jungle garden' when other people walked by, specially if there were several people at once, or a dog being walked.


Shadow eating - pic taken in early November, when she still had her winter coat, so wasn't quite so obviously thin.








the woman was so moved by seeing the skinny, scared cats eating and letting me stroke them, that she gave me a packet of frozen coconut juice, which she explained to me was frozen fresh in Thailand, shipped to Australia, and only available in Chinese food stores. I was very touched, and thanked her - not sure if coconut would agree with me (does anyone know what the salicylate level of coconut is?) but can give it to someone - and it was handy to use as a cold pack, given that I was about to go shopping for things including perishables. we bowed to each other, and she continued on, while I stayed and played with Sandy some more, then went looking for Smoky, who had had the flu the last couple of times I saw her.

there's now only one house out of the three that the cats used to live around that still welcomes them (and me when I come to feed them), so I went to their backyard and called Smoky. Sandy of course came too, so when Smoky appeared, I gave her as much of the sachet of wet food as I could, while giving Sandy little bits, and stroking her to distract her. I know Sandy could've done with more too, but Smoky hadn't had any, and my darling Sandy is a bit of a mean girl even when she's not starving, and all her sisters are wary of her smacking them, even Smoky, who is the next toughest of the litter. one of the guys came out of the house just as Smoky was finishing the last remnants of fishyness, and she and Sandy both bolted - I guess not all the current human residents are on good terms with the kittehs.

After that I went to the post office and picked up lots of lovely goodies from my PO box:
a CD of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from a friend (thank you, Andrew!); two books from Twelfth Planet Press that I'd bought online in their 12 Days of Christmas Sale - two novellas in one volume, Siren Beat by Tansy Rayner Robers and Roadkill by Robert Shearman, and a collection of short stories by Deborah Biancotti, A Book of Endings; a tiny wee teddy bear figurine that my sister bought for my aunt & had posted to Campsie to make sure she could get it before Xmas; sundry newsletters, catalogues & appeals from charities; and a Christmas card from a friend in Wales.

my favourite chicken shop is in Campsie too, Lefkas Chicken on Beamish Street, where I bought the last half chicken (phew! my kittehs at home would not have been pleased if I'd come home from Campsie without chicken!), and the lovely proprietor Joanne wished me a merry Christmas "and your mum and your sister too", and said if we wanted a chook for Xmas, we'd need to order it (note to self: check with Becca; probably order chicken).

Rebecca has planned a yummy menu of things that will be pretty and easy for our mum to eat (Mama only likes soft food now), so I went to World of Fruit in search of white sweet potato, then wandered around Woollies for ages getting lots of groceries, and finding other ingredients for a red, white & green salad for Xmas lunch - Becca is very creative with food. actually, Becca is very creative generally. have a look at her dolls' house blog http://rebeccascollections.blogspot.com/

I'd already spent much longer in Campsie than I'd planned, but Shadow, Smoky and Tabby were waiting by my car when I got back from shopping, so I gave them some more dry food, and one of the wet food sachets I'd just bought on special at Woollies, and spoke with a teenage boy who was fascinated by the cats. I wondered if perhaps he was autistic, as he was mostly not speaking or making eye contact, and focussed a lot on picking up twigs from the ground and breaking them into same-sized pieces. He watched the cats, and listened when I told him how the cats were related, and agreed when I said that they were very hungry, and quite scared of people, but that one (Shadow) might let him stroke her while she was eating. he stroked her very gently, and let Smoky and Tabby eat in peace. he was still crouching by the cats and breaking twigs when I drove off.

when I got home I thought about going out again to watch the full moon and the eclipse some more, but was tired and wanted to get the cats indoors, feed them, feed me, ring Mum & Rebecca, and ring my potential flatmate about the house we've applied to rent. Treasure and Fern were very happy to come inside (Trezh especially once he smelled the chicken) but Rosy was flitting about in the garden and had no intention of being shut indoors. so Trezh and Fern and I had chicken, I rang Mum and Becca, then my friend who I've been flat-hunting with rang me.

She is feeling very unsure about the place that we've been offered. I am still half-disbelieving that I've finally found somewhere to move to when my lease is up in a few weeks. after two months of looking, hundreds of listings viewed online, scores of details read and photos examined (did you know that 'neat and tidy' means small, and 'original condition' means needing repairs?), about a dozen properties visited, and four applied for, I'm in! except that my friend is blind, and therefore moving is a Very Big Deal for her; anywhere she lives has to be close to public transport; and she doesn't have to move right now, as I do, just wants to be closer to lively cafes and interesting shops than where she is now. As the cute, semi-detached house we've applied for is not particularly close to the station or the local shops and cafes (of which there are a good number), she's not sure if she wants to move at all. But she kindly agreed to co-sign the lease this week, without which I'd have no hope of getting the place, and continue to think about the move over the next week or so. if she decides to move, great; if not, she'll let me know so I can start looking for another flatmate, and hopefully not have to pay the whole rent for too long.

After that, I just wanted to go to bed, but went outside to look for Rosy, who was still having fun romping around in the garden. at least this time she rolled on the ground to invite a tummy rub, rather than running of somewhere I couldn't catch her. I obliged with a tummy rub (she has gorgeous soft fur), and just as I picked her up to bring her in, my landlord let his collie out for her night-time wee, and she rushed barking at me and Rosy. Rosy struggled to get free and run, I hung on and ran for the door to my flat, Rosy scratched me but I managed to get her inside and slam the door shut, and turn to say "no!" firmly to Nessie the lovely collie. Nessie was very disappointed not be able to play with (read: chase and possibly bite) Rosy, but happy to have a scratch around the ears from me. Rosy was relieved to get away from the Big Barking Dog, resigned to being inside, and very happy to have some chicken.

if you're still reading this, well done! you have great stamina :-)
I enjoy blogging, but am not much given to short, frequent posts (as you can probably tell) - despite being tired and planning to go to bed early, I'm still up at one in the morning. That's the trouble with blogging - it's writing, which I love, and which has a similar effect on me to reading a good book - everything else recedes into the distance, bodily sensations such as hunger or fatigue become unimportant, and the words and the world they conjure are everything.