Wilma's Webworld

A Hint from "The Animal Side"

This weekend I put this off for later and stayed in on Sunday and read this instead. Beckett, as is well known, can wait, especially since the exhibit is here until the end of June. I couldn't quite emerge from the animal side to get myself out the door. After reading Bailly's Le versant animal, with of course more than an occasional eye on Lulu-cat, I did end up making my way to the gym. It's nice to work the muscles on a Sunday: my guess is that the gym queens worked theirs on Saturday for their nights out, so the weight-machine room is, in comparison to the over-flowing cardio room, entirely negotiable. I haven't quite figured out the cruising thing at the gym, but Sunday I got a little inkling of how it works. And then today, with Bailly still vaguely on my mind, as I was crossing the cardio room, I saw two men on rowing machines, and I was sure that one was looking at me just like a squirrel, the other perhaps some kinda beaver. Animal eyes, at any rate, and so there we were.

Bailly says lovely things like the following that I've translated and that make me want to keep moving and thinking and help me to realize that my anxiety about "getting things down" might just not be for our day and age:

 

London Calling, Take Three

So it was yet another London weekend, even if, to judge from the news, all the “action” seemed to be happening around Paris. (Pretty good links to things much better than the NYTimes’s heinous coverage of the events today can be found here en anglais and a pretty decent interview en français here ). I’ve taught this morning, Lulu-Cat is curled up on my lap for a nap after having gnawed her annoyance out on our skin last night in sneaky attacks, the sun keeps coming and going, and I’m pooped. I’ve said this before, but London does that to you.

I’m pooped enough not to try and blog about my cultchahrully eventful weekend in one fell swoop. You’ll get it in installments, beginning with my Thursday afternoon and evening.

So Thursday I arrived at Waterloo at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Formerly Manchester and currently London Kev sped up to meet me as I was rolling my post-Eurostar cigarette just outside the sliding doors of the train station. He was bearing the East End and currently US-touring Fox’s flat keys, where I was able to camp for the weekend. Apparently I’m enough at home on Wilmot Street for my half-sleep to have led me to believe that Lulu-Cat was likely to come and join me in bed on Thursday night. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back from Provence, Lulu is on Red Alert

Titi de Paris and I just spent a great weekend in the south of France. Our visit was conceived as a pilgrimage to catch up with Titi’s delightful Mami and Maman, but we hadn’t realized that it would include the perk of an afternoon boat trip for the two of us to the island of Porquerolle near Toulon. We almost killed each other in a silly fight inspired by my empty stomach as we were trying to figure out when the next ferry to get to the island was leaving. All was gracefully forgotten, though, over a Salade de poulpe which had le vent en poulpe and splattered all over Titi’s t-shirt, as did the île flottante that turned into an île volante under the force of the incredible winds rattling the roof over the terrasse at “le Prado,” a restaurant at La Tour Fondue from whence a 1:30 pm ferry we thought didn’t exist left under our very eyes. Once on the island, after a terribly pleasant walk along several vineyards and through the beginnings of a preserved forest that covers most of Porquerolles, we made it to the plage d’argent where we lolled about for an hour or so, where Titi swam and I dipped my toes into the water, only to decide it was a little chilly given that we had found a shady spot under the trees at the beach. The water really was silvery – shallow for an unusual length for the Mediterranean – and the sand was, too, at least what of it that was left exposed in the gaps of the flakes of brown algae that had washed up, lovely, on the shore. While Porquerolle was an unexpected perk, I had planned on dinner in Marseille Chez Toinou where I moaned with predictable but overwhelming pleasure at the little bits of crab that I wheedled from the shell and devoured mussels, sea snails, shrimp, langoustines, and three varieties of clam. We ended up chez Toinou after an afternoon stroll through the Panier a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that is filled with crafty boutiques and signs declaring the death of the neighborhood and the greed of financial speculation. Seeing as we took care of a little Christmas and housewarming shopping, I guess we know which side of that fence we were on.

The whole weekend was so charming that, writing this account, I've had to edit out the over-occurrence of the words "little" and "lovely." I've left one "lovely" in for the algae.

But the real inspiration for this blog entry was to display Lulu once again. Our suitcase has not yet been put away in the closet, and she’s decided it’s a nice place to sit. I guess she thinks that if she sleeps on it all the time, we won’t be able to pack it up and leave her roaming around the apartment on her own.

Pitch to Lulu

Lulu, Titi and I have found a new game. Or, rather, we’ve refined a new version of an old game. Lulu has always liked the long hallway that separates Titi de Paris’s bedroom office from my more officious office on the other side of the apartment – thus, incidentally, maintaining our domestic peace. She uses this stretch of no man’s land as her exercise ramp, chasing mice, or just letting it all out for a sprint at entirely unpredictable moments. But recently, she’s learned to wait intently for the pitch, at which point she leaps into the air and, maybe one time out of three, is able either to catch the mouse, or ricochet it at an angle that is terribly pleasing aesthetically. When it happens this way, it usually leads to an exclamation from one of us boy pitchers: “Bravo, Lulu!” Apparently, cats are not entirely indifferent to praise.

It's too darn hot...

OK - so it's not quite as hot as it was in August a couple of summers ago here in Paris when all those old people died, but it is way too hot. Too hot to blog, really, but I couldn't resist posting a couple of photos of Lulu-Cat suffering her way through the heat. She's elected the top rung of my paper sorter, not too far from the fan that makes things bearable in my study, as the place to be. I sorta panicked the other day when her head, which was not in the most comfortable of positions, suddenly dropped, like she'd fainted, or worse, from dehydration. She woke up without a problem though, stirred by my silly hysterics. Every once in a while her often dangling paws start to twitter. Apparently she only has the energy to run in her dreams. Like most of us in Paris at the moment.

Playtime with Lulu

On a lighter note -- which, in addition to their occasional feline warmth, is one of the main reasons any of us keep cats -- a little report on Lulu's play practices: today, she was mischievously refusing to respond to my admonition to get her paws out of our thriving avocado plant, but she also refused to engage with any of her mice, her home-made super-long twisty-tie toys, and even the bit of a shoe lace that she ate off of my Docs the other day. In despair, I went back to my book on the sofa. Lulu trotted off to the back room where I heard her rummaging in the closet. A minute or so later, she emerged and trotted off down the hallway with my jock-strap in her mouth, ridding us both of any remaining grudge I might be holding against her.

The End of (Feline) innocence

Just a brief word to inform the webworld that Lulu is a bit agitated tonight. We took her food away at 8:40, stretching a bit beyond the vet's 8/8:30 guidelines for the beginning of the fast that, I imagine, will allow for cleaner procedings tomorrow when she goes under the knife. We've been advised that, unlike dogs, you do not have to wait for cats to go into heat to get them "fixed." And, a bit frightened by the idea of a Lulu into frottage, especially knowing what she can do with a dirty kleenex, we decided that it was time. Not, however, without misgivings: once the appointment was made, both Titi de Paris and I were given to shocked pangs that sometimes expressed themselves as an "Oh, Lulu!"

Civilization is hard work for house pets, too. Have a thought for little Lulu if you can spare it.

Beastly Behavior

Were you to be a fly on the wall of our apartment, you would occasionally hear a strange sort of whispering chirp, and you might not know from which beast it arises. It tends to hover around its plosive “k” and “t”, while a tongue bobbles up and down to get the “oo” into an “ee.” It follows no predictable pattern, except that it often arises when the gaze of Wilma or that of Titi de Paris intersects with a calmly poised or moderately active and fascinated Lulu-Cat: in order to contain the fissure of sheer cuteness with which she renders our daily souls, we cannot stop ourselves from chirping “cutie, cutie, cutie, cutie” with a long fade-out on the final long “e.” Then there is also the hissing “tss” that attempts to counter an unexpected attack on the hand before the beautiful beast’s chops hit bone, and which seems to be working much better than the far more humanly barbarous cries of a “NO” whose now abandoned disciplinary intentions were almost always practically nil. Or the disturbed “Luluuuu” which Wilma whines when cutie-pie emerges from the wastebasket and indulges her used kleenex fetish, tearing the outer layers shred by shred to get to the good stuff inside. And the recurring greeting, en français dans le texte, whereby Lulu’s look inspires a never sole and always several “Coucou” or “Coucou Lulu-cat.” On good days, the beast responds with Wilma’s favorite feline noise: a sort of rolling, chirp-like purr that she seems to fish from the end of her shifting tail and which sends her toodling off on her way around the house.

Sickness and Health

Whoo, wee – thank the deities for Lulu and the Titi de Paris without whom I would probably not have survived my last several very cranky days of gastritis. I haven’t been sick in the company of a pet since I was a child. Not only did Lulu-Cat often end up fulfilling the function of the hot-water bottle curled up on my belly, but she also seemed genuinely pleased to be in the company of another mobile being sprawled out immobile and napping. Titi de Paris ditched Arabic class on Tuesday at the bastard stomach-bug’s peak to bring me more ham, yoghurt, and coke, as well as to rest his weary bones in some kind of a preventative measure.

Speaking of preventative measures, it hasn’t helped my crankily sick state of mind to watch the New York Times put vicious and disease-ridden gay male sexuality under its voyeuristic microscope over the last several days.

Feline Olympics

Does anyone know if there are Feline Olympics? Because if so I might sign Allumette dite Lulu up for them. (And can I just say how pleasing it is to me that every time I write Lulu’s name on this word processor, it comes up as “Lulu chez B*** et N***” because of that letter to the strong woman in the countryside?) Or else she could be a superhero. Because of her ears, I realized today while throwing the mouse on the end of an elastic string that’s all strung out from having been leapt upon by the flying Super-Cat, she could be Bat-Cat. That gave me a nice little ditty to sing like a dummy while Lulu chez B*** et N*** crouched in the hallway watching the ugly little mouse sway. You know the one I mean: “Nun, nun, nun, nun, nunna, nunna, nun, nun, nun, nun, nunna, nuuna, BATCAT.” When the choreography really worked out, Lulu the Batcat would be flying through the air as I sang BATCAT. But then I got bored, and fell back on the ever-satisfying mice. She seemed uninterested until I started batting it around like I knew how to play soccer. And it’s then that I thought, as she stole the mouse away from my pathetic dribble to slide it across the floor with one paw and then the other, that there should be Feline Olympics, ‘cos Lulu’d be good.

About those mice: Titi and I knew that Lulu chez B*** et N*** had several stashes: under the couch, under the tv, under the desk and the armchair. But it was only last night that we discovered the other black hole of our humble abode: under the piano, where, given the effort it took Titi to unearth those little buggers, that Batcat must have had to work hard to get the inanimate critters to fit.

Lulu chez B*** et N*** must approve of this blog entry praising her playful capacities, because she's  taken a break from her disciplined training in mouse chasing and has curled up at my right hand under the warmth of my desk-lamp and nods at me happily when I stroke her nose.