Meow to all my followers, especially you precocious kittens! Omiti, your chronicler is back on task, with a special surprise treat for you! Yes, yes, I can almost see your eyes widen and your ears perk up as though to the music of treats tumbling about deliciously around a closed bag! So settle down: I have a rare interview with Stella of the rooftops! Yes, the very legend your mothers purred you in lullabies, whose sight is as rare as a cat fishing.
OMITI: Thank you for joining us today, Stella! We all realize you are most awfully, most mysteriously busy.
STELLA: I accept your commendations most graciously with this paw lick and blink. Do convey said acceptance to your audience.
OMITI: So. You, Stella, define yourself as un-belonging inside a human shelter. Is that a correct descriptor?
STELLA: Quite correct! As you all know, we felines resist belonging, though we are not naturally averse to perambulating familiar circumferences and owning spaces. I must be a more evolved being, since I also resist closed in spatials; one never knows how stable those vertical boundaries might be, and when they might come down, when that trap might spring!
OMITI: So no human belongs to either, then, Stella? I know, I know how strange this concept must sound to all us, urban felines, used as we are to human servitude and constant presence.
STELLA: Oh no, Omiti! I wouldn't quite say THAT! I do own a human. I visit her when she presents adulation and offerings. I am, after all, an urban feline.
OMITI: So you own your human but do not trust her shelter? Is that a correct descriptor, then?
STELLA: Precisely! What is more, the rooftops present an interesting challenge for my grace and agility. The top of human shelters provide an ideal space for a hunter, an athlete, an aesthetician, the complex fascinating personality like myself.
OMITI: I suppose you are right, Stella. We have never quite thought of it that way. I am sure I speak on behalf of a large slice of my audience when I consider roofs as places to visit briefly, much like the humans visit those grassy patches with their kittens, you know the ones with those strange slings and slides. But we always return to shelters, in case of disagreeable clouds and their hysterical dripping.
What about you, Stella? Ah! Your widened whiskers claim that you have an answer for us!
STELLA: Haha well read, Omiti! I certainly do have answer for your listeners.
Now a rooftop is not an easy structure to traverse and own, and I do not recommend it to the weak of eye and paw. It is a harsh landscape, but like all terrains, it has a logic, a poetry, if you will, all its own. For one who is extraordinarily nimble and strong of hip (like yours truly), there are many alcoves, caverns, chambers, dips, ledges, sills, and awnings one could choose from.
OMITI: Hmm. Certainly sounds wonderfully interesting. I will certainly suggest to our packs to consider rooftops as treks and training grounds.
So what is your least favorite thing about your life-style, Stella? You did mention earlier that this is not for every feline?
STELLA: This life is certainly not for everyone. There is, first of all exposure to elements and an awkward (if any) access to nourishment, unless one is willing to descend from the roofs. We felines like naps in the gentle sunlight, but the sun on rooftops is not gentle and one must find a convenient alcove to nap.
So I would say that my least favorite part of my chosen life style would be the inconvenience of reaching my plate the human keeps aside for me.
OMITI: That would certainly be inconvenient, wouldn't it, you cats and kittens? Such a circumstance would give me pause if ever the impulse to ascend the roofs were to strike! So consider and reconsider deliberately before stepping a paw on the roofs. That life is definitely not all swashbuckling adventure one hears of comfortably ensconced in our cat beds!
On a brighter note, then, what is your most favorite thing about your life style?
STELLA: I have to say it is watching the evening fall. I have followed this blog and I know how much we all enjoy watching the evening fall. Let me tell you this, however, you haven't really watched the evening until you have watched this phenomenon from the roofs.
You see that weather-vane on that white roof, but a few leaps from here? There is a perfect ledge just there, perfect shaped and sized for an evolved feline like myself, whose protean dimensions allow perfect fits, no matter the size of the ledge. Well. That is my favorite place to watch the sunset.
OMITI: Ah! So that shadow we see sometimes around the vane is no shadow then? Mystery solved, kittens!
One more question for you, Stella. Would you move in with your human in her shelter? Do you see that happening at all?
STELLA: Certainly not! Sometimes, it IS tempting to steal in and live a few days in her shelter. But that would be conceding defeat to the human, wouldn't it? She has been trying to coax me for more moon revolutions than is decent. When I do visit her, the air around her head stinks of self-congratulation. I find that personally offensive.
What is more, I like my kingdom on the roofs. It is more familiar to me than that litter box my human stubbornly holds for me.
OMITI: Well, there you have Stella's answer in no uncertain terms! And with that characteristic of her tail swish, she is gone, back to her kingdom of rooftops.
That's all for today, my feline friends and their faithful followers! This is Omiti, your feline chronicler, signing off.
Meow for Now!
OMITI: Thank you for joining us today, Stella! We all realize you are most awfully, most mysteriously busy.
STELLA: I accept your commendations most graciously with this paw lick and blink. Do convey said acceptance to your audience.
OMITI: So. You, Stella, define yourself as un-belonging inside a human shelter. Is that a correct descriptor?
STELLA: Quite correct! As you all know, we felines resist belonging, though we are not naturally averse to perambulating familiar circumferences and owning spaces. I must be a more evolved being, since I also resist closed in spatials; one never knows how stable those vertical boundaries might be, and when they might come down, when that trap might spring!
OMITI: So no human belongs to either, then, Stella? I know, I know how strange this concept must sound to all us, urban felines, used as we are to human servitude and constant presence.
STELLA: Oh no, Omiti! I wouldn't quite say THAT! I do own a human. I visit her when she presents adulation and offerings. I am, after all, an urban feline.
OMITI: So you own your human but do not trust her shelter? Is that a correct descriptor, then?
STELLA: Precisely! What is more, the rooftops present an interesting challenge for my grace and agility. The top of human shelters provide an ideal space for a hunter, an athlete, an aesthetician, the complex fascinating personality like myself.
OMITI: I suppose you are right, Stella. We have never quite thought of it that way. I am sure I speak on behalf of a large slice of my audience when I consider roofs as places to visit briefly, much like the humans visit those grassy patches with their kittens, you know the ones with those strange slings and slides. But we always return to shelters, in case of disagreeable clouds and their hysterical dripping.
What about you, Stella? Ah! Your widened whiskers claim that you have an answer for us!
STELLA: Haha well read, Omiti! I certainly do have answer for your listeners.
Now a rooftop is not an easy structure to traverse and own, and I do not recommend it to the weak of eye and paw. It is a harsh landscape, but like all terrains, it has a logic, a poetry, if you will, all its own. For one who is extraordinarily nimble and strong of hip (like yours truly), there are many alcoves, caverns, chambers, dips, ledges, sills, and awnings one could choose from.
OMITI: Hmm. Certainly sounds wonderfully interesting. I will certainly suggest to our packs to consider rooftops as treks and training grounds.
So what is your least favorite thing about your life-style, Stella? You did mention earlier that this is not for every feline?
STELLA: This life is certainly not for everyone. There is, first of all exposure to elements and an awkward (if any) access to nourishment, unless one is willing to descend from the roofs. We felines like naps in the gentle sunlight, but the sun on rooftops is not gentle and one must find a convenient alcove to nap.
So I would say that my least favorite part of my chosen life style would be the inconvenience of reaching my plate the human keeps aside for me.
OMITI: That would certainly be inconvenient, wouldn't it, you cats and kittens? Such a circumstance would give me pause if ever the impulse to ascend the roofs were to strike! So consider and reconsider deliberately before stepping a paw on the roofs. That life is definitely not all swashbuckling adventure one hears of comfortably ensconced in our cat beds!
On a brighter note, then, what is your most favorite thing about your life style?
STELLA: I have to say it is watching the evening fall. I have followed this blog and I know how much we all enjoy watching the evening fall. Let me tell you this, however, you haven't really watched the evening until you have watched this phenomenon from the roofs.
You see that weather-vane on that white roof, but a few leaps from here? There is a perfect ledge just there, perfect shaped and sized for an evolved feline like myself, whose protean dimensions allow perfect fits, no matter the size of the ledge. Well. That is my favorite place to watch the sunset.
OMITI: Ah! So that shadow we see sometimes around the vane is no shadow then? Mystery solved, kittens!
One more question for you, Stella. Would you move in with your human in her shelter? Do you see that happening at all?
STELLA: Certainly not! Sometimes, it IS tempting to steal in and live a few days in her shelter. But that would be conceding defeat to the human, wouldn't it? She has been trying to coax me for more moon revolutions than is decent. When I do visit her, the air around her head stinks of self-congratulation. I find that personally offensive.
What is more, I like my kingdom on the roofs. It is more familiar to me than that litter box my human stubbornly holds for me.
OMITI: Well, there you have Stella's answer in no uncertain terms! And with that characteristic of her tail swish, she is gone, back to her kingdom of rooftops.
That's all for today, my feline friends and their faithful followers! This is Omiti, your feline chronicler, signing off.
Meow for Now!
