George's rap on catnip

I’m catnipped up and feeling funny,
Goin' to get me a bunny,
Mice is great for me too
Yes, cat William, for you.
We both high and hip
We both high on catnip
Goin’ to flip
With catnip.

Nibble on a mouse and eat its head
Don’t know if he’s live or dead
I’m catnipped up and riding high
High at the sky, I tell no lie.
Man, she worries and she quibbles.
Me I hurries and I nibbles.
We both high and hip
We both high on catnip
Goin’ to flip
With catnip.

William and me is high as cats
We both goin' to get us some rats
Catnipped up and feeling strange
Jumpin' everythin' in range.
We both high and hip
We both high on catnip
Goin’ to flip
With catnip.

Where's the best place to leave this dead mouse?

I have been inspired by Smudge's last comment to tackle the question of where is the best place to leave a dead mouse - in order to delight or horrify our humans. I suggest the following possibilities:
1. At the side of the bed, where the human foot will land on it as a human gets up in the morning.
2. Floating in the lavatory.
3. In a bedroom slipper, concealed so that it will only be discovered when toe meets mouse.
4. Under the human's pillow near the nightdress.
5. On the pillow at night just near the human nose.
6. In the shower
7. In a handbag.
8. In an envelope file on the desk.
9. Inside a filing cabinet.
10. In the toaster. Only one mouse at a time. If you have a human who only toasts one piece of bread this has the possibility of toasted mouse first thing in the morning.
Any more you can think of? The aim is maximum surprise and human emotional reaction. All contributions in comments please.

Did God who made the robin, make me?

Did God who made the robin (which I caught yesterday) make me? Robins die easy, but mice are much more fun because they die slowly. When they sit frozen with fear and completely immobile, I just stare at them. If their immobility goes on too long, I poke them to make them move.Then when they make a run for it, I leap on them all over again - eyeing, stalking and pouncing over and over again. I do this in play for half an hour or so until they die in earnest. Even when they are dead, I often play with them. I throw the corpse up in the air to get it moving. Did God make me in order that I should torture mice?
I can't help it. My instinct is to pounce on small furry objects which are moving or to leap up at feathered ones that are flying past. If God made me, he made me to be a smaller version of the fearful symmetry of the tiger, a small but deadly killing machine. I have to hunt. It is not just what I do.The sequence of hunting, - eye, stalk, pounce, grab and eat - is intelligently designed into my flesh and blood. This pattern is what I am. I know what is play for me is torture for the mouse. Am I therefore evil?
But I am not just a hunter. I think about spiritual topics. Is God a cat? Am I created in the image of God. Even if God isn't a cat, and is more like a human, what have humans to be proud of? They have slaughtered more of their own species than I have had mice or robins. They kill each other. I don't kill cats. The very idea is shocking. If humans are made in the image of God, then it must be a pretty beastly God (except beasts do not usually kill each other). A cat God might be preferable.
This all leads up to a bit of a boast. I am in a Times blog, written by Ruth Gledhill, the religious correpondent. http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2007/05/faith_in_all_th.html#more

A word about those catnip "mice"

The catnip through the post came packed tightly in little sacks with a convenient string attached for dragging them around, pouncing on when high as a kite, or just pawing when out of it. Nice little sacks. Nicely made by a well wisher, who has seen my handsome photograph on this blog and wishes to pay her own small tribute to me. I have enjoyed, and am still greatly enjoying, them. Doing catnip is great.
But... Celia thinks they are mice. She calls them catnip "mice." She's got the same delusion about two or three little furry toys which I sometimes play with when there's nothing to kill outside. Of course, they are not mice. They don't smell like mice. They smell, of course, of old rabbit fur - probably oriental or maybe Chinese rabbit and been dead a long time. I reckon the fur has been stuck on something a bit like cardboard. I mean they are fun, but they are not mice. Neither are the little catnip sacks.
When I came to, after doing some more catnip earlier today, I pondered on this. I mean if it doesn't smell like a mouse and it doesn't move like a mouse, it's not a mouse. I think her delusion arises from the fact that humans have practically no sense of smell. They can't tell the difference between friend and foe by smell. They can't smell intruders or next doors' friends. They can hardly smell anything at all. They are smell-blind, so to speak.
Nor can they hear. They are deaf to a mouse's footfall. If a thing doesn't sound like a mouse, it's not a mouse. But humans are almost insensible. The only sense they have is vision. Even their sight comes in glaring colours and is not movement sensitive, so they can't see much at twilight hunting hour. Lacking smell, hearing, sensitivity to movement, Celia looks at a little sack of catnip and she "sees" a mouse, just because of the shape.
How weird is that? Poor woman.

TV - the case for smelly television

I used to watch quite a lot of TV when I was a kitten. The flickering screen sort of interested me and I quite liked moments when a shape seemed to pass from one side to another. Of course, the picture wasn't sharp -- too far away for my eyes to focus most of the time, except when I got on top and looked down at it. Colours - well we cats see some colours but colour is not our thing. What interested me on TV was the movement. We cats are very focussed on tiny movements - for obvious reasons.
Some cats take to TV. Naturally they prefer programmes about mice and birds but those that do go in for TV viewing are often interested by wildlife in general. Mac, a black cat like me only less handsome, took up TV late in life when he retired from a life of crime and passion on the streets. He got fixated by big cat programmes. When a lion or tiger growled, Mac would chatter his teeth with excitement. I think it may have reminded him of when he, himself, was a big beast on the block. He felt akin to these big cats. He had a lofty indifference to any pet cats on the screen. It was only the big wild ones that he identified with.
As for me, now I am older, I have given up watching TV. I see what a waste of time it is. Very little to see - a lot of faces of homo sapiens (boring, very boring), lot of human vocalisations (even more boring), a poor imitation of caterwauling at times, and only very occasionally, during the nature programmes, a mouse or a bird. Nothing to pounce on at all. I investigated the box, itself, when I was a kitten just in case there was a bird inside it. But there wasn't.
Worse still, there's no smell. Nothing at all, except an odour of plastic slightly heating up. Now if there was a smell to the bird picture, I think I would be entranced. Smelly TV would really turn me and other cats on. But as it is there's no real life at all in a TV.
However, there is something useful about television. If you want to get your human's attention start pawing at it, sitting on the top and looking down, or just tastefully drape your tail over the screen. It never fails. Even the most stupid human reacts mostly with laughter and very occasionally irritated comments. It proves something. Real life (if it's black and beautiful like me) scores over TV every time.

I am in demand for my incredible skill in mousing

Steffi-Next-Door, well next door at weekends, wants to hire me as a mouser. She emailed from London to say she had a big favour to ask. "We have a mouse in the house here in London which is driving me crazy. I put down traps and poison and it has evaded or avoided both. It seems to be hanging out in our bedroom which is freaking me out. I wondered if you were coming to london this week and if so, if we could borrow George for the day and bring him back to you later. I'm sure he'd be able to catch the little beggar. I would of course remove the poison and traps etc. I can't sleep at night because this mouse keeps making noise in my room."
Someone appreciates me - unlike Celia.
Someone, not like Celia, is impressed by my predatory skills.
Someone, again not Celia, is anxious for my help in killing.
It feels really good to be recognised. I celebrated by bagging a blue tit. The bloody woman took it off me.

She's done it again! She's stolen my mouse!

Humans! They are the lowest of the low species! She's stolen my mouse! A particularly lively fat one at that! In the evening, I am imprisoned in the house with the cat flap shut. It may be warm but it gets very boring, especially at about 3am. Obviously, I do my best to liven things up by jumping on her bed, worming my way into it to play the you-are-a-mouse game with her, or just pounce on her head as she lies on the pillow. But I am afraid she quite often just sleeps through all this.
Out of the kindness of my heart, I thought I would make my own arrangements for a 3am game. Instead of treating her as a mouse, I brought in a proper one. It was big, surprisingly fat for this time of year, and had a most exciting squeak. I stashed it under the fridge, as I often do, but it insisted in running round the kitchen and wedging itself in the corner of the open kitchen door. It squeaked so loudly that even a deaf human could hear it. (They can't hear much. Their sense of hearing is inferior to ours.)
That woman - I can hardly bring myself to name her - heard it and fetched a wellie. She then wedged the wellie near the door with the idea that the mouse could run into it. Well, for about five minutes it didn't get the point, and Celia and I had good fun. I tried to catch it and Celia tried to stop me. Very enjoyable and my blood was up, so if I scratched her I couldn't be blamed for it. The excitement of the moment had me in thrall and besides it was aimed at the mouse. Then the idiotic little thing finally got the point and ran into the wellie. Celia picked it up, getting in the way of me the predator and the mouse my lawful prey, and chucked the wellie into the hedge.
No mouse. No more fun. No 3am snack. That woman is a kill joy. For a moment or two I could have killed her - only she's so much bigger than I am.

The human mouse

They've got no idea, humans! Celia's "mouse" (so called) is oval, white with a transparent coat, marked with the sign of an bitten apple. It smells of nothing except plastic and only moves when she puts her hand on it. Anything less like a mouse would be difficult to find. The only thing it has in common with a real mouse is the white tail that comes out of its end and fixes into the keyboard. Once again this is hard and cold where a proper mouse tail would be warm and soft and waving freely. The only thing that can account for this massive misnomer is wishful human thinking, the desire to be more like a superior species, us cats. The poor dears aspire to be feline. It's really rather charming. And I suppose one way is to give human things feline names. I've written before (9.12.06) about musmalfunction, the way humans can't do real mice. They can't smell them. They can't see or hear of them most of the time. If they do, they can't pounce properly. And, as I've remarked, they can't grab them with their mouths. Nor do they eat them. Not a nibble. Even when a mouse is put on their keyboard.
Instead they play for hours with this plastic "mouse". Pathetic but sweet.

Teaching a human to eat mice

I have a sense of responsibility towards my humans. I am trying to train them out of human dsfunction into feline competance, so I brought in a mouse for them. It was pretty good hearted of me, as it wasn't one of the small long nosed voles that I usually spare for them. Frankly these don't taste good to cat so I tend to give them to my humans, who are much less fussy about what they put in their mouths. It's never worked. Even humans dislike voles. I stay optimistic though.
Today it was a real mouse - large and deliciously fat. My mouth was watering, even as I clambered in through the cat flap and set off to find Celia at her wordprocessor. There was a moment of temptation on the stairs. Would I succumb to a little nibble? Sternly I told myself that I must stay with the original generous impulse. I sprang on to her desk and placed the mouse neatly between her and the keyboard, not far from the hard device that humans call a mouse.
At first her reaction seemed appropriate. She too sprang up from her chair with what seemed like a delighted shriek. Then, as a series of completely inappropriate vocalisations followed, I realised that an emotional sympton of musmalfunction ( a disordered reation to mice) had taken over. She threw herself out of the office then came back with yards of lavatory paper - just too late. Realising what had happened, I had smartly picked up the mouse and was legging it down the stairs to the cat flap and out on the lawn for my delayed meal.
My generosity ignored and insulted. Not a word of thanks.