Page Eighty
Tuesday 7 December 2010, Turners twisting
Once again, there’s no photo. I have so few photos with me in the ponystall. And even if I ever get back what’s in the storage, it’s only a part of what I once had. Many pictures and rolls of film that were mine have been thrown out by other people. Not to mention a host of other belongings.
Brucie was another grandchild of Maman (there were twelve of them, after all). Brother of Chloë and Spot and others. He had the familial smallness, and likewise the familial white hair with grey patches. Because he was, from birth, the stockiest of the six kittens, we started out calling him Big Bruiser, which was eventually shortened to Bruiser. But as he got older, three or months, becoming a young feline fellow, I felt that Bruiser was no longer appropriate, that he needed something with more dignity. Hence Brucie. But there was disagreement. When Bruce and Chloë were five and a half months old, my mother decided she wanted them, and off they went to live with her. But she liked Bruiser, and went on calling him that for a long time, maybe even until he died. Whereas I would always refer to him as Brucie on the phone with Mum, and when I’d go out there for a visit I would never, ever call him Bruiser.
If any cat at all in Maman’s family can be said to have had a bit of the bully in them, then it was Bruce. But this family was so thoroughly good-natured that their version of bully was very, very mild indeed. Though he wasn’t the first-born of the kittens, he was definitely the leader, the boss. A benevolent and kindly boss who was loved by his siblings, who never feared him. They simply deferred to him.
Another driver, another car, another dead cat. And the eternal debate over outside versus inside cats. In another post like this, I decined to set forth the arguments on either side, and to defend my reasons for opting, most of the time, for letting my cats go outdoors. And my mother had always let hers go out as well. Someday, when I’m further along putting my small books about the animals together, I will write about that debate, but not today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ website ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(part of the book All My Stars)
mishibone; asperger's 