New Cat

I used to think about how cool it would be to raise wildcats as normal housepets, if only they weren't so dangerous. Then last week I found out about this new cross-breed called the Ashera. They have leopard-like spots, are as big as a normal-sized dog, live for about 25 years and can weigh 30 pounds. The Ashera apparently is friendly and good with children, just like any other housecat, but a lot bigger. Unfortunately at $22,000 each they're a little out of my price range. I won't be getting one anytime soon, but thinking about the Ashera made me start thinking about how nice it would be to have a cat.

The more I thought about it the more I wanted one. With leopard-like spots. And preferably female so it won't spray all over the place to mark its territory. I used to think the cats running around my neighborhood had deformed tails until someone told me that they're supposed to look like that - Japanese Bobtails. They're kind of cute, so one of those would be nice.

Then yesterday I came home for lunch and was thinking about cats while walking to the door. I stopped to pull out my keys and out of nowhere a kitten came up and starting rubbing against my legs and purring. I bent down and it jumped into my lap. How weird that it showed up just when I was thinking about cats. In my 7 years here this has never happened before... the strays in the area are so skittish and run away as soon as they see me coming.

I couldn't believe how friendly it was and how it showed up out of the blue, just when I was thinking about what kind of cat I wanted. And in an amazing coincidence it was a short-tailed female, with spots. So I got to thinking... is this some kind of sign? Am I meant to keep it? I decided that if it came into the house, I'd keep it. So I put it down and opened the door. It came into the house.

She started crying loudly while rubbing against my legs. I figured she was hungry but there isn't any meat or fish in the house so I made scrambled eggs, which she seemed to like. She sat next to me the whole time I was cooking. Then after she finished eating she jumped onto my bed and fell asleep. I left her there and bought a kitty litter tray and some cat food. Then I went to work.

When I came home last night she was still in bed. I think she has a cold. Her nose is runny and she keeps sneezing, and she hasn't done anything but sleep the whole time (with an occasional trip to get some water).

Today I kept thinking how her showing up was like a prayer being answered. A prayer for a spotted, short-tailed female cat. And she's so friendy. Last night she kept trying to sleep on my face and today she stayed by my side wherever I happened to be.

But is this fate? Am I meant to keep her? Or could it be that she's so friendly and ran up to me because she's used to people coddling her... that she actually isn't a stray, but belongs to someone in the neighborhood and happened to get out of the house yesterday? Come to think of it she's a healthy size, so has probably been fed regularly. I'm not sure of what I should do.

Idea #1: Put her back outside to let her owner find her again, if she has one. But I worry about her getting run over or beat up by other cats or going hungry.

Idea #2: Just keep her. But then eventually I'll have to look for someplace else to live since my place has a strict no-pets policy.

Idea #3: See if someone else wants her. This doesn't seem like a good idea, since she might already have an owner and plus I want to keep her.

In any case I'll keep my eyes open for the next few days. Perhaps someone has put signs up in the neighborhood for a lost cat. Here are some pictures... you can see how her tail is short with a tiny bump at the end.

Summary of a month

I always intend on updating this blog. When I have an interesting thought, or see a movie, or recall a noteworthy conversation I tell myself to take a minute to write it down. But then I log in to blogger and suddenly the idea doesn't seem as spectacular as I initially thought, or the conversation sounds dumb out of context, or for whatever reason the post is deemed unworthy of uploading. Or I log in and feel like I have to update posts chronologically, and since there are older posts that I haven't finished yet I should get to those first, but I really don't feel like working on them at the time so in the end I log out without posting a single word.

If I continue on this way I'll end up storing half-finished posts indefinitely, so let's delete all my unfinished posts and settle for a brief summary of some of the things heading for the garbage bin.

Chindy
Chindy died this month. He was my bright red Siamese fighting fish. Because he kept picking on everyone else in the tank, Yoshiko named him by combining the names of two friends who constantly pick on her (Chino and ... someone else). I used to keep photo records of all my fish, but it appears I don't have any of poor Chindy. I was going to flush him down the toilet, but decided that cremation had more dignity so he got thrown into the burnable garbage.

VISA
I turned in my application for a new VISA almost four weeks ago and it still hasn't been processed. I keep getting messages from the immigration office saying, "There's something we need to ask. Please call." When will the questions end? I'm beginning to wonder if my VISA will ever get renewed.

Ants
There were little black ants roaming the living room so I sprayed ant repellant all around the windows and doors. Strangely the spray didn't help and their numbers seemed to be increasing. Then one day I watered an indoor flower pot, and witnessed hundreds of ants clutching white babies rushing from the surface to escape drowning. The critters were coming from inside my apartment!

They were fascinating to watch. The soldier ants with big pincers climbed up the vines first to make sure it was safe, then caravans of baby-carrying ants followed. They made little clusters in the folds of leaves and stayed there for over an hour, waiting for the danger to pass. I guess they got tired of me watering the plant and disturbing their home, because after a week the entire colony had disappeared from the flower pot and I discovered they had moved to an aquarium full of dirt that I used to raise beetle larvae in. I put the aquarium in a plastic tray filled with water so they don't escape (no more ants crawling on me in the middle of the night), and have been feeding them cookie crumbs. I'm glad they decided to move to the aquarium. Now I can observe their burrowing and cookie-crumb-stashing through the glass.

You-me Town
You-me Town is the new shopping complex slated to be finished by the end of this month. I don't like it already. It's located where the main road heading out of Beppu toward Oita begins, and they've closed a lane of traffic during construction, meaning the drive to work has turned into congestion hell. It's the only road I can take to get to work, so there's no avoiding the traffic caused by this unsightly cube of a building that blocks the ocean view you used to be able to enjoy from downtown Beppu. Once the complex actually opens, I suspect the commute to work will take even longer from people waiting to turn into the covered parking lot. From the confines of my car, I will likely refer to these people as "bastards".

Facebook
I started an account after hearing about it from so many people. I registered my name and logged out without adding any further information. A week later when I logged in again I was surprised to find that old friends had used it to find me! And not just any old friends, they were people that I'd been wanting to find for years but hadn't had any luck through Google or Friendster or MySpace or whatever other method I'd tried, like the South African pen-pal I used to have - we finally met in London 12 years ago and lost contact after that, but she found me through Facebook! Facebook is wonderful. With Facebook, there is hope.

CNN
A coworker watches the program CNN 360 religiously on satellite TV and last month they asked viewers to send in video questions in response to their "Planet in Peril" series. She sent in a video and they incorporated it into the show this week! First they used it as an example of what kind of videos to send, then they used it again later in the week to spur the discussion held by a panel of experts. It's crazy to think that she was on a national American News program. Here's the first clip that was used on the show, and her comments on what she thought of the discussion program that used her video.

That's all for now. Hopefully my next entry won't take another month :)