JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Working conditions in my house, originally uploaded by 160507.

Eight years ago we picked Saffy up from my friend Joya’s house on Finlandia St, and since then she has ruled the household. Her full name is Saffron Sassafras Saoirse Shia Schmitz Scorsese Sandler Stewart Snuffleupagus Zafra Safin-Sprungli. She demands constant attention, and will sit on my notebooks until she gets it.

Mat reading Saki, originally uploaded by Koosama.

There are quite a few stories about talking cats, and this is probably the best one: Tobermory by the unbearable, spellbinding Saki (H.H. Munro).

Saffy is reading. . ., originally uploaded by 160507.

1. Stalin the Soviet dictator had many pseudonyms, including “K. Safin”. Saffy’s full name is Saffron Sassafras Safin.
2. Saffy answers to Stalin’s nicknames “Koba” and “Soso”.
3. Saffy constantly claims territory of her fellow cats Koosi and Mat.
4. Saffy very suspicious of Mat the aristocrat, accuses him of oppressing her.
5. Saffy is a terror.
6. Saffy believes she owns the means of production; sits on my keyboard while I am working.
7. Extreme charm alternating with extreme nuttiness.
8. Loves books, curls up on them.
9. Constantly plotting.
10. Likes poetry, especially if all the words are replaced with “meow”.

Cats, originally uploaded by 160507.

Behavior that is unattractive in humans but endearing in felines:

Koosi ignores me when I play with her, but when I’m not paying attention she walks over and bites my toes. She likes to hide behind curtains and under furniture, and launch stealth attacks on the other cats. She turns up her nose at most kinds of food, fresh fish included, and says “Eww” by pawing the floor next to the bowl.  She will only eat if I’m not watching. Lately she’s taken to being called O Mighty Goddess Bast.

Saffy will look up when I call her name, look me up and down, and not come near me. However when I call Koosi and Mat, she comes running. She does not like it when I pay attention to the other cats, and expresses it by trying to bite me. Sometimes she will attack a book I am reading. Her favorite spot for naps is the keyboard of my Mac–while I’m working on it. She likes to chew on wool and on certain types of plastic such as Fully Booked bags. We have lots of bookstore bags “embossed” with her fangs.

Mat will eat from his own bowl at breakfast, but the rest of the day he sneaks snacks from Koosi’s and Saffy’s bowls. He acts like he’s afraid of heights, but sometimes when I get home he’s on top of a shelf, invading Koosi’s territory. When we go out he refuses to walk on his own, preferring to be carried at all times. He ignores cat toys, but is fascinated with pens. He is too hoity-toity to bury his own poop in the litter box; instead he starts clawing at the side of the toilet bowl as if he were trying to flush.

When I bring them new toys, they ignore the toys and play with the wrappers or boxes.

Obviously my cats were not happy. Despite my attempts to pack a suitcase in secret, they knew I was planning an escape. On Wednesday, while I waited for the airport service, the three felines sat around me in a circle, glaring. Think BF on the big Metro Gwapo signs, only adorable and furry. They appeared to be casting some sort of spell to prevent my leaving. Whenever I stood up, Saffy would meow shrilly–the same meow she utters when she rolls on the floor next to my feet and falsely accuses me of stepping on her.

I was expecting the airport service at 9.40am, but it was 9.45 and there was no sign of the car. So I called the service. There was no record of my order. I’d had a strange conversation with their dispatcher the previous night. Just before midnight, I dialed the same number I’ve dialed for ten years. “I need a taxi to the airport at 9.40am,” I told the woman who answered. “This is not a taxi company,” she replied. I said sorry, I must’ve dialed the wrong number. I tried again. The same woman answered. I tried a different tack. “Are you a car rental company?” I asked. She said yes. “Then I’d like a car to the airport at 9.40am.” Turns out it was the exact same company that has provided my airport service for a decade, only she didn’t want to use the word “taxi”. Picky.

And a nitwit. She confirmed my order, but didn’t record it. The morning dispatcher apologized and said she would send a car over immediately. Meaning the car leisurely drove up at 10.10. I had to meet the contact who had my passport and visa at the airport entrance at 10.30. Then I saw the building guard turning the car away, saying
“She doesn’t live here anymore.” No! I got to the car before it could drive off. Apparently the driver had been given the name of my sister, who moved out two year ago.

“I have to be at the Centennial terminal at 10.30, can we manage?” I asked the driver. “We’ll see,” was his noncommital answer. “Let’s take Nichols through the Fort,” I said. “Okay,” he said, unimpressed by my sense of urgency. He proceeded to take the long way. “This is the long way,” I pointed out. “Oh, did you want to go through the Fort?” Suffice it to say that when a driver asks me for directions, it is not a good omen. He tuned in to an easy listening station and proceeded at 15kph on an empty road, stopping every so often to let arthritic ants cross without peril.

to be continued

Basket of Saffy.JPG, originally uploaded by 160507.

Saffron Sassafras Zafra Safin-Sprungli, who was born the year Marat her father won the US Open, wishes you a Happy Lunar New Year and reminds you to chew your tikoy thoroughly. Saffy has not had a bath in years, but for someone who only bathes in her own drool she always smells like freshly baked bread or something you buy at L’Occitane. She is sweet and cranky, usually at the same time. Click on the photo to see pictures of our readers’ cats reading books.

“Watching her, and the two litters of kittens she had over the following 18 months, offered we humans a new reaction to the cacophony of the war. The bloodiest suicide bombings, even miles away, have the sound and feel of the apocalypse, causing humans to freeze, no matter how often they experience it. Cats need to hear it only once. As they skitter to the safety of trees and bushes, they enter the blast and the tremor on the hard drive of their brains. On the next occasion, come the blast, they barely stir.”

What Cats Know About War by John F. Burns, Iraq bureau chief of the New York Times.

koosi in carrier.JPG, originally uploaded by 160507.

Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Best known for The Golden Notebook, Lessing also wrote stories about cats: Particularly Cats and Rufus the Survivor, and The Old Age of El Magnifico. Here’s a bit from Rufus.

“Events did cast their shadow, months before. All that spring and summer, as I went past on the pavement, a shabby orange-coloured cat would emerge from under a car or from a front garden, and he stood looking intently up at me, not to be ignored. He wanted something, but what? Cats on pavements, cats on garden walls, or coming towards you from doorways, stretch and wave their tails, they greet you, walk a few steps with you. They want companionship or, if they are shut out by heartless owners, as they often are all day or all night, they appeal for help with the loud insistent demanding miaow that means they are hungry or thirsty or cold. A cat winding around your legs at a street corner might be wondering if he can exchange a poor home for a better one. . .”

Cats with books, originally uploaded by 160507.

The word is that Ian McEwan will win the Booker Prize for his short novel On Chesil Beach—wonderfully-written, but literally a finger exercise compared to his other work—because he should’ve won it in 2002 for Atonement (as the new film adaptation reminds everyone). If that happens it would be the second Booker correction in McEwan’s career. In the late 90s when he won for Amsterdam, the general perception was that he’d gotten it because he was overlooked the previous year for Enduring Love.

1. Why do we care so much about awards?
a. the publicity/celebrity
b. the prize money
c. the additional income from sales generated by the publicity
d. possible role in reality show featuring ex-celebrities

2. Awards are
a. all about the flavor of the season; next year no one will give a shit.
b. an indicator of the zeitgeist.
c. given to the work that all the judges can get behind, and not to the work that causes discomfort, offence, or debate, which is what great work tends to do.
d. excellent for padding one’s CV or grant application. (I am a beneficiary of the awards culture; if I hadn’t won a Palanca my book publisher wouldn’t have known I exist.)
e. according to a snooty friend, “so midul-klass”.

3. Inevitably, anyone who is adored by critics and the public becomes the subject of a backlash. We’re already seeing the McEwan backlash.

4. I cannot stand biographical notes that begin with “multi-awarded” or “award-winning”. It’s like I’m being cowed into admiring the artist because some jury somewhere gave him a trophy for being the least annoying entry.

5. Then again, there is an element of schadenfreude to all this.

6. As a Marxist, a Groucho Marxist, I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have someone like me for a member.

Take pictures of your pets reading books and send them to saffron.safin@gmail.com.

The Chicago Tribune, quoting Veterinary Pet Insurance, says the most popular name for cats and dogs in the US for the fifth year running is. . .Max. The top ten names for cats are Max, Chloe, Lucy, Tigger, Tiger, Smokey, Oliver, Bella, Sophie, and Princess. For dogs: Max, Molly, Buddy, Bella, Lucy, Maggie, Daisy, Jake, Bailey, and Rocky.

Bo-ring, dull, blah. Where’s the imagination? Where’s the majesty? A cat needs a grand name like Koosalagoopagoop Galadriel Ivanisevic-O’Brien. A friend of mine called his dog Torquemada, because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Unfortunately his mom couldn’t pronounce Torquemada, so she took to calling him Turkey.

Mat writing his column, originally uploaded by Koosama.

Today is Mat’s birthday. A former neighborhood tough and Casanova, Mat now stays home and plays war games with Koosi and Saffy. I named him Matthias because when he appeared I had just seen The Scorpion King. Who was called ‘Mathayus’. Fortunately we can spell.