Tag: kittens

Today’s Birthday: Alastair Ian Stewart

Al Stewart was born September 5, 1945 in Glasgow, Scotland. He writes and sings what might best be called historic folk-rock. One of my favorite songs by Al Stewart is 1976’s Year of the Cat.  Some years ago I met my sister Pam in London and took her to Cats for her birthday.

“Jadi!” Pam whispered towards the end of the show. “Why is that prostitute cat climbing a ladder to heaven??” 

“Uh, Pam,” I whispered back. “Think! What has nine lives?”

But back to Year of the Cat…. The lyrics begin like this:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat
– Source: LyricFind; Songwriters: Alistair Ian Stewart / Peter John Wood
Year of the Cat lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Carlin America Inc.

***

Songwriting doesn’t get any better than this. In his honor here is the post I wrote about his feline friends. – Jadi

I used to lead a writers’ group. I once compared the job to herding cats and the group loved the description. It became one of my official titles: Jadi Campbell, Herder of Cats.

You want us to do what? Seriously?

Try to herd cats sometime; it simply can’t be done. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine a basket in the middle of a long room. The basket opens up and out pop fifteen cats of all ages and breeds. Can you picture them? Long hair, short hair, Manx, kittens, tomcats, calico, tiger striped, Egyptian, Persian, running, sitting abruptly to wash a paw, tumbling, chasing one another, purring, wandering away in all directions. Now, keeping your eyes closed, try to get those cats to all head in the same direction – the one that YOU want them to go in.

Go away, I’m busy

You will open your eyes and comprehend it is impossible to get a single cat to do what you want them to, much less a clowder of them. [1] Not only that: you start sneezing, because you’ve discovered you’re allergic.

Waiting for the rest of the clowder in Portugal

NOTES: [1] Yet another word to describe a group of cats is a pounce of pussies. Even better is the definition for a group of feral felines: A destruction of wild cats. © Jadi Campbell 2017. Previously published as The Animal Kingdom: A Clowder. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.

Broken In: A Novel in Stories was  semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. The Trail Back Out was American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Animal Kingdom: 39

We’re getting close to the Grand Finale. This week I give you Installment #39 of my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. Ooh, Kindle’s kindle kindles cute thoughts!
  2. The field raced across the field.
  3. The crowd crowded the bulrushes.
  4. The flotilla followed the flotilla.
  5. But of course a stripe has stripes.
  6. You might need a toke to imagine a tok.
Red-winged Blackbird Breeding male (Red-winged)
Red-winged Blackbird Breeding male (Red-winged) https://macaulaylibrary.org/photo
  1. Kindle of kittens
  2. Field of racehorses
  3. Crowd of redwings
  4. Flotilla of swordfish
  5. Stripe of zebras [1]
  6. Tok of capercaillies [2]

NOTES: [1] Zebras status: Vulnerable. [2] The group of Old World grouse or tok makes a great track! “Their toe rows of small, elongated horn tacks provide a snowshoe effect…These so-called “courting tacks” make a clear track in the snow. The sexes can be distinguished very easily by the size of their footprints.” Wikipedia And even better, the capercaillie population is listed as Least concern.

Text © Jadi Campbell 2020. Photo redwinged blackbird courtesy All About Birds  © Phil Kahler. To see Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from en.wiktionary.org,  www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and buy my books.

 

The Animal Kingdom: 37

Something unpronounceable, northern Thailand

I give you Installment #37, yet another offering to my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page. Definitions on this installment are tricky!

  1. This potential volery hates voleries!
  2. The wrack wrecked my kittens’ definitions.
  3. Does the grind get its name grinding against things?
  4. Yup, whoops whoop it up….
  5. A badelynge isn’t bathing.
  6. The lodge lodged in their lodge.
Me being careful not to dislodge lodging, back trails of Cranberry Lake, Adirondacks. This remote beaver-dammed pond appears in the title story to my book The Trail Back Out
  1. Volery of birds (in an aviary) [1]
  2. Wrack of kittens [2]
  3. Grind of whales (bottle-nosed whales only)
  4. Whoop of chimpanzee
  5. Badelynge of ducks (on the ground) [3]
  6. Lodge of beavers [4]
Avoiding the volery, Oregon coast

NOTES: [1] Volery is only used for the group of birds and the aviary that encloses them when they are encaged. [2] Wrack is also used for baby rabbits. [3] Click here to hear how to pronounce badelynge…. youtube.com. Also a play on words because ‘bad’ is the German word for bath. [4] Ah, the lodge! Animate object, inanimate object and verb, all in the same sentence. The last time I was able to pull off this stunt was with whales #22  and foxes #7. © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from en.wiktionary.org,  www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In my new collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

 

The Animal Kingdom: A Clowder

I’m on hiatus at the moment from leading a writers’ group. I once compared the job to herding cats and the group loved the description. It became one of my official titles: Jadi Campbell, Herder of Cats.

You want us to do what? Seriously?

Try to herd cats sometime; it simply can’t be done. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine a basket in the middle of a long room. The basket opens up and out pop fifteen cats of all ages and breeds. Can you picture them? Long hair, short hair, Manx, kittens, tomcats, calico, tiger striped, Egyptian, Persian, running, sitting abruptly to wash a paw, tumbling, chasing one another, purring, wandering away in all directions. Now, keeping your eyes closed, try to get those cats to all head in the same direction – the one that YOU want them to go in.

Go away, I’m busy

You will open your eyes and comprehend it is impossible to get a single cat to do what you want them to, much less a clowder of them. [1] Not only that: you start sneezing, because you’ve discovered you’re allergic.

Waiting for the rest of the clowder in Portugal

[1] Yet another word to describe a group of cats is a pounce of pussies. Even better is the definition for a group of feral felines: A destruction of wild cats. More definitions to follow!

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. Ceramics courtesy of Barb Campbell. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

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