Cat Log Stardate 63974.6

Yes, sadly, I did indeed google ‘Star Trek stardate calculation’ to find out what today’s date would be in Trekky-land. It’s hard to believe how some people spend their lives. What I particularly love about the site I found is this bit (Twenty-third Century Stardates), which states a list of “facts” (yes, facts – I kid you not) which the author has used to arrive at a formula for working out the calendar dates of the stardates mentioned in The Original Series. Take a look at the link… it’s mind-blowing. Someone, please, please tell these people that Star Trek IS NOT REAL.

But then again, who’s to say what “real” is, and what is real?

And who can explain how a blog post that was started with the intention of updating the Cat Log, has suddenly morphed into a philosophical musing on the nature of reality?

Never mind. Such is my world.

Now…. about the cats…..

The latest count is five. Yup, we are back to the five we ‘had’ before the Barn Cat Contingent materialised. We did briefly go up to ten again for a few days, when Mother Barn Cat returned, along with the Bold Three, to spend a few days eating a two-kilo sack of Whiskas and leaving the half-eaten bodies of dead rodents all around the barn, filling the fresh-hay-sweet air with the unmistakable stink of rotting corpse. But now they have all gone again. Including Little Black.

Which is a shame. During the few days when Little Black was all alone and lonely, I had made significant progress in overcoming his (yes I’m pretty sure he is a He) aversion to human contact. I started just putting my hand on his back, while he was busy scoffing a bowl of delicious meaty food (we have a few of the pouches of the expensive stuff which we keep for special occasions, when cat-tempting is required), and within a couple of days of frequent short sessions like this, I had him coming to me purring, and rolling on his back for me to rub his increasingly fat little belly.

Then Barn Cat returned, and showed a renewed interest in her abandoned child. She took to licking and grooming him in a way I had not seen her doing before. Perhaps she realised that he had the potential to survive after all. Perhaps he just smelt and tasted like meat. Whatever the reason, Little Black blossomed in the light of all this attention he was suddenly receiving. He was also delighted at the return of his frolicsome siblings, who once again played chasing games with him all around, and in, and out, and over the new stacks of hay in the upper barn. And while the Bold Three were still not bold with me, and ran away at any movement made toward touching them, Little Black showed off his bravery, and rubbed himself nonchalantly up against me whenever I went to fill the food bowl, whilst his furtive siblings looked on warily from a safe distance.

Over the next two days, Little Black grew braver and braver. Gradually he made it further and further down the barn stairs in pursuit of his energetic playmates, overcoming more of his fear, and the biggest barrier to his début excursion into the World of Outside.

Until suddenly he, and his siblings, and their mother were gone. Not a sign or sound of any of them for three days now. No food eaten from the bowl in the barn. No rustlings in the shadows. No scurryings in the hay. No miaow-miaow-miaow from Barn Cat wanting some dinner or attention. Just an empty, silent barn. (Silent that is, apart from the chitterings of the baby redstarts and swallows in their respective nests, and the scrabbling of the large and greedy field mice, who now come at night to feast on the uneaten cat food.)

It seems like Barn Cat, along with the Bold Three, came back to see how Little Black was getting on. And when it turned out that he was feeling much better, and stronger and braver thank you very much, they could set off on their journey to who-knows-where once again, this time taking him with them.

I am happy that he is back with his real family, doing proper cat-things in the Big Outside, as Nature intended. But I am sad that he is not with our family, doing pretend cat-things in the Small Inside, as I had – just for a little while – begun to think he might be.

Thank you Universe, for yet another lesson in non-attachment.

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One Response to Cat Log Stardate 63974.6

  1. Chris says:

    If he knows which side his bread is buttered he could well be back!

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