Puddy in the Hall

I know there are a handful of you who like to hear about the cat and how she’s doing. I also quite like updating the cat’s progress myself. I like how she stalks the pages of this blog like… well, like a cat, as she grows from an occasional garden enigma, through a damned nuisance, and on to be a treasured and welcome part of our tight little cohort.

Here's the mandatory summary of events to date. During lockdown I would converse with the stray neighbourhood cat that periodically passed through our back garden and occasionally sat in a loaf position on the redundant trampoline. After inadvertently leaving the car open one evening, and after finding that said cat had gone in there and pissed on the passenger seat, enemy lines were firmly drawn. 

Although violence was never on the cards (on my side at least) the cat was no longer made welcome in the yard. Rude words were spoken (on my side at least) and the cat developed a scowl any time that it was not presenting its bum hole to me as it sidled away. Easter Saturday, two years ago, the cat was in the garage again and I was exhorting it to leave, in the strongest possible terms, but it would not go. The reason turned out to be three new-born kittens in a cardboard box. This development quickly turned the tide of hostility towards our new ward. Random piddling moggies may be one thing, but a new mum in the shed is quite another. Everybody was excessively well cared for and there were some interesting twists and turns, which are all back there in this blog (search ‘cat’ if you're interested or click on the word 'cat') but, ‘end of the day and with thanks to the NWSPCA, the kittens were weaned and found good homes and Puddy, as she was now known, settled back into neighbourhood life minus one womb and with a snip off her ear tip to prove it. 

Over the last couple of years, Puddy has become a daily feature of our lives, as she receives much of her food and shelter here. The shelter in the form of an elaborate and heavily insulated house in the garage. She shares her small bag of favours with several other houses in the neighbourhood but we can’t help but feel that we are her Numero Uno. Patricia gets to rub her and fuss her every day and she rubs up against my calves when I stoop to fill her bowl, but if I try to stroke her, she arches herself and hisses in hostile disbelief then runs away to gather herself emotionally. I mostly do much the same.

So, after that enormous recap, the latest update is mostly right there in the title. Yes, Puddy has started sleeping overnight in the front hall.

She’s been coming in and spending time there was quite a while now. There’s an incredibly comfy sheepskin basket-thing on a cushion and the front door is glazed so one (Puddy) can watch the outside world carefully when not snoozing. It’s a good place to be, our front hall, and it seemed logical that Puddy might evolve to overnighting there. But it didn’t start out well. One particularly torrid night, it just didn’t seem fair to ask Puddy to decamp to her garage pied-à-terre from the hall so we left her there, curled up and sleeping, and went to bed. The next morning was like a typhoon had swept through our front hall. Puddy, in a punk rock ‘do’, sat in the middle of the devastation, meowing plaintively to be let out. She huffed off and didn’t come back for ages.

That seemed to be the end of any thoughts of indoor overnight living for Puddy. And that wasn’t the end of the world. The garage abode got a microwave heating pad installed every night and was replete with fresh straw… I’ve slept in far worse places myself.

But you know cats so much better than I do. So much better. They want what they want and they get what they want. Over time, Puddy became less and less eager to decamp from the front hall to the garage as the evenings wore on. She would curl up defiantly with her back to the open door and clearly proclaim her wish to give the overnight sojourn one more shot.

So we rather nervously drew up plans.

The front hall was cleared of anything that might be compromised if a repeat tantrum arose. A large litter box was positioned, along with water and dry treats. The basket was fluffed and positioned; everything was poised. And then, on a rainy night earlier this week, Puddy did her customary ‘reluctance to vacate’ routine and so we closed the door and left her inside.

I was up at 3.30am. She was sleeping.

I was up at 6.25am. She was sleeping.

At 7.15 she was sitting at the door gazing out so I opened it up and she slinked outside and buggered off. The hall was tidy and untroubled by tantrums.

Operation successful.

Since then, Puddy eases in most every night and stays over. Like all other cats, I’m sure, she assumes sleeping positions which utterly exude comfort and relaxation. It bestows a subtle feline blessing on our home, as if confirming that this is a place where one can indeed come and be at ease and be happy.

You will all now say that she will beguile us into the next stage and will soon be residing within the inner sanctum of the house, fully integrated and ruling the roost. I’m not so sure about that. She comes in the house fairly regularly but always seems a little overwhelmed and ill-at ease. Also, I seem to retain the slightest of allergies which means her inner presence can tickle my nose a little. The hall is easy to ventilate by simply throwing the front door open. Perhaps she will become the elderly house cat in years to come, we won’t rule it out. Just don’t bet on it.

For now, Puddy is the cat in the hall. Imperious in her new domain.

I wrote this yesterday and last night she didn’t turn up to stay at all. Perhaps there were mice to terrorise or some midnight tryst to keep. Not to worry. We know how to deal with teenager and cats.

Sometimes they stay out late and they don’t want you asking where they’ve been.

Cocky – More or Less

When you slide over to the Internet, to look up a definition of something, even before you have typed one sentence of your thing, then you know you may not be standing on the firmest of ground.

Cocky – very confident, usually in a way that is slightly annoying.

Drat. It seems that ‘cocky’ is not the exact word I should be using here. That ‘slightly annoying’ part is not really what I’m after. It’s the ‘confident’ part that I want to write about for a few paragraphs. I could change cocky for the longer version but if I put ‘cocksure’ in the title you never know what kind of traffic this post might attract.

Cocky isn’t quite right but, never mind. Let’s try this anyway.

I wish I was a bit cockier. That’s going to be the point of this entire thing. However, I also wish I was a bit less cocky. That’s where it all might get a bit messy. But look around, Ken, isn’t it pretty messy already? Just plough on.

I somethings think like I have three lives. There are the two obvious ones, my Professional Life and my Family or Private Life. Two is possibly enough for most people. Two is quite enough to juggle. But I also have this third life. Let’s call it my Writing Life. Like ‘Cocky,’ it’s not exactly the right word because one could righteously look at me and say “Writing Life? What Writing Life? He’s scribbled a couple’ things here and there… does that make a Life? What pretentious garbage is this going to be? Where’s the funny stories gone?” All quite justified.

But I’m not really talking about achievement or recognition. I’m more talking about the places I live in, inside my head. In there, both work and family loom very large indeed. But, make no mistake, writing is in there too and, when the other two lives are not clamouring for attention, as they so often are, then the writing life is always waiting, poised, ready to take its place.

In terms of being Cocky, when it comes to Family/Private life, I think I strike a fair balance between being Cocky and not being Cocky. It’s the other two lives. That’s where I feel something is a bit off-kilter. These are the places where I wish I was a bit Cockier… or maybe a bit less… I’m not always sure.

A little expansion. In a few months, I’ll turn sixty. No biggie. A number on a card, some candles on a pretty intense cake. All good. The point of it is that I’ve been around the block a bit at this stage. I’ve seen some shit. I see people on telly saying, ‘I’ve been in this job for 25 years, with the world-weary attitude of someone who can no longer be surprised by anything, having done absolutely everything. I snort gently into my mug of tea. I have been doing my job for over 40 years at this stage. Chew on that, Motherfucker. 40 years! And guess what? I know nothing.

That’s how it feels anyway. At forty years, I should be the Maestro, the Guru. I should be the Crème De La Crème. Yet, here I am, scuttling around, second guessing myself. Is this right? Is that right? Am I doing the right thing? I am pretty darned brilliant at what I do but every day remains a school day. Ask me something and I’ll check it before I answer. I’m really good but I just don’t know it.

So, yeah, I wish I was a bit cockier – as in confident without the annoying part.

This effect bleeds effortlessly into my Writing Life too. If I throw a writing CV together for some random submission or other, people tend to look at it and say things like, “What? You’ve written all that?” and I’ll hang my head a bit and nod. As with the Professional thing, I’ve been doing it for a very long time. I’ve read a lot, I’ve seen a lot, I’ve written a lot. Yet, every day is a scuttle, a doubt, a subtle conviction that none of it is all that good really. I write for the pleasure of writing. It seems to release in me the sort of drug that runners produce when they run. I get a little involved in it, I get a little high. I have to keep doing it because I feel significantly worse if I don’t. The more of it I do, the better I feel.

I just wish I was Cockier about it.

It’s come to a stage where I write fairly intricate things and I polish them up and make them as good as I can… and then I do fuck-all with them. After a play of mine goes on somewhere, it goes in the proverbial drawer and stays there until someone literally comes looking for it. That’s not how it’s done and I know that. I’ve got to be out there, submitting, showing, getting gently refused and brutally rejected. That’s how you get stuff moving. That’s how you get stuff on. But you need cockiness to do that. You need to be a bit cocksure. I wish I was a bit more.

That’s it’s for this week. Goodbye.

Except it isn’t. Not quite. Not really.

Read back a little. Look at some of the sentences that are buried right there in my little diatribe about how very useless I am.

“I am pretty darned brilliant at what I do…”

“I’m really good but I just don’t know it…”

That’s what makes the problem that little bit more interesting. Somewhere, deep inside the milk chocolate coating of self-doubt and low confidence, there is a nut. A tough, fat, nut that you could break a tooth on if you’re not careful. That nut is a significant deeply buried belief… that I am brilliant.

I mean, what can you do with that?

If it were a simple matter of lack of self-confidence, you could work with that, you could perhaps overcome it somehow. But it’s like that image of a little devil on each shoulder. The strong healthy one on your right, telling you that you’re an idiot, the emaciated willowy one on the left whispering about how great you are.

It’s a conundrum.

How I resolve it, how I live with it, well, it’s easy really. This battle between Great and Stupid, between Maestro and Fool, maybe, just maybe, that's the conflict that keeps me writing. The grinding of these two tectonic plates might just be the friction that generates the words, just like it is literally doing right now.

I’m not bothered about resolving it. Why should I? I’m 60. It’s who I am.

I'll just deal with it.

What a… Nice Man

Would you like to know something about me that a lot of people don’t know?

I’m a really good liar… when I want to be. The reasons why not a lot of people know this are twofold. Firstly, I very rarely use this superpower of mine. I don’t use it professionally or in relationships. In fact, I only really ever use it for self-preservation. The second reason you don't know this is… well… because I’m a really good liar.

(Before I progress further, I should say that there will be an element of strong language in this post so take a view on that, eh?)

But, getting back to the self-preservation thing, it’s definitely something I do; lying to survive. And, mostly, it relates to cars and driving.  I get shirty, you see, when it comes to cars and driving. I say things that I probably shouldn’t say or, more pertinently, that I shouldn’t be heard saying. Sometimes, people hear me saying them and get a little belligerent. That’s when I break out my little talent. I don’t know Kung Fu and I can’t give off a bad smell like a skunk (well.. Friday nights, perhaps…) so I use what little talent God gave me. I lie through my teeth.

You need a ‘For Instance.’ I can tell, even from here. Okay, I’ll tell you one but, I warn you, you won’t believe it. You’ll say, “He’s embellished that story. That dude never bought that line.” But, if you think that, you’ll be wrong. Because I didn’t and he did.

I was walking through the TK Maxx car park one day, heading to meet a good friend.

(Shoop da doo)

When I stopped to watch a car drive along, across the roadway I was about to traverse.

(Cross la rue)

Sorry. Sorry. The story just sounded like it might fit into that ‘Da Dooh’ song from ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ The one where Seymore finds Audrey II. I’ll stop it now. Sorry.

So this car was coming towards me, and it was going very, very slowly. So slowly that I could have probably stepped out and crossed in front of it and been halfway to my appointment before it got to the place where I was standing. But I didn’t think that was right. In fact, I became rather convinced that the car would stop for me and wave me across, given how slowly it was going and all.

I waited and waited. The car eased on through. Slowly, slowly, it came up alongside me. The driver and front seat passenger gave me no acknowledgement whatsoever.

As the car passed me. I clearly uttered the following opinion:

“What a Fucking Asshole.”

The car went on and I started over the road behind it but not before noticing the driver’s window had been opened as the car had passed. I had crossed the road and was making my way on through the large car park when my peripheral vision informed me that the car was describing a very large, very slow, circle around the outer reaches of the parking area. It was working its way back to me.

I kept walking. The car closed in and eventually pulled up in front of me. Second time lucky, I guess. Peering in the open nearside window I saw a little old lady in the passenger seat. The driver was across the way. He was lurking in the gloom over there, but I could still tell that he was an enormous tattooed man with a long grey goatee.

“Hey,” he said, across his purse-lipped old Mum.

“Hey,” I replied.

“Don’t call me a ‘Fucking Asshole’,” he said.

“Sorry?” I replied, he was a long way into the car and he was also a little quiet. I had reckoned I had got the gist of his statement but wanted to be sure.

Granny piped up.

“Don’t call him a fucking asshole,” she said.

I remember that scene in the first Terminator movie where there’s a guy at Arnie’s door asking questions and Arnie/Terminator has to come up with a reply for him. You get to see his mind processes flicking through the various options available to him.

I did that. When Granny said ‘fuck’ to me, I did that.

Here’s what I came up with.

I laughed at both of them. I laughed warmly and with some enthusiasm. I could feel them both looking at me in disbelief. He with all the brawn and Granny with all the outrage and the cute linguistics.

“You thought… you thought…,” I laughed some more. “You thought I was calling you a Fucking Asshole?”

They looked at me some more.

“That’s so funny. What on earth would I call you a ‘Fucking Asshole’ for? I mean, what did you do?”

They were clearly at a loss. In their little world, they hadn’t done anything.

“I was talking to myself,” I said, “I just remembered that I forgot to lock the office door and I called myself a ‘Fucking Asshole.’ I do it all the time.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “You thought…” Then I laughed a bit more. 

Then the man laughed and then Granny sort-of laughed. I was kind of hoping she swear again ‘cos that was kind of cool. “Man, you’re fucking crazy!” or something like that. But she didn’t.

I smiled some more and pointed at them with the gun-fingers of both hands.

“Fucking assholes!” I said, in a poor New York accent and with a big smile.

Then they drove away.

As they went, I gave them a warm wave, solely for the benefit of his rear view mirror. As I started once more on my way to my rendezvous, I reflected on the interaction that had just occurred. 

“Fucking Assholes,” I said.