Cat Clocks

Remember the Opera Cats?

Here are more cats: now they are clocks!

Best Friend

 

 

Single Cat

 

 

Madonna and Child

Door Plaques

Here are two plaques I painted for the entrance. It was done when I was having a bit of hard time with my teenager. It worked!

This one says “Family in harmony” with our house number on it so it’s right above the doorbell outside:

This one is just inside, at the entrance wall, and it says “All things thrive” — Together, the saying goes [When the] family is in harmony, everything thrives!”

Opera Cats

I started painting what I call my “Opera Cats”— as in Peking Opera — when we moved to our current house because the plastic switch plates on the walls looked ugly to me. And once I started, I couldn’t stop! Now there are Opera Cats on my walls which are switch plates as well as single portraits and clocks with these creatures on them! Maybe it’s because I grew up with a cat but is now inexplicably allergic to them that I’ve taken to producing these theatrical cats. Maybe someday I’ll write stories about them. There is a story I can tell now though, a real life story about my allergy to cats:

My little boy was about five or six when he began asking for a pet. He came home one day after visiting a friend who had a cat, and he wanted one too. I told him no, sorry, because mummy is very allergic to cats. The next day, he came home from school, obviously having thought about this while he was away, and asked, “Mummy, could you be a neighbor?” And no, I didn’t move out, but we did eventually, after a couple of dwarf hamsters, graduated to having dogs instead.

Here are five of the Opera Cats on our dining room wall. They form a sort of Royal Family, let’s say, in the Tang dynasty, to go with My China in Tang Poetry, though cats came years ahead of the books.

And here they are individually:

The Emperor

His Imperial Consort

The Prince with His Nanny

The Princesses

A Courtier

 

 

Three Dreams

There are many dreams and dreamlike phenomena in the Liaozhai Zhiyi, my mother’s favorite collection from the Chinese genre called “strange tales,” some of which I incorporated into my work-in-progress, a speculative memoir with her at the center.  Here is one such dreams which is not in my memoir but I thought you might enjoy. The author’s name is Pu Songling.

Three Dreams
[“Feng Yang Shi Ren,” or “The Scholar from Feng Yang”]

This happened in Feng Yang, Anhui Province. A scholar took off on a trip with no more than a sack of books on his back, saying to his wife, “I’ll be back in six months.”

So, when, after ten months passed and she heard nothing from him, she was wracked with anxiety. That night, the moon was out, swaying on the tree branches, making shadows on the wind, and she had just laid her head on her pillow, trying not to wonder what had happened to him and why he was still not home when, between a toss and a turn, she saw a pretty lady open her bed curtains and stood before her. She had pearls in her hair and a red silk cape wrapped round her shoulders. She smiled at her and said, “My sister dear, didn’t you want to see your husband?” When she replied yes, the lady took her by the hand and led her outside. The wife hesitated as it was night and it might be too far for her to go, but the lady said not to worry and pulled her into the moonlight. 

Soon, the wife was lagging behind as the lady walked very fast and she had a hard time keeping up. She called to her to wait while she went back for a proper pair of walking shoes, whereupon the lady came and sat down next to her by the roadside, took off her own pair of shoes, and told her to put them on. The wife did as she was told and was happy to find that the shoes did not cramp her feet. They resumed their journey then and the wife found she could now walk just as swiftly and effortlessly as her guide.

In a while, her husband appeared on a white donkey. He was extremely surprised to see her and jumped off the donkey, asking, “Where are you going?” 

“Looking for you,” she replied. 

He then turned to look at the pretty lady and wanted to know who she was, and before his wife could say anything, the lady had put her hands up to cover her mouth and said with a giggle, “Never mind the questions. Your wife is tired from the long journey, and you yourselves, man and beast, must both be exhausted, riding under the moon and the stars half the night. My house is just around the corner. Come rest up first. There’s time enough to continue on when morning comes.” 

So they followed her to a village close by and entered a garden where the lady went and roused up a maid who had fallen asleep on a stone bench to come and see to the guests she had brought with her.  “The moon is out tonight,” she exclaimed, “there’s no need for lanterns. Make yourselves comfortable right here on the terrace,” and invited them to sit at a table with stone benches around it. The scholar tied up his donkey to one of the pillars and sat down as the lady said to his wife, “I’m afraid those shoes are too big for you. You must be so tired from all that walking. Don’t worry we’ll give you a ride home. If you don’t mind, I’ll take my shoes back now,” she said, as the wife thanked her kindly.

Meanwhile, wine and fruits were set out on the table, and the lady started pouring for them, saying, “Here’s just a little crude wine to celebrate our husband and wife reunion,” then, lifting her cup, she added, “to you, on this happy occasion!” The husband thanked her and responded in kind by drinking to their hostess’s health. 

Back and forth they went, exchanging pleasantries while under the table, shoes came off and a couple of pairs of feet were busy exchanging messages as well. The scholar couldn’t take his eyes off the lady and peppered his comments with flirtatious remarks and did not even bother to pretend to ask after his wife despite his long absence from her. The pretty lady too let her gaze linger on the husband and her words, too, were laden with double meanings and innuendos. The wife sat in mute silence and played the fool.

In a while, they were both quite drunk, and their words and actions became openly seductive and obnoxious. The lady was still pushing wine on the scholar, now exchanging the little cup for a large one, and when he said he couldn’t possibly drink any more, she leant hard on him till he said, “Okay, you sing me a song and I’ll drink up for you.” And she, indeed, started strumming with an ivory pick on a string instrument which she held on her lap, and sang:

Wiping off makeup at the end of the day,
Yellow the dusk falls yellow on my face.
Outside the gauze screen the west wind blows
Chilly, cold wind seeps through my window.
Listen to the banana leaves,
What a racket in the rain, pitter-pattering chatter,
But who is there left to chat with me?
Over the horizon, my eyes are drawn, looking,
Looking, longing for the sight of him . . .
Eyes filled with tears, falling, falling.
O how I want him and how I loathe him!
My red embroidered slippers I’ll toss in the air
Just to see if he is on his way home to me!* 

*If the shoes fall face up, the husband or lover will come soon, whereas, if they fall face down, he will be delayed.

She ended the song with a smile and said, “It’s a little ditty I heard in the streets, much too coarse for your refined ears I’m sure; just my way of keeping up with the times!” 

Her voice so titillating, her person so coy, so cloying, held him; he was totally under her sway. Feigning drunkenness, she left the table with him following close behind, and they disappeared to who knows where for the longest time.  

The exhausted maid servant had fallen asleep in a heap on the terrace, leaving the wife all alone, sitting there fuming and desperate, wondering what her next move should be. On the verge of tears, or fury, or both, she pondered her options. Could she just get up and leave to go home? But it was dark, and she didn’t know the way. 

So thinking and wondering, she got up and wandered towards the house. Before she even reached the window, she could hear the sounds of lovemaking and the voices of a man and a woman whispering nonsense, teasing and pleasing each other, and the man was saying the kinds of things her husband used to say to her when he was sweet on her. The wife’s hands shook, and her heart was pumping so hard she thought she would burst, so angry was she that her only thought was to plunge herself off into the depths of the stony cliffs and kill herself.

She was turning round to go do just that when she ran headlong into her brother, San Lang. He jumped off his horse and asked her what happened. She told him everything from beginning to end. 

San Lang flew into a rage and, dragging his sister along, led her right back to where she had come from. Outside the window, the pillow talk was as loud as ever before. San Lang picked up a large rock close by and heaved it through the window, smashing it, frame and all into several pieces. Inside, a loud scream was heard. “O no! His skull is cracked! What shall I do?” 

When the wife heard this she burst into uncontrollable weeping, turned on her brother and said, “Did I ask you to come murder my husband? What are you going to do now?” 

“What?!” He looked at her in wide-eyed disbelief, “You’re the one who came crying and weeping to me, wanting me to vent your anger and indignation, and now you’re siding with your man against your own brother? I am no woman’s man to be used by you women for whatever you please!” He turned to leave then but his sister grabbed his sleeve and said, “Aren’t you taking me with you? Where shall I go?” San Lang flung his arm backwards and pushed her off, turned, and left.  

She woke up with a start and realized it was all a dream. The next day, her husband did indeed come home, riding on a white donkey. The wife was amazed but said nothing. Then her husband told her about a dream he had the night before and every detail in it was exactly the same as in her dream. And just as they were remarking on this strange phenomenon, San Lang, having heard the news that his brother-in-law had come home, arrived, and in greeting him, said, “I had just had a dream about you last night, how strange that you should indeed come home today?”

“Luckily, I was not killed by that huge rock!” His brother-in-law said jokingly.

San Lang was stunned and asked why he said that, and when the scholar told him his dream, San Lang exclaimed in great wonder, “Why I also dreamt I ran into my sister who was weeping, and I threw that stone in a fit of rage!” 

So, the three of them dreamt the same dream, only no one knew who that pretty lady was.

photo by 齐云山 at Flickr
Mount Qiyun in Anhui Province

Spring Thoughts

A Li Bai 李白 poem from Superstars, volume 1 of My China in Tang Poetry.

Word Bespoke · Li Bai Spring Thoughts

SPRING THOUGHTS

Grass on Swallow Bank like emerald silk,
old mulberries bend low their heavy heads.
On the day you dream of coming home,
that day is when longing breaks my heart.
This spring wind doesn't even know me,
what’s it doing behind my bed curtains?

春思

燕草如碧絲，秦桑低綠枝。

當君懷歸日，是妾斷腸時。

春風不相識，何事入羅幃。

Art by Anne

Here's a picture Anne drew of Mom and Balu:

More Balu and Coco

See the previous posts about Coco and about Balu.

Not a Question of Size

Despite their relative sizes, Balu took over quickly, and Coco, being Coco, let her. 

Coco was the kind of dog who would, when she saw other dogs fighting or playing too vigorously at the park, stand apart to let the others fight it out. Of course, that was before Balu came into our lives.

This was when they were at home, in 2013. 

At the Dog Park

When we started taking Balu to the dog park with us, she started making trouble. She would rile up another dog, and make Coco defend her. When Coco entered the fray, which she would never have done before, Balu would slip out from under the other dog she made angry and stand aside to watch Coco fight it out! Even then, Coco, usually the bigger and stronger of the two, would let the other dog go if it were willing to stop fighting. So, none of the fights lasted long and nobody got hurt. 

Here’s a couple of photos from the dog park:

Balu was a great swimmer from the very beginning. Coco likes to go in the lake but didn’t swim far. Balu would swim almost to the other side of the small lake if there was a stick or ball to bring back. Here’s Balu swimming back with a ball in her mouth.

Unfortunately, they started ganging up on other dogs:  shall we let him come back up?

We had to look for more deserted parks to take them. 

Dog Friends 

This was at Turtle Creek and the other black dog is called Remy, also a very docile creature, like Coco, and Balu was able to tolerate her without getting jealous. 

Yes, she sometimes got jealous when Coco played with other dogs. The vet says this is not uncommon when there is more than one dog in the family. 

Before Balu came, we had run into another do Coco’s size, a Doberman male by the name of Atticus.  Coco and he became fast friends. Unfortunately, Atticus and his people had to move out of our neighborhood, and when we visited, Balu was with us, and she didn’t like it at all that Coco and Atticus seemed close. That was Atticus’s swimming pool. 

Coco could easily overpower her, but she’s very gentle with her, even at play, or when Balu worries her to such a degree that she must put her in her place.

 

 

Mostly, she let’s Balu have her way.

 

You can see all the dog posts by clicking on the link.

Balu's Story

You can read about Coco's story in yesterday's post, and there will be more about the dogs in tomorrow's post.

The children and I basically had Coco all to ourselves for just over two years. Coco’s birthday is one day before Anne’s, on December 8, and Balu’s birthday is the same as my mom’s February 20, of course, a lot of guesswork went into the pup’s birthdays and even my mom’s Gregorian birth date is pretty much made up by her. Still, the coincidence did not go unnoticed by me. Strangely enough I do not have any photos of Coco when she first came home. The only picture I have of the two month old Coco was one that a friend’s friend took of her and it is in black and white. Here it is:

And since it’s the only baby picture I have of her, I tried to sketch it so I can have more! I did several, but this is my favorite. Somehow, I turned her around!

 

Then came Balu. I started looking for her because Zach thought Coco needed somebody to play with. I found her also at Pets Alive! When I went to see her she was at a foster parent’s apartment. I remember the young man brought two puppies out, one, a similar color to Coco, and the other was with coloring on her face, a husky sort of face, but her “mask” was more prominent. It looked as if she were wearing one of those Roman warrior helmets. Of course I immediately fell in love with her. Here’s a couple of photos of her when she still had that helmet. Later in the year, when she grew older, the nose flap in front shrank away.

 

Here’s a couple of Balu baby sketches:

 

 

More about Coco and Balu in tomorrow's post!

Fairytales can come true . . .

This is Coco and me. 

She has been with me for just over twelve years now. I had just lost my Cha Cha when I came across a story about eight newborn puppies who had lost their mommy. They were picked up under a bridge by a shelter called Pets Alive! The agency was warning us that if they could not find these newborns another nursing mom, they might have to be sent away (a nice way of saying euthanized). I was still mourning Cha Cha, but for whatever reason, as the Chinese say, “whether guided by the gods or pushed along by ghosts,” I gave Pets Alive! a call.

“Yes,” they said, “someone did come forward, almost immediately, and the puppies are now with their foster mom. If you’re interested, we can give you her number and go see the pups!”

I was not really “interested,” since I was still mourning Cha Cha, but, whether guided by the gods or pushed along by ghosts, I said, “Yes, I’d like to see them.”

The first puppy that greeted me looked like a German Shepherd baby. Later, when they all appeared on the fenced in porch, I saw that she was the smallest one of the lot. There was another one who looked just like her, but bigger. This foster mom had named them all after fairytales; her own Great Dane (I think it was and I think her name was Tiger) had just finished nursing her own litter, so the foster mom gave her the new babies to nurse! Poor Tiger, lucky pups! The little guy who came to me was Rapunzel, even though her hair was not particularly long, and her brother was Robin Hood. There was also a blond Cinderella, and I don’t remember the rest. All of them, except for Rapunzel and Robin Hood looked entirely different from each other. It was during this trip that I learned that within the same litter, there could be several different “sires.” That appellation was also new to me. I was amused. I was drawn to Rapunzel as she was drawn to me, but I had a previous plan to meet my sister in Florida in two weeks, so I didn’t think I could take her home.

“O, not to worry, she’s a bit young anyway to go home with you yet,” the kind lady said to me as I was about to take my leave and told her the reason why I couldn’t adopt Rapunzel, as I gazed at her longingly. “I’ll keep her for an extra two weeks while you go on your trip. Come get her when you return to Austin.”

That was an offer I couldn’t refuse. The day I came home I asked my friend, Lorraine, to drive me over to the foster mom’s house. There was only one puppy left! It was Rapunzel, and she seemed so happy to see me! (Of course I’m projecting.) I was so grateful to the lovely lady who kept her for me, I invited her to dinner.

“Call me in a few months,” she said, “I’d like to see what she grows into.”

That’s mysterious, I thought, what could she grow into?! That day, I took the lady’s number and left with Rapunzel. Since my friend had so kindly offered to drive me, I could hold onto her all the way home. Indeed, Rapunzel grew into a red haired beauty that looked nothing like a German Shepherd! The vet also fell in love with her immediately, and as we continued our visit, she started guessing at her breed, even though at first, she had written down German Shepherd mix on our first visit. As Rapunzel, now named Coco, after Coco Channel, because she looked so elegant -- I also called her my Super Model – the vet finally said, with that little bump on her head, she has a hound in her, and those pretty feathered ears and bushy tail that tends to hang downward, like a third leg, she must be in part, a Leonberger (which, when I looked it up, is the predecessor to the German Shepherd, which explains her coloring at birth; this explains the foster mother’s mysterious remark when we left her as well). Now that her coloring has changed, it might also suggest a golden retriever is there in the mix.

In the following months, more was revealed and ascertained. It turns out Coco, beautiful as she became, was also a hunter, could have named her Diana if I had known. All in all she killed about fourteen little animals in the backyard before they stopped coming to our yard. My clever teenager said, “word must have spread among the animals that there is a serial killer in our garden so they all stayed a way!” Like her Leonberger forebears, Coco is also an amazing guard dog, although, other than when strangers are at the door, she never barked. When she did bark, not as a warning to us, it was a short and low utterance asking for us to open the door to let her in, after a session in the yard, for example. Anyway, that’s the story of how Rapunzel came to me. Maybe, some day, I will tell you more.

Maybe.... tomorrow!

February Icestorm in Austin, Texas 2023

Today is sunny though still a bit chilly. I am almost convinced spring has come to stay. All this February I was apprehensive, remembering that horrendous freeze a year ago. So unexpected it was, the city was not ready to deal with it, and not much has been done since, should another such extreme weather hit us, so commonplace, it seems, everywhere any more. Here’s a poem I wrote on Valentine’s Day last year.

~ ~ ~

AFTER THE FEBRUARY ICESTORM IN AUSTIN, TEXAS 2023


Such a lovely surprise to see baby leaves this morning

come through those once frozen barks this Valentine’s Day!

Were we to be like trees, how wonderful that would be,

recovering year after year, shedding and renewing ourselves.

These days, though, it’s harder even for them, with weather

going crazy, erratic and unpredictable, for them and for us.

This was a warm winter. We were coddled as if by spring,

and by January, new leaves were appearing on bare limbs.

Then, came the storm. Overnight, spring back to winter!

All their limbs were frozen: a beautiful scene for us, until

we lost our power. The house was freezing, and the lights

were out, no television, no internet, no news.

We escaped to a friend’s warm house and waited,

fortunate that all our pets got along, and food was still available.

The trees endured the cold, but their limbs fell, one by one,

old ones with old leaves, new ones with new leaves, fell on top

of each other. When we tidied up afterwards, we had a large hedge

of broken limbs, as did all the neighbors, such devastation, and yet

the sun was out. It will take the city a long time to come to collect them,

grind them up into sawdust so we won’t have to look at them again.

It was frighteningly warm again, and again we will forget the wounds

left on trees and the destruction the severe weather wrought.

How many more unexpected storms will our trees survive?

How many will we?

 

winter storm in Austin TX