Letters from Nikolaevsk

Annitta

12-18-98 AM -- cats and birds

Hi from the land of the midnight sun that's hiding from winter village.

We have birds and dogs. The Russians have cats. Now, doesn't this make for some interesting moments in the annals of living in a Russian Orthodox community?

Hubby and I started several years ago rescuing birds before we moved into this community of no fast foods, movie theatres, no shopping malls, no police and other items that we had, at one time, believed we could not live without. Well, when we moved and left the trappings of civilization behind us, we didn't leave the birds. Let's see: cockatiels, finches, parakeets, conures, amazons, lovebirds and one bachelor canary who thinks he is a parakeet. All in all - ond hundred of the little and not so little feathered beasties moved with us.

The townspeople were enthalled. Especially Fred and Ivan. Ivan has the pigeons. Fred has Carol Channing the lovely and enchanting duck who escaped the duckacide of Fall. Not only were the residents of this very tiny hill village wondering about the feathered critters, but the meow residents also became interested.

Our house is called, in civilization, a colonial. Only because it has two stories. The family room downstairs has one HUGE window and one normal window. The rest of the downstairs has the usual array of sizes and types as are found in Russian built homes. Hey, we lucked out and found one with a foundation. For a month everytime I went downstairs, I patted the walls and blessed them.

Well, for the first month, while we shoved furniture around and moaned a lot, the birds were scattered in their cages all over the place. The big-uns were put upstairs with us along with the old and deformed ones of all types.

Russian children came in groups. The little Russian girls, blond haired, blue eyed and some green eyed, all dressed in their homemade long dresses and oohed and ahhhed and batted their little blond eyelashes at the birds. It was quite a sight. After all, the only birds these little ones ever see are the ones who land up in the chicken soup. Pagans are crazy folk. The little boys would come and though they didn't oohhh and ahhhh as their sisters and cousins did, they managed to leave with eyes big and tell their parents all about the pagans who keep birds for fun and never eat them.

Well, the closest I can reason is that one of the little ones must have gone home with the smell of bird on them. Within a week, there were kitty noses pressed tightly against all the windows downstairs. Including my office of the time. Black, yellow, white, Russian Blues, Siamese, lame, six-toed, no tail, bushy tails, old, new and in-between ones. Hitchcock would have been proud. They drove the birds nuts and the more the birds flapped around in their cages, the more cats window shopped.

I can just imagine a get together at the large family room window.

"Meowww. Ssseee that one. There, with the yellow tail, I'm going to get me some."

"Hoho, just dream on buster. That ones mine i tell ya. keep your dirty claws off it."

'Purrr..hi tom, tom, tom and tom, guess what time of the year it is. Now, purrrr, which one of you big handsome boys going to take me to the woods? Purrr..."

"Hey, get away Jezabel, can't ya see we is casing the joint?"

"Look! there's one of them humans feeding that yellow tailed one. I wouldn't believed it if I hadn't a seen it with my own two grey eyes. You know what? i think they is feeding them things for....."

"DOG!!"

After PoohBear made her infamous leap that left her with a permanent left slant to her nose, the group of pussems moved around to the other side of the house and terrorized our paranoid old Schnauzer, who is now slightly schizo.

We still have to be careful when letting kids in. On more than a few occassions, a puddy kat or two has slipped in, and of course slipped out in more of a hurry when PoohBear got whiff of them. Hubby doesn't think they were after the birds. He says the cats were an assination squad to do PoohBear in.

After eighteen month of living here, we have gotten use to itty bitty nose prints left on the bottoms of patio class doors and ground level windows and of PoohBear tearing across the floor at mach ten warp speed and foaming at the mouth while a non-plussed puddy sits on the other side of the patio door and washes his paw. I agree with the hubby - it's a conspiracy.

Russians believe in tons of cats. The village is overrun with them and the ones who aren't carried off for fast food eagle meal, learn to join the gang and watch the show over here.

Then there was last summer when the calf would put her nose against the window and leave calf splats on it. But, that's another story for another time.

Bless,

annitta
from downtown beautiful Nikolaevsk