Some people call me Maurice
What a surreal day I had yesterday!
After coming home and falling into bed at 11:30 or so Saturday night (I was up in NY helping my brother with his Tisch audition material), I was awakened at 4 AM by Scratchy , who was meowing at the door wanting to be let out. Usually when he does this, I don’t even remember his meows because I instinctively get up as soon as my subconscious registers it, but this time I kept dreaming about being in choir practice and having one person in the choir who just couldn’t quite hit the note and was scooping up to it. After about three takes of the dream, I finally realized that this person sounded way too much like a cat meowing and, oh, yeah, I guess Scratchy wants to be let out.
A more portentous dream I could not have had.
The morning started out as a usual Sunday morning: the alarm went off, I hit snooze a couple times, and then finally rolled myself out of bed and into the shower so I could to church. I was still a little groggy from lack of sleep, so instead of wearing black tights that would have matched the black blouse I was wearing with my burgundy skirt, I pulled on a pair of dark brown tights. It wasn’t until I was walking from my car to church that I looked down at my shoes and realized my mistake. Too late now, I figured. Of course, there was also a big run in one of the legs that clued me into the fact that I didn’t have the mental capacity today to dress myself properly.
Church itself was pretty normal. We have a new assistant rector with abysmal writing skills, and I’ve recently taken to counting the number of times he repeats a word or a phrase within the sermon…today the word "life" came in first with a whopping 35 repetitions, with the word "priority" a far second with only 21. I think it wouldn’t be so noticeable if he didn’t use the exact same words in a different order to fill three sentences in succession. He’s fond of phrases like, "We all prioritize things that matter in our life; in other words, things that matter in life get prioritized." Uh, did anyone point out to you that you’re not using other words at all, but the SAME EXACT WORDS? I might forgive him his redundancy if he created a chiasmus with them (like The Sphinx in Mystery Men : "Learn to hide your strikes from your opponent and you’ll more easily strike his hide"), but he’s not nearly that clever.
After church, we had to sing in an evensong at another church in Asbury Park. It was several church choirs combined to sing at this one church — they’re hoping to make it an annual event, which by itself it not a bad idea, but they’d better put someone else in charge next time. The whole affair, from the rehearsals up to the concert itself, was infuriatingly disorganized. Asbury Park is on the Jersey Shore (some people recognize it as Bruce Springsteen’s home town), but it’s a good hour’s drive away from our church in Moorestown. By the time we were done with the second service at church, I barely had enough time to scarf down a sandwich before all the section leaders piled into one car and headed out to the shore.
Asbury Park should be renamed as Ass-bury Park. That town is a real dump. The church is smack dab in the middle of a pretty bad neighborhood, and we all agreed if we never had to return it would be too soon. When we got there, the airhead in charge was unable to answer a lot of questions and had clearly not communicated what needed to be done in the rehearsal with the other church choir directors or with the clergy from her own church.
We were also dealing with the added bonus of children’s choirs. Our children’s choir managed to behave themselves, thanks to one of the moms who sat opposite them in the choir stalls and glared at them the whole time. But the other kids didn’t have that type of oversight. One kid sat in the back and didn’t even pretend to sing; another one didn’t have any music because some of the other kids had stolen it. There were no parents anywhere; I assume they must have thought with 40+ adults around, there was plenty of supervision. Boy, were they wrong.
The concert itself went surprisingly well, with the exception of the tone-deaf priest who really wanted to cantor. He had been practicing all month, you see, and was really nervous about it. Too bad his chant didn’t have any resemblance to the notes on the page at all, and our harmonized responses would have crashed and burned if it weren’t for the quick-thinking organist, who played our chord before each response.
When the concert was over, I couldn’t get out of there quicker. On my way home, I called Ray, who asked if I could stop and get some pizza for dinner. Pizza sounded good. And beer. Lots of beer. But when I got to the pizza place, they had an order ready for me under the name "Maurice." You have to be seriously not listening to an order if you hear "Maurice" from "Maren." Ray even spelled it for the dude. So I guess now you can call me the space cowboy or the gangster of love if you want…
What a perfect end to my wacky, crazy day.
Filed under Bizarre, Cranky, Singing, cats | Comments (3)Suburban Wildlife
Last night, when Scratchy was halfway in and halfway out the door, deciding whether or not he wanted to spend the night outside, he froze, staring at something in the yard. It was a raccoon, wandering about in the leaves. Ray yelled at it and told it to get out of our yard, and after looking around as if it were lost, it scuttled off. Scratchy puffed himself up as if to say, “Yeah! And stay out!”
Ray told Scratchy that he should stay away from the raccoon unless he was with his brother. I told Scratchy that both he and his brother should stay away from the raccoon, because that thing could beat them both down without batting an eye.
We have had some other visits from various wildlife from time to time. There is a possum that waddles, in typical R.O.U.S. style, through the bushes almost every night. Sometimes it climbs the stairs to the sunroom on the second floor where the cats stay, and the cats have a staring contest with it through the closed glass sliding door.
I have a theory about some of our new animal neighbors. There is some construction going on a few blocks away from our house. What once was dense forest just this spring is now laid bare, getting paved over daily to make way for a housing development or a strip mall. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a hawk alight on a tree next door, crying out, perhaps to his family? He has lost his home to the developers, I think, and was trying to relocate. Perhaps the raccoon is also just trying to find a new home, now that he can no longer live near the construction.
In the meantime, we’re bolting down our trash.
Filed under ROUS, cats, gardening | Comment (0)Lost & Found
Itchy and his brother, Scratchy, were born in my backyard about three years ago. Since then, I’Â’ve taken them in and fed them and given them their shots and gotten them neutered…all the right things a good mommy should do. I’ve let them be indoor/outdoor cats because I can’t bear the thought of declawing them, and since they were born outside, they seem to like being outside most of the time.
Then Itchy went outside on Friday night, October 14th, and didn’t come home the next morning. Or the next day, or the next day. Sometimes in the past he has stayed away for two or even three days, but he has always come back. Now, after four nights, I was starting to get a little worried.
Itchy is also incredibly friendly and loves attention. He meows constantly, whether he wants your attention or not. So my guess was that he’d just wheedled his way into someone’Â’s heart and home, and my hope was that he wasn’t lying dead on the side of the road somewhere. Nevertheless, my worry-wartiness was getting the better of me, because I went ahead and made up “Lost Cat” signs to post around the neighborhood.
Of course, as soon as I finished printing out the first sign, Ray informed me that Itchy had shown up at last. I went out to the sunroom/cat-room to alternately hug him and scold him for making me so worried, and he acted as if nothing had happened. In fact, an hour later, he was meowing to go out again. I didn’t want to let him out, and I made him promise to come back. He looked at me with that enigmatic cat look, as if to say, “Well, of course I’m coming back. You have food here.”
When I got up this morning, there he was with his brother, waiting to come in and have breakfast. He brushed by my leg and went straight to the food bowl without so much as a by-your-leave. I’m thinking he’s still mad at me for putting his tick medicine on him (the cats hate it when I do that). Or he could just not have any sense of the passage of time whatsoever. Or he could be cheating on me with another family down the road. Who knows? I’m just happy he’s back.
Cats and Kindness
And now, to update you all on the past 8 months of my life.
Since I last wrote about the cats, Mama Cat ran away, hopefully to find a new home. She probably got tired of Tybalt & Scherzo (AKA “Itchy & Scratchy,” thanks to Ray) bothering her and figured it was time to move on. Luckily, I had her spayed and the kittens neutered, so there was no chance that anyone was going to get anyone else in trouble in my neighborhood, if you know what I mean.
I tried in vain to get takers for the kittens, and so they have been staying with us. They’re only allowed in the sunroom, so they’re mostly outdoor cats, but they’re getting more and more tame. Who am I kidding? Itchy, the more talkative and friendly lets us pick him up and has even resorted to doing tricks in order to get us to open the door for him (don’t ask). Scratchy seems to have a multiple personality: Scratchy #1 will hide under the chair and run away whenever he thinks you’re going to touch him, but Scratchy #2 is all purrs and love and will let us pick him up. He seems to alternate between personalities at the drop of a hat, or maybe depending on the weather, or if Mercury is in retrograde…I’m not sure. Sometimes he’s Scratchy #1.5; that’s when he wants to be petted but can’t bring himself to actually relax while he’s being petted. It’s quite amusing.
November and December didn’t bring as many caroling gigs as I would have liked. I think I’m really starting to see the underbelly of the bad economy. And to top it all off, I quit my job with those crazy lawyers in the middle of February. Mind you, I meant to quit by the end of January (it was my New Year’s Resolution), but that’s a whole different adventure. And I promise I will give you a link to the story as soon as I’ve written it. It just won’t be right now.
March and April were good months for my singing career, what with Easter and all (thank God - pun absolutely intended - for those church-going Christians! If it weren’t for those gigs, I’d literally be starving right now). And I seem to have broken in to the choral gig circuit - I’m afraid I have to say that it is probably due to the fact that during a gig I mentioned off-hand that I was once in the San Francisco Girls’ Chorus. My contractor is a big fan (not that I knew that at the time). Since then, I’m sure it has been my talent (and perfect pitch) that has kept me in the loop, but I must give credit where credit is due. Thanks, SFGC.
Unfortunately, May was the beginning of my financial slump, which I have a feeling shall take a nose-dive as soon as I’m done with my current project, singing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic. Summer is a bad time for us singers. I’m trying to figure out new ways of making money, since not only is the entertainment industry suffering in this economy, but the temp industry is also hating life. Nobody wants to hire, especially people like me who want really flexible hours and have enough experience and know-how to deserve a higher salary. Argh.
But hey, I’m creative. I’ve started to clean out my garage in hopes of finding something to sell on E-Bay. I did find a few things, but nothing that will pay the bills…nevertheless, my garage is getting clean, and that’s something to celebrate. My garden is doing very well, and it’s so much easier to stretch a dollar when you don’t have to spend a dime on food. More on my cooking and gardening later. I have lots of musings about that, but at this point, I’m just trying to catch you up so you don’t get too confused when I start waxing poetic about baking bread.
The end of May was full of drama and emotions for me. My great-uncle, Anthony Montalbano (my paternal grandfather’s brother), passed away from cancer. It was blessedly quick, so he didn’t have to suffer too long. My two aunts from Spain, my father, and my cousin Roger (both from CA), travelled to Long Island (where his family lives), so we had a little family reunion of sorts. It’s too bad it was for such a sad occasion. The thing that we noticed was that there weren’t very many of us Montalbanos left…the majority of the funeral party was from Lena’s family (his widow). Another one of my projects is to set up a forum for the Montalbanos to share memories, etc. I purchased the domain www.montalbano.org - not that there’s anything up there right now - but perhaps in my free time (argh) I can gather pictures up and put them on the website. Any objections, oh Great Montalbanos?
And that is what has been happening with me. Of course, it’s been much more than that, but I’m hoping that this blogging thing will get me writing again. Sorry for the long wait.
Filed under cats | Comment (0)Episode XXV: Smelly Cat
Hello, all you wild and zany friends of mine!
Happy Halloween (or to some, Blessed Samhuin)! I have just spent the last six hours in trembling anticipation for hordes of gaily-dressed children to come a-knocking at my door. I have dressed up in my best witch outfit (not difficult for me), loaded up the candy bowl, and lit lovely little tea lights up the walkway to our house. I even carved a pumpkin!
Well, the first kids showed up around 6:30 (I had been expecting them around dusk (5-ish), and the last kids rang the doorbell about fifteen minutes ago, at 9:00. That’s kind of late for trick-or-treaters, don’t you think? And my doorbell has only rung a total of 5 times today, not counting the plumber this morning. What a disappointment! I guess I don’t live in a neighborhood that has lots of kids. I think it might be more retired people. (Side note: wouldn’t it be cool if the older people dressed up in costumes and went trick-or-treating? Maybe I should suggest it next year)
My adventures, I fear, have gotten fairly domestic. They are no less adventurous, but don’t involve travelling all over the country in a bus or losing all my money or anything like that. No, I’ve had to deal with mundane issues like the shower falling out of the wall or what to do with those stray cats I mentioned.
The first problem was easily fixed with a call to the plumber; the second problem…well, that’s a little more complicated.
As I mentioned before, Mama Cat came around to our house and adopted us sometime this summer. She then introduced us to her two kittens (originally there were three, but one of them disappeared). We didn’t really take the time right at the beginning to play with the kittens, and thus missed the crucial window of imprinting, so now the kittens are pretty wild. One of them will let me pet him, and the other one (although he’s a Mama’s boy and follows her everywhere) won’t let me come within two feet of him.
The “twins,†as I like to call them, since they look so alike, are now at the age where they should be wandering off on their own. But they’ve got a steady food supply here, so they’re not really going anywhere. In the meantime, I named them according to their personalities. Tybalt is the one who will let me pet him (named for Mercutio’s line, “More than prince of cats, I can tell you…â€)…he’s fairly noble, as per his namesake. And Scherzo got his name when I saw him jump from flagstone to flagstone one day for no particular reason. I was going to name him “Scaredy the Cat,†since he keeps running the other way whenever I show up. but Scherzo adds a whole new dimension to it.
I am still hoping to give them away, possibly to a family, but barring that, to a shelter. So I made plans to take them to the vet and get their shots, etc. to make them more desirable as pets.
Well, Tybalt is a lot smarter than Scherzo. I think he knew what I was doing when I brought out the food bowl. Tybalt made for the bushes, and Scherzo trustingly walked into my sunroom for his food. I then put out the cat carrier, and Scherzo, ever the curious kitten, walked right into it. I said, “Oh, this is too easy,†and shut the door behind him. I couldn’t catch Tybalt, so I bundled Mama up in her carrier and took the yowling duo to the vet.
Once at the vet, Scherzo was impossible to examine. He was running around the office and clawing at anything and everything. Finally, we let Mama out for her examination, and found out that Mama got knocked up again. I guess that’s what happens to the girls who stay out late at night…anyway, the vet suggested that we get her spayed right away, kitten fetuses (feti?) and all. I swallowed my mother-goddess instincts and agreed, knowing that Mama was like the worst kind of welfare mother: she would just take advantage of me and my food, water, & shelter as she raised more and more deadbeats.
(Well, I wouldn’t call Tybalt and Scherzo deadbeats, exactly, but I am a little bitter that they don’t like me very much.)
At the end of Mama’s examination, the vet tried again with Scherzo, with no luck. She suggested I bring him in for a surgery appointment, so they can sedate him, give him his shots and snip him all at the same time. Apparently he’s old enough, and I don’t want either of the kittens to contribute to the deadbeat cat population, after all…
Anyway, that’s what has happened with me so far. I hope you are well, and I hope to hear from you soon (or possibly see you at my party on November 16).
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