I did a commission of his 2 Bengal cats, and he recommended this clip to me. He was sure that I will find some semblance of truth in it… And I couldn’t agree more! So the clip below is an introductory guide to owning a playful cat, who in my case loves catching and chasing lizards, paper (crunched) balls, and his latest craze, a teddy bear key-chain which, when thrown at a fast pace resembled a mini furry creature scrambling for its dear life. Angel plays fetch of course, fetching you the above mentioned prey so that you can release it for its apparent pleasure.
The funny thing is that when we kept the teddy bear toy in a box, he would ‘guard’ over it by pretending to sleep and flip on his back near the box, which inherently means sleeping on our notebook and pressing countless keys on the keyboard. Below are some of the “stills” of Angel.
Incidentally, Angel peed on the sofa bed so play
was suspended temporarily pending further investigation…
We were of course pretty angry with the “devil-in-disguise” angel, and he received some silent treatment from us. However, after some detective work, we concluded that it was done under duress. There were obviously two piles of shit, with one piece of the shitty business conducted earlier by Halo which was a tad ostentatious in terms of smell. The second piece of business was done in quite a bit of haste, with the last of his chocolate nuggets left on the step just before the exit of the covered litter box.
Angel at the remand centre
As I happened to wake up late in the day Angel, who I’m sure had vowed at the spur of the moment never to ever deal in that area, decided to take his business elsewhere. We were pretty upset with him, as this was the second time in two weeks. We have to strip the mattress and cushions, scrub and spray smell-curbing chemicals and personal cologne , sun (which is hard to come by in the last couple of days), and finally add a touch of Bengay cream (actually it’s for muscle ache) to sufficiently mask the stank of below-the-table business.
Angel relieved at the verdict
After serious deliberation, Angel was let off with a stern warning and found “not culpable in the first degree”. We were away for a few days in the first instance and hence not around to be his efficient toilet keepers. He got away the second time as it was quite evident that he was under considerable duress and accepted that it was all a case of bad timing.We also refrain from calling Halo as co-defendant for this smelly episode.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Came across this quote by Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkeggard, and it captured me for a while, stopped the tracks of the present from becoming the future, so to speak. Started searching the phrase and I ended up with a number of quotes regarding time and the future. Ever wondered what’ll happen if you receive a notice that says: “Tomorrow has been cancelled. The day after tomorrow has been postponed and will now occur on the following day.” And suddenly you have an extended Present that refuses to flow into Tomorrow (Think Groundhog day) and if we live without expectations, then there’s no future, only an endless present (François Jacob).
“Although the future will never happen, it is already here: no matter how fast you run after it, the future will run just as fast. It is always around the next corner. If you pause to catch your breath, the future will pause too, waiting for you, just around the corner, out of sight. But how can it know you so well, when you don’t know it? “
Or according to The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, the Future is defined as “that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness assured.” Or as a riddle by Joseph Cornish, what does not exist and never has existed, yet is our most precious possession, because it is all we have left?
Perhaps a quote by the Mexican Poet, Octavio Paz is apt at this time, “The supreme value is not the future but the present. The future is a deceitful time that always says to us, ‘Not Yet,’ and thus denies us… Whoever builds a house for future happiness builds a prison for the present.”
Apple on the Inside is from the second Catmasutra painting exhibition and where time collapses into a single point of inactivity, caught “in-between” time- it’s right there, just an apple on the inside…
