Under and Over with Denise Rossetti

I’ve been meaning for ages to write a random post about cats. I love cats, I always have done. Don’t get me wrong, I really like dogs too, but there’s something about cats… Perhaps it’s the extraordinarily supple way they move, or their brilliant gem-like eyes, blinking so inscrutably. Of course, it’s not completely impossible to work out what a cat’s thinking, their body language can be perfectly clear.

I always feel that when the cat settles in my lap, or drapes his boneless little self over my ankles that I’ve been blessed and flattered by his friendship. It’s as if he’s made the considered choice to be with me, not quite the same as a dog’s faithful devotion.

I can’t imagine life without a feline companion.  Little Merlin (so named because he’s a great enchanter) keeps me company as I write. He never gets bored. It’s funny, we had dogs when I was a kid - a dachshund, then a cocker spaniel - but once I had a place of my own, it was Burmese cats. Burmese are worth a whole post of their own. I’ll save that one for another time!

There’s something still wild about even the most domesticated puss.  He walks on his wild lone.  No wonder cats were so revered by the ancient Egyptians. I think that’s part of the attraction for me. Remember Rudyard Kipling’s story, The Cat Who Walked By Himself?

 This is the picture of the Cat that Walked by Himself, walking by his wild lone through the Wet Wild Woods and waving his wild tail.

And yes, I have friends who simply cannot bear cats. That’s not a problem, except that whenever they come over, the dratted felines head straight for them! Apparently, cat etiquette requires that you don’t meet a stranger’s eyes. Clicking your fingers and calling, “Here, kitty, kitty!” is simply beyond the pale! People who don’t like cats avoid looking at them directly, thereby demonstrating their beautiful manners. Worth a friendly greeting. Oh dear…

These pictures, BTW, are from the LOLCATS site, greatly beloved of my DD.  I find the cute spelling a bit twee, but then I’m a grumpy old pedant, so I’ll let it ride. But some of the captions are really funny. If you haven’t read the classic Dune by Frank Herbert, you may not “get” this one,  but I did laugh out loud when I saw it.

The only other thing I will say how much I dearly wish people would neuter their cats. Just this week, there was a story in the local paper saying that 80% of cats and kittens in shelters here are destroyed.  And keep them in at night too - preserves wildlife and saves on dead cats on the road.

I’ll leave you with this Youtube video. Do you think this cat’s human might be a crap writer? Everyone’s a critic! *chuckle*

Are cats an important part of your life? Do you truly think having a pet helps your health? I do! Just stroking Merlin calms me down. He shows me how to live in the moment.

Or do you prefer dogs? Do you think gender has anything to do with it, with more men than women preferring dogs and vice versa? Perhaps cats give you the screaming habdabs. That’s okay, tell us about it!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting. You will only see this message once, I promise!

What would you do if you had more money than God? More money than you could ever spend, no matter what you did with it? So much money that it just kept making more of itself?

What William Randolph Hearst did (among other things) was to build the house to end all houses, with every luxury imaginable (and more!). He then invited everyone entertaining, beautiful or important - Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Winston Churchill, Charles Lindbergh, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn. Even George Bernard Shaw. And lots of others.

Hearst Castle is at San Simeon, near Cambria, overlooking the Big Sur coast of California. Hearst was one of the first great media moguls, but he also inherited a mining fortune. The film Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles, was loosely based on his life.

First thing to say is - I’m not posting any pictures. Why? you may ask. It’s not permitted, that’s why. *sigh* But I found this short film on Youtube. Just spend a few moments with it. The weather we had was very similar. Or go to the official website for Hearst Castle. The Wikipedia entry is also excellent and it has a great photo gallery. (Scroll down.)

But just to give you some idea. The house/s took almost 30 years to build. Architect Julia Morgan (that’s right, a woman) travelled by train and car down to the site from San Francisco every weekend from the beginning. Casa Grande, the main house, was modelled on a Spanish cathedral. It has 38 bedrooms and 30 fireplaces. The whole concept (there are two guest houses as well) was intended to be Mediterranean Renaissance in feel. To this end, Hearst purchased antiquities like there was no tomorrow - there are coffered ceilings, medieval tapestries, paintings and statues ranging from classical Greek and Roman to Renaissance and Egyptian. Where you see gold gilding, it’s real gold. The gardens are exquisite and impeccably maintained.

I didn’t much care for the bedrooms, too heavy and dark for my taste. But I loved the two pools - the outdoor Neptune Pool and the indoor Roman Pool. Johnny Weissmuller (probably the most famous Tarzan) is supposed to have swum laps there.

What my writerly mind found most intriguing was the insights into the character of William Randolph Hearst. He was a workaholic, a man of tremendous energy, vision and focus. He was involved in every facet of the building project, right down to the design of teeny-tiny tiles and his word was law. He also changed his mind a lot. Projects were continually modified and some abandoned.

He had very definite ideas of how he wanted his guests to behave. No drunkenness - and no bed-hopping either! Everyone was to be bright, happy and energetic - horse-riding, playing tennis, swimming etc. In the big dining room or refectory, where guests gathered for meals, was a long table. As you fell further from favour, or new guests arrived, your place card was moved further and further away from the centre of the table, where Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies, sat. After a while, you realised it was time to go!

Immediately, I could see a character like that in a book, a strong, driving personality blessed with both money and power. Don’t you think someone like that would end up with an “emperor complex”? Imagine where that could take a character! Oooh, from good guy to villain, one slip at a time. A villain we could understand. Not psychotic, not a serial killer or a sociopath, but spoiled in a particular kind of way. Like Orson Welles, I’m inspired by the whole concept of a “Hearst” character.

In complete contrast, we visited the beach that afternoon and watched the adolescent elephant seals snoozing on the beach. Huge piles of mouldy blubber - they come at this time of year to moult and to practise their huffing and puffing.

You can see that this one hasn’t grown his nose properly yet. But they were already ginormous! And these were just the teenage boys! I couldn’t imagine the size of a full grown male. Sheesh! A dose of reality from Mother Nature.

So - what would you do if you had as much money as William Randolph Hearst? Build? Donate? Travel? Buy?

I know I’d love to travel and to have homes in several different places. Somewhere near Florence, in London, maybe Vancouver Island, here in Oz, of course. And I’d love to be able to donate to support the arts. I love glass and textile arts and I adore opera, but it’s such an expensive art form. Then there are literacy programs and libraries and education programs. Oh yes, and archaeological digs. And goddess, what about animals? And medical research? It would be totally involving. Plus, I admit I’d love to be able to afford handmade underwear and shoes. Ah…

What about you?

I’m baaaaack! Dammit.

My Beloved and I had so much fun, so many new experiences I’m still processing them all. I’m almost certain I could spend huge chunks of my life just travelling, meanwhile spending money like water. It’s a helluva lot of fun - interspersed with moments of sheer terror - generally associated with making connections with planes, trains and buses.

The last few highlights? Taking a helicopter trip up to Mendenhall Glacier (near Juneau) and going out on a dog sled with real dog mushers. I know the photo isn’t easy to decipher, but do try. It really is like that - all white. So impressive to sub-tropical me and my thin blood! Those little dots are the tents for the humans and the smaller dots are the dog kennels. The big lumps in the background are mountains with snow on them. The dog trainers arrive in April and stay til mid-Sept and the they LIVE there in tents, the lunatics, training for races like the Iditarod. You can see the landscape is just like stepping into a humongous freezer.

We got so brave we even stood up on the back of the sled and pretended to be the real thing! The dogs themselves are amazing, nowhere near as big as I expected and not especially husky-like at all. In the photo some are actually howling because they’re ready to run and they want to go, go, GO! They were perfectly friendly too and really appreciated a nice scratch behind the ears. They have great names like Krypton and Mike and Hotfoot (the lead dog) and Hasty, who stood on top of his kennel and yelled so loud, the trainer finally relented and let him come along.

Then there was the trip on the Bering Strait crab boat. The crew were all former professional fishermen and the boat had been on the reality show, The Deadliest Catch. Needless to say, everyone on board had seen it, except us. The stories they told curled my hair and I believed every word - they had the scars to prove it. Here I am with some huge horrible spiny wiggly Alaskan crabs. Erk! As you see, I’m doing my best to avoid the beasties and cuddle up to the nice captain. *grin* And the less said about the octopus the better. It was huge too, a dark maroon colour! Apart from humans, it’s the only predator for the Alaskan crabs.

It seems incredible, but it was only a few days ago we spent our last morning at Vancouver’s Granville Markets, overlooking the rainy, but beautiful (and busy) harbour. We marvelled at the extraordinary range of food stuffs and ate big fat black cherries, meanwhile avoiding the salmon pepperoni and the salmon candy. Good heavens, there are limits!

What next?

Now I’m back in the swing, you can expect regular posts again. So watch for them and come talk to me - I’ve missed you!

And a heads-up - I got some nifty bits and pieces for contest prizes while I was away. Speaking of which… Guess what was waiting for me when I got home? The ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) for THE FLAME AND THE SHADOW.  So think about that for a while. *chuckle*

In the very near future (as in NOW!) I have a book to write. Not my best thing, being creative under pressure. Luckily, I adore the characters. One big stubborn man and one small stubborn woman and - boom, fireworks! But more about Erik and Prue later.

Next week, I have to go back to work. I’m very determined not to think about that. *sigh* I’m definitely feeling flat, quite a let-down after so many weeks of excitement and indulgence.

So come and cheer me up. What’s the best, most exciting place you’ve been? My Beloved and I have rather been bitten by the travel bug, so I’d love to hear your recommendations. And do you get the “blahs” after it’s over, or are you just glad to be home? I must say, a real cup of tea (in a pot, with tea leaves) was simply wonderful!

I saw a bear! I saw a bear!

It may seem silly, but I got so excited I actually danced up and down on the spot. Those who know me are rolling their eyes and saying yeah, yeah, so what’s new? But somehow spotting a bear (we saw three in total, all black) is a Great Big Hairy Deal. (Well, of course it’s hairy.) It makes the whole trip real and important. We were on the Rocky Mountaineer, a train that travels through the Rockies. (Duh!) Looking back, I truly believe it was one of the most special days of my life. But more about that in another post.

I was very very proud, because I was the first to see the bear checking out the railway tracks for grain dropped from freight trains. Unfortunately, it’s not such a clever thing for a bear to do, especially if the grain swells with rain and ferments. Drunk bears and big trains are not a good combination, sadly.

I don’t have a photo - I was too busy leaping about and squealing, and anyway, my little camera isn’t up to bear-size objects a looong way away. And My Beloved had the wrong lens on his big boy’s camera. Huh!

So here are some other photos. This morning I was sitting on the patio of a winery overlooking the magnificent Okanagan Lake and it was baking hot and generally gorgeous. All the locals are falling about fanning themselves or hastening into the lake, where they dive in and just keep going.

Half an hour down the road, we drove into a hail storm, accompanied by heavy rain and much cursing from My Beloved. You see, he insists on doing all the driving. I’d like to think it’s because he’s a Hero, but it’s really because he’s terrified of me getting behind the wheel, especially in the wrong side of the road.

However, I digress. We drove back to Vancouver (where I am now, and on the world’s slowest Net connection) through what I’ve come to believe is the real Canada - the one that’s hidden her face from us in the freakishly beautiful weather. I was almost grateful to have a taste of the real thing. I was beginning to believe it was Paradise!

You see? These are the clothes the mountains must wear most of the time.

Tomorrow we’re off to Alaska. Three flights, which is going to stretch my nerves more than somewhat. Fingers crossed!

I’m sure there’s a place in Nature for ants. Of course, there is. But NOT in my damn bed, on my leg. BITING.

In the last year or so, since the drought really began to bite here, we’ve been plagued by ants. And it’s not just us, I hasten to add. I know I’m a terrible housekeeper, but everyone has the ant problem - even my mother, who is squeaky clean!

First there are the medium size black ones, swarming all over the bathroom sink, only slightly discomfited when I splutter toothpaste over them. You have to brush them out of the way to be able to wash your face without a formic acid surprise.

Then there’s the teensy weeny little black guys. I swear they’re lurking in the cracks in the kitchen wall, waiting for me to put down the knife and turn away from the chopping board. And then - swooop! The minute my back’s turned, the little buggers are all over. And lord, they’re strong! You can almost hear them singing, “heave-ho, heave-ho!” as they tug at some big crumb. Like tiny Volga boatmen. Sometimes, just for a change of pace, the microscopic red ones turn up. They look like moving dust particles.

I was sitting on my bed this afternoon fiddling with this blog and my STRONGMAN epilogue (more about that later). BTW, I write in bed a lot, with the laptop on one of those tray-tables. I was pretty well distracted, concentrating on hot man lurve, when a piece of my thigh went OW-W-W-W!!! Not only was it an ant, it was a big guy. What we call a green ant (though they’re really black). They generally terrorise the garden, being really aggressive, about a quarter inch long. Not only had he wandered indoors and sashayed across my bed, he’d chosen to climb up and bite me, while I was peacefully minding my own business. The bloody nerve!

So I hauled off and thumped him with my thesaurus. Not a pretty (lovely, beautiful, gorgeous, attractive, pulchritudinous) way to go. Do you know, he curled into the softness of the mattress and sneered at me?

I was so incensed, I brushed him to the floor, seized a shoe and beat him to a pulp, meanwhile yelling like kung-fu fiend. Then I went to the bathroom for the anti-sting cream. Had to send another squillion of the medium size guys to a watery grave so I could reach the cupboard without that crawling feeling. *sigh*

My karma is toast. Hope I don’t come back as an ant.

What’s your least favourite biteme? That’s what I made up as an all-purpose word for all manner of insects in my fantasy worlds. I thought I was pretty clever ’til Joey told me they call bugs biteums in the Deep South.

Or even your least favourite creepy-crawly? Where I live it’s sub-tropical, which is just lovely - except for the warm weather critters. We have ants, flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes, spiders - you name it. And they all want to live in the house, cheek by jowl with the humans. I’ll never forget the time I found a red back spider (related to the American black widow) abseiling down the wall towards my baby’s pillow. Squish!

And you can thank me. I found all these great colour photos of the above-mentioned little horrors. But I spared you. Aren’t I considerate? heh heh

One lucky commenter in June will win an autographed copy of A Red Hot New Year, four sizzling stories to ring in the New Year, including my contribution, Coming on Strong!

I’m a watering pot, I admit it. It’s really, really weird and often embarrassing. I tear up over all kinds of things, some of them completely stupid. My eyes actually well up and I sniffle. Okay, sad movies - well, that’s all right, only to be expected.

But happy endings? Duh! I feel like such a twit.

Then there’s books. What is this? With a movie, yep, I’m getting the visual, the violins on the sound track, the broken voices, the whole acting gig. Pretty powerful stuff, emotionally, so I can see how I’m affected. Movie directors are clever people and manipulating emotions is their business.

But the printed page? Come on!

These are paper people, after all. They aren’t real. How can they make me cry? But they do. Every damned time. Somehow, I’ve developed a relationship with people who don’t exist.

Then there’s animals. Serial murders, done in various grisly ways? No problem. But bring on a big-eyed kitty-cat or a dog with droopy ears and I’m a goner. Have them die and I’m in floods. I only have to think of my dear old Burmese boy who died peacefully in my lap at the grand old age of nineteen and I’m all teary. (Hang on, have to blow my nose.)

For example, there’s a section in Joey W. Hill’s The Vampire Queen’s Servant, about a horse. The horse is perfectly okay, BTW, it’s a lovely horse and very happy. But the scene is beautifully written and incredibly touching. I sniveled my way through the critique. Joey was delighted, of course. Cos she’s a writer and she’d “got” me. Wicked woman.

I have a quote on my website, Fledge’s words ~

Stories have a power, a magic all their own. Consider the fact that the actions, thoughts and feelings of people who have no existence in reality can make you laugh, make you weep. That’s the art and that’s the magic.
[Extract from the Prologue, Collected Tales of the Fair by Fledge, Story Witch of the Ten Nations Fair, edited by Miriliel the Burnished, 10,362 ATF]

Fledge is a story witch, a professional teller of tales - and she’s speaking for me. It is magic, in my opinion. A kind of amazing telepathy.

We writers are evil creatures. We love to know we made you care enough to shed a tear.

Perhaps you’re a watering pot too. Do you enjoy a bit of a weep or will you avoid a book (or movie) if you think it’s going to put you through the emotional wringer? I won’t see those three tissue-box movies, because I know I’ll be too upset.

Do you close a book with a satisfied sigh because you’ve had your “fix”? I can handle the ole heartstrings getting tugged, but there has to be an HEA, or I’m very VERY upset!

One lucky commenter in June will win an autographed copy of A Red Hot New Year, four sizzling stories to ring in the New Year, including my contribution, Coming on Strong!

Are you a cat person or a dog person? I love dogs, but I cannot imagine life without a cat. To have a cat lie sleeping in your lap, all sort of boneless and heavy and sleek, that’s such a gift. And it always makes me feel calmer. I love their little concrete feet - it’s amazing how an animal so light and graceful can have a tread like an elephant stepping on your stomach!

I’d like you to meet Merlin, our current Burmese boy. It’s winter here and cold (well, a little bit). I’d been working on the laptop and left it open on the bed, nice and warm. When I returned, this is what I found.

If you look closely, you’ll see that His Feline Lordship had opened Firefox Help and even done a search for me -

111qjw1gbhgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

Poor Firefox!

Merlin’s an inveterate head-butter and although he’s a tiny little fellow, the runt of the litter, his tokens of affection can make you see stars.

He used to assist the Muse by sitting on top of the monitor and letting his tail dangle down, dead centre. He said it gave me something long and gorgeous to use for inspiration! I used to say it sent me cross-eyed.

These days, I use the laptop almost exclusively, so he’s learned to walk on the keyboard instead. An excellent way of getting my attention! It results in books written like thissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss…………………..

And they’re all so different. My sweet old fatty cat, who died at nineteen, rarely moved faster than a stately waddle. The only time he sped up was when the phone rang, so he could jump onto my lap if I sat down. In fact, he died on my lap, purring loudly as the vet slid in the needle. He didn’t “go to sleep”, not really. He just – stopped. It was so peaceful, so beautiful. And I’ve made myself cry, even though that was nine years ago. I still miss him, my dear old friend.

I have a couple of friends who really don’t like cats. They say felines give them the willies. The funny thing is, all my cats have always made a beeline for those people, even to the extent of having to be locked away in another room. I couldn’t work it out until I read that it’s cat etiquette not to meet the eyes of another cat, not until you’re properly introduced and sniffed. People who dislike cats avoid looking at them. My cats must have been thinking,”What excellent manners!” Meanwhile ignoring the peasants snapping their fingers and calling, ‘Puss, puss!’”

Ironic, really.

What about you? Cat person or dog person? And what is it you particularly enjoy about cats? I love their grace and their pride. No one acts cooler than an offended cat.

I’ll be announcing the winner of everything droolworthy as soon as I can get My Beloved to pick the name. Something different for June, I think…. Keep the comments coming!

This is really really weird, but somehow this lovely post got corrupted so that it looks really weird in Firefox. Internet Explorer doesn’t seem to be affected. I’ve had to delete the entire post - and ALL the comments to fix it. Sorree…

So now I’m going to try adding the comments back in, because I saved them all. Cunning, eh? It’s going to look like I’m talking to myself, but there you go… *grump*

I’ve never thought much about why people forward jokes, but a friend sent me this beautiful message the other day, and the lights went on. Read this and you’ll never think of a message that starts FWD: Three men walked into a bar…. quite the same way again.

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side

When he was close enough, he called out, ‘Excuse me, where are we?’

‘This is Heaven, sir,’ the man answered.

‘Wow! Would you happen to have some water?’ the man asked.

‘Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.’ The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

‘Can my friend,’ gesturing toward his dog, ‘come in, too?’ the traveller asked.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.’

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

‘Excuse me!’ he called to the man. ‘Do you have any water?’

‘Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in.’

‘How about my friend here?’ the traveller gestured to the dog.

‘There should be a bowl by the pump.’

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveller filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

‘What do you call this place?’ the traveller asked.

‘This is Heaven,’ he answered.

‘Well, that’s confusing,’ the traveller said. ‘The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.’

‘Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s hell.’

‘Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?’

‘No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.’

***

So…

Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us without writing a word. Maybe this will explain.

When you are very busy, but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do? You forward jokes.

When you have nothing to say, but still want to keep contact, you forward jokes.

When you have something to say, but don’t know what, and don’t know how, you forward jokes.

Also to let you know that you are still remembered, you are still important, you are still loved, you are still cared for, guess what you get?

A forwarded joke.

So, next time if you get a joke, don’t think that you’ve been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you’ve been thought of today and your friend on the other end of your computer wanted to send you a smile.

You are all welcome @ my water bowl anytime.

I can’t imagine an afterlife worthy of the name where my old friends wouldn’t be welcome. Not when they gave me so much in their comparatively short lives. A part of the family.

It’s rather a different take on jokes, isn’t it? What’s your first thought when you see a forwarded joke in your email? Anticipation or irritation? Perhaps you run a joke list. If so, why? What do you gain from it?

Don’t forget - every month there’s a chance to win everything droolworthy - Tim Tams and hunkalicious postcards - including Mr Gorgeous . Check the Current Contest page and keep the comments coming!

I suspect this story of an extraordinary reunion isn’t new. In fact, I’d say it’s been around quite some time, but I hadn’t seen it before and I thought it was absolutely remarkable. To see such unabashed joy and affection between man and animal almost reduced me to tears. I thought you might enjoy it.

The two English guys in the right adopted a lion cub and brought it up for a year. (I have no idea why.) But once the animal reached maturity, they were no longer permitted to keep it. They did the right thing and settled in an wildlife sanctuary in Africa.

A year later, they returned to see Christian the lion, and were told the animal would not remember them. Have a look at what happened next. (The picture quality is a little grainy, but persevere, it’s worth it!)

Have you experienced affection like this from an animal? Perhaps you get a greeting like this every day when you get home from work? Our dog turns herself inside out for My Beloved after every parting, no matter how brief. Me, she’s quite fond of.