It got pretty dicey with the kittens last night. I had been calling all around - my aunt, my friends, trying to find a home for the three interlopers. One, a gray, fluffy female I called Coco (after the designer Miss Chanel), one a skittish gray scaredy-cat I called Rebel, and a small, long-haired bundle of black fur which looked like a tribble, so I called it Tribble.
So anyway, I came home to a blinking light on my answering machine. It was the housing co-op's secretary. I had called her earlier that day to ask if please, please, I could get just one more week to find a home for the kittens, as I was getting nowhere in my efforts. I knew that if worse came to worse, I could find foster homes for Coco and Tribble,as they were both friendly. But little Rebel was a different matter. He was not to be touched, and not to be confined in any way. He was his own kitten, and he was not going to cuddle up and purr just to ingratiate himself to some mere human food dispenser.
The secretary's message gave me the terrible news.....the animal control officers were to be called this morning. No more extensions. Her voice was sad, as she knew how hard I'd been looking. It was to be curtains for little Rebel. The cat-catcher's long stick, the net, and the dark black curtain of death were drawing near for this willfull piece of kittyflesh.
I had prayed about this, I had hoped against hope that somehow, somewhere, an angel would appear out of the universe who would be able to care for the kittens. But now the prospects looked dim, most of all for little Rebel. Shoten zenjin! Oh, ye Buddhist kitty gods! Help! Find these kittens, especially little Rebel, a good home where they can play and frolic, shred furniture and nap in the sun! Save little Rebel and his friends!
I went outside and there they were, all three lined up and waiting for their dinner. This was too awful - I had to do something!
Just then, my neighbor Shashi came by - she is a nice young woman trying to carve out a writing career here in tinseltown - sort of like me a couple of decades ago. We are friendly, and had both been worried about the kittens. I asked her if she'd had any luck in finding homes. Amazingly, amazingly, she said that she had - that her friend, who was right there at her apartment, had offered to take the kittens. "Which ones?" I gasped. "All of them," she responded.
All of them. Shashi introduced me to her friend Scott, another young writer, and I almost fainted with relief. I couldn't believe my own ears. He was willing to take all of them! He didn't want to "break up the team." Oh, wonderful young man! Scott came right over to my little patio and looked at the three as they chowed down on their Friskies mystery meat mush.
I urgently conveyed the sentence of the Board of Directors. The kittens had to be gotten out quickly, under cover of night, or they would not live out another day at our co-op building. We had to move fast.
Shashi had a couple of cat-carriers, so we decided to catch the creatures and box them up so that Scott could take them back to his home immediately -- away where they would be safe, beyond the reach of the cruel co-op law. With Coco and Tribble, this would be no problem....but Rebel....what of him?
If I know one thing about Rebel, it is that he's a sucker for Gerber's Stage 2 Ham Babyfood. One of my kitten rescue buddies had told me that I could train a skittish kitten to trust humans by putting Gerber Stage 2 Ham Babyfood on my fingers and letting the kitten lick it off. I had tried this tactic the night before and become slightly more friendly with Rebel (although I suffered a couple of needle-tooth puncture wounds in the process).
I rushed to my home and retrieved two jars of the kitty ambrosia. Meanwhile, the kittens were exploring past the open door to Shashi's apartment. They were all three in the living room. Rebel was showing off his skill in the litter box, squatting with dignity, nose in the air, while we praised him for his tidiness.
We tried a number of tactics to corral them into the carriers. Shashi even broke out the catnip, and although Rebel got goofy on the hard stuff, he was no more compliant. Finally, the sainted Scott got the bright idea to dangle a kitty toy on a string through the roof of the carrier, tempting Rebel to come inside the trap. The first few tries were unsuccessful, as Rebel scurried back when Scott tried to shove his tail inside the carrier. I suggested that the next time Rebel got all four paws in the box, that Scott tip the carrier up, dumping the creature inside, and slam the wire door shut.
The trick was successful, and Rebel was captured! But oh, the outrage! The indignity! How he yowled and yowled! It was no use trying to explain to Rebel that we were saving his life, that we were keeping him from a date with the executioner. Rebel would not be caged! He clawed at the wire slats holding him in, he gnawed at the gate, at the roof, at the walls of his cell. I wish he could have understood.
Both of the other kittens fit quite peacefully in the other carrier together, and we put both cages in the back seat of Shashi's car. Scott looked down with some concern at little Rebel's frenzied struggles against his prison. I suggested maybe naming him after some famous prison break-out artist, like Pappillon or Monte Cristo. Well, we shall see.
Shashi loaded up her trunk with other cat paraphernalia - a scratching post, a litter box, some food and some toys. I waved goodbye to the kittens and their new human as the car pulled away, and thanked whatever forces for good had brought Scott to care for them.
Thank you, shoten zenjin, thank you for this wonderful blessing! And while I have your attention, please send Shashi and Scott wonderful new jobs where they can write and make money and buy lots and lots of Gerber Stage 2 Ham Babyfood for their kitties. Hooray! That's my benefit for today.
Be joyful, be compassionate, be cool.
Byrd in LA
Hi, my name is Byrd and I have stray cat karma. Despite what you may have been told, some karma cannot be changed. Stray cat karma is one such type.
A couple of decades ago, when I was studying overseas in Athens as an undergraduate, my roommate brought home a tiny shivering, puking kitten which was also suffering from dysintery. We named it Shitty Mittens.
Shitty Mittens grew as we fed her, and soon she was old enough to lounge on the balcony of our apartment, taking in the sun within spying distance of our landlady. The jig was up (damn those landlords! The bane of cat lovers everywhere!), and we had to find a home for Shitty Mittens. We advertised in the Athens English-language newspaper, and got a single nibble. We agreed to meet the gentleman who had answered our ad in the lobby of the Athens Hilton at 7:00 pm.
It was a real cloak-and-dagger assignment. What we were doing was obviously against the policies of such a fine hotel as the Athens Hilton. We didn't have a cat-carrier, and Shitty Mittens was old enough to wriggle about under my trenchcoat while making some very compromising mewing sounds. My roommate carried a shopping bag filled with toys and cat food. We tried to look casual and "blend".
When we got the the assigned meeting place, we realized with some horror that we had failed to get a clear description of the man with whom we were making the rendez-vous. We knew he was a Greek, but in Athens, that was little help. So we were reduced to walking up to all the single men in the Athens Hilton lobby, asking them, "Pardon me, sir...are you looking for a kitten?" A few men misinterpreted our approach, thinking that we were ladies of the evening. But mostly, they just sort of appeared startled by the question, shook their heads, and walked away.
Finally, we found our fellow, transferred the struggling mass of fur and claws from under my coat to under his, and palmed off the toys and food. Drawing our trenchcoats around our ears, we walked nonchalantly past the doorman and back out into the streets of Athens. One kitten down, fifty gazillion to go.
Now, I find myself in the same position once again, crying to the heavens, "why me?" This is an example of what Buddhism calls "karma".
This week, my stray cat karma has manifested itself once again. Three kittens have popped up into my environment. They don't seem to have a mother, and they seem to come from different litters. Two of them are about three weeks older than the baby, a little black ball of mangy fur which likes to be picked up and cuddled. The older, grey ones are more stand-offish.
When these living beings presented themselves in my environment, I had no choice. Their mewing was so pitiful and the sun was so hot that I was compelled to put out some food and ice water for them. What else could I do? I couldn't keep them. I have three cats already, and that's two more than my housing cooperative allows. I was in a terrible quandary.
I asked a friend from work who is a cat-rescue volunteer. She shook her head and told me the terrible truth....this season is the worst kitten season in her memory of several decades. Kittens are everywhere. It's a veritable tsunami of kittens. She and her rescue partner alone are personally caring for 150 homeless kittens and young cats this summer, struggling to find homes for them. She was not able to help me.
According to my friend, most of this can be blamed on people who do not spay and neuter their pets. Stupid, stupid humans. Some human parents, it seems, like to teach their children about the "miracle of life", or the proverbial birds and bees by letting little Fluffy get pregnant over and over again, and then letting the kittens run free and fend for themselves. This unhappy state of affairs has now manifested as my stray cat karma.
I have made phone calls, I have asked all of my friends. So please...if you know of anyone in the LA area who would like a kitten, please let me know.
The most stand-offish grey one is making himself quite comfortable, and I can't let this go on much longer. Just this morning in the bathroom, as I was seated on the throne and reading the Sunday paper, the grey one marched up to the open bathroom door and announced himself. To say that I was startled would be an understatement. He was supposed to be outside! He must have come in through the open window my regular cats use to come and go. I rebuked him, but to no avail.
"Kitty!" I said sternly, "you cannot stay here! Get out!" Upon this command, the thing made its way to the top of a pile of laundry and proceeded to groom itself. It had made up its mind.
The Co-op's Board of Directors is threatening to take these kittens to the pound, which will mean certain euthanasia. I must find homes for them. So, please....are you looking for a kitten?
Be compassionate, be tuna-flavored, be cool.
Byrd in LA
As the moderator of a Nichiren-related yahoo board, I received a strange solicitation a little while back. The writer is looking for "spiritual families" to appear on a reality TV show - there's $20,000 honorarium for each family. I am posting the letter here, and if any of you know anyone who is interested, I can give you the info. If you know a Gakkai family which wants $20,000 and is willing to do this, well, who knows....it would certainly make an interesting experience at kosen-rufu gongyo!
Some of you know my evil past - that I used to work as a writer for television "relationship" game shows, putting people together on unlikely dates for The Dating Game and Love Connection, as well as creating marital disharmony for fun and profit on The Newlywed Game. So getting this e-mail was a definite piece of karma for me. I don't watch TV at all these days, though - I unplugged my cable when we invaded Iraq and I haven't looked back. For those of you who might be interested, here goes. (I took out the lady's name)....
Good Afternoon!
My name is (name here) and I am a casting producer for ABC Television's hit reality show, Wife Swap. I am currently trying to cast a spiritual family for an episode of our show and thought perhaps one of the people in your Yahoo! group might be interested in this great opportunity. Your group has caught my attention and I thought it couldn't hurt to send you an email to see if you might be able to help me with this.
In case you are unfamiliar with the show, the premise of Wife Swap is to take two different families and have the mom's switch places to experience how another family lives. For half of the week, the mom lives the life of the family she is staying with. Then she introduces a "rule change" where she implements rules and activities that her family has. It's a positive experience for people to not only learn but teach about other families and other ways of life.
Wife Swap airs on Disney owned ABC television on Mondays at 8 pm - the family hour! There is another show that copies ours but our main focus is to have fun, learn, and teach others in a positive light. They focus on conflict. I just want to make sure our show doesn't get confused with theirs!
Requirements: Each family must consist of two parents and at least one child between the ages of 7 and 17 and should reside in the continental U.S. (There may be other children living in the home who are older or younger than the required age…as long as one child is in the required age range.)
My hope is that you would pass this information on to your members and if they are interested, they will be able to reach me. Maybe you even have a family in mind that you could refer me to. This is a very unique experience that can be a life changing for everyone. In addition, each family that tapes an episode of Wife Swap receives a $20,000 honorarium for their time. Anyone who refers a family that appears on our program receives $1,000 as a 'thank you’ from us.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this - I know it is an unusual request. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at my number below. Thank you for your time and have a great day!
(name here)
Knock yourself out, guys.
Byrd in LA
I just got off the phone with my best friend, who is in Louisiana caring for her dying mother. My friend has been practicing for decades, and her younger sister also chants.
"So, are there any other Buddhists in Lake Charles at all?" I asked my friend. I was hopeful that she and her sister could get some support and maybe find some people who would be able to come over and chant with them during this stressful time. The answer to this was "no," and it appears that the closest practice center is in Houston, Texas, several hours' drive away.
I know a lot of people who practice in relative isolation away from major urban areas, and away from SGI community centers. I wonder about how to create sense of sangha in places where there is no sangha to speak of.
For me, I really enjoyed a Lotus Sutra Study group I was a part of a year ago or so. One of the participants let us use her business's dial-in conference call code. So, we called in every Sunday and had a wonderful time making friends and discussing the sutra. This group had participants in areas as far-flung as Alaska and Belfast. That's one way of creating sangha. Online discussions are another way. Obviously, a lot of people in remote areas rely on the SGI's publications to keep them "in the loop". The beauty of the conference calls, though, was that we could all participate and we got to know each other.
Does anyone else here have any other suggestions about how to create a sense of sangha in areas which are remote from the SGI 's centers? America is a lot bigger than Japan,and we are going to have to come up with some remedies which suit this country's wide open spaces.
Thanks for putting your thinking caps on.
Byrd in LA
Finally, I bit the bullet this morning and started to clean out the closets where my deceased mother had stored her stuff. I pulled out box after box. Hampers, trays, bowls full of old costume jewelry. I looked at it all in a kind of a daze, threw a lot of stuff away, and then....a box with her name and address on it, postmarked many years ago - a box from my aunt Polly - also long, long dead. I opened it up, what could be inside?
Old letters, that's what. Almost all of them written by people who are no longer breathing on this planet. Here's one, written by my mother to her sister on September 24, 1956:
Monday afternoon
1:00 pm - Sept. 24th
Dear Hearts,
It's a girl - big, assertive and strong-lunged, born at 8:15 last night. To the
surprise of us all, she weighs 9lbs & 5 oz.!
It was a very, very pokey labor, but not difficult, and I'm feeling ever so chipper and well, after watching the baby being born.
Wendy, truth to tell, is not nearly so handsome a baby as was Kurt. She is very red, double-chinned, and has a most snubby nose. But to us, she is gorgeous.
So much for now, I just wanted you to know right away. All our love, Win, G, Kurt, Wendy
A most snubby nose? Gee, Mom - thanks a lot! But how did you really feel the day after I was born? Apparently, pretty happy. Honestly, finding and reading that letter made me cry - something I had been afraid would happen when I started cleaning out the closets.
The box also contained all sorts of other treasures, including a children's book/rhyme by Mom entitled "The Cat Who Wore Glasses" (it's a pretty cute little story, I will post it here some other time).
Also found: My grandfather's Lutheran ordination certificate (in German); my high school diploma; some old love letters to my mom from a fellow I always thought had been just a family friend (oops!); and several short stories from one of the aunts.
The return address on these stories (carbon copies of typed manuscripts! Wow! Onion paper! Does anyone else here remember that stuff?) was in Florida, at an "organic citrus farm" - an organic citrus farm 50 years ago - my goodness, I thought the organic thing was a recent craze, but apparently my aunt Polly was into it a long while back. She was also into Orgone Accumulators (google it), but she was the family eccentric - sometimes people tell me I remind them of her.
These old letters are full of news and full of the spirits of the people who wrote them. Postmarked back before zip codes were invented - when there was just a single digit postal code within each city (we lived in St. Paul, 4, Minnesota). Some letters mailed with 4 cent stamps. All handwritten, all heartfelt. People used to write to each other back when long distance phone calls were expensive. They didn't have a conversation and hang up. They wrote their thoughts down, and some of us can still read them. Back then, air travel was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill you could tell all your friends about. Yesterday, I dropped my best friend off at the airport - she tooka plane to Houston and I called her on her cell phone to make sure she got there OK. Nothing written to commemorate the event, except maybe a quick e-mail later on today.
I wonder how much of our thoughts and expressions will survive our deaths in this e-mail age? I know people used to throw out letters, but they used to save them, too. What if Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had corresponded by e-mail? Would more have been saved, or less? I don' t know.
My last remaining uncle is coming down here next week to visit with my last remaining aunt. I am sending her a package of this stuff so that they can have something interesting to talk about when he gets here. What an interesting surprise this morning brought me. I shall share it with them and see what they have to say.
Be thoughtful, be warm, be cool
Byrd in LA
A discussion on the SGI Unofficial Yahoo Board has got me thinking about the topic of guest speakers in the SGI. As most of you here know, the independent, denominationally unaffiliated Gathering of Friends in Granada Hills was started when an SGI district was dismantled for the offense of inviting a speaker from another school of Nichiren Buddhism. I've spoken to some of my friends in the SGI who feel that this was the right move for the organization to make.
Another poster at the SGI Unofficial Board told about his experience in New Orleans, when he wanted to invite Sister Helen Prejean, the author of "Dead Man Walking", and outspoken opponent of the death penalty to speak to an SGI meeting. He claims that this effort was thwarted by his local area organization because there are a number of professional prosecutors in the SGI who would have been "upset" by the invitation.
My feeling at this point is that by all means, SGI members should feel free to hold interest-based gatherings (such as interfaith groups like the Gathering, or other interest-based groups) without waiting for the Gakkai's approval. In the case of the Gathering, these are meetings where people chant and listen to speakers who have been invited by the group. Sister Helen could certainly speak to such a gathering, as long as it wasn't an official SGI meeting. Similarly, those people who are interested in interfaith discussions can create their own schedules and so on without undue interference by the line structure.
I would be very interested to know how this issue is handled in other parts of the country, or in other parts of the world. Please, fell free to add your two cents.
Oh, and while I'm at it, I have peeled off 25 pounds in the past two months after a horrifying high blood-pressure episode which put me in the hospital. I feel fabulous, and perhaps I will write a blog entry about my wonderful new walking club soon. But for now, I am genuinely interested in how people feel this outside speakers / non-SGI interest groups issue should be handled.
Have a good one, everybody.
Be healthy, be happy, be cool.
Byrd in LA