Cat in the tree

Last Sunday morning I heard a commotion across the way. The neighbors in the opposite apartment leave their door open a lot and apparently a stray cat had gotten in and they were trying to get it out. The poor cat was trapped in their window and couldn’t get out because of the screen. It was a pretty uncoordinated effort. Two kids were outside poking sticks at the cat through the screen while somebody on the inside was hitting it every time it dropped to the floor. Eventually somebody decided to open the drape on one side and the cat scooted out of the window on the inside and was frantically slipping and clawing on the tile floor trying to get away as they kept whacking at it with their sticks. It finally got straightened out and scooted out the door – only to be met by the family’s big long-haired cat who promptly attacked it. We heard some screeching and then the intruder came leaping across the pavement and climbed up the big talisay tree while the family stood in their doorway laughing at the scene. Their cat didn’t try to follow it up the tree and eventually went inside.

I didn’t think any more of it. The next afternoon a warkman said there was a cat stuck in the tree. When I looked I realized it was the one who had been chased up the day before. It was a young cat, still a kitten really. White and black and quite handsome. A worker who is a good tree climber attempted to get it but it was scared and he said it tried to bite him and only climbed higher up in the tree.

The next morning I could see him out the second story window all curled up comfortably on a branch about 20 feet up. Periodically he’d meow but made no effort to come down. I figured that eventually if he got hungry enough he’d come down, especially at night when there were fewer people and less commotion. But he didn’t come down that day either. I looked on the internet for ideas. Most had unhelpful advice such as calling the animal rescue squad or a tree trimming company, none of which exist here. But they all advised trying to get it down if it had been there more than 12 hours. And several refuted the idea that cats will always come down. They said that sometimes they are too scared and will cling for days until they are so weak they fall. Kittens especially. One guy said he was a tree trimmer and had seen cat skeletons in trees. Of course I get more upset thinking about the poor cat starving to death and having to listen to his plaintive meowing for days. I certainly couldn’t reach him, our ladder didn’t go high enough. Nobody else was interested in risking their life climbing up there and trying to grab a scared cat. The worker tried poking the cat with a long pole but it just climbed even higher.
Since I couldn’t do anything else, I decided to just pray. I know, it seems crazy to pray for a cat, what with a world full of humans who desparately need prayer. But on the other hand, God created cats too and the Bible says He even cares for the sparrows. Maybe somebody’s guardian angel could take a few minutes off during a slow time to give guidance to a poor traumatized kitten in a tree?

Well, the next day (day 4) the cat was gone. No more pitiful meowing and no cat in the tree. Later that afternoon I thought I heard it again and sure enough, there it was eating some leftover rice in front of another neighbor’s apartment- on the ground.

So did God send an angel? Maybe. Maybe He sent mine, because that evening, sometime after I prayed, I got distracted while carrying a bowl of boiling hot soup and spilled it all over my hand. It certainly provided a painful distraction to worrying about the cat! Ha, ha!

Coping with brownouts

The past several months have been much drier than usual due to an El Nino. This island normally gets most of its power from hydroelectric sources but this year the water levels were extremely low resulting in power shortages. In this city they have managed to organize the brownouts such that you can sort of plan your day. The city is divided into three groups which have a rotating schedule of brownouts, not to the exact time but the general part of the day. In my part of town on Mondays and Tuesdays we are scheduled for afternoon brownout of 2-3 hours duration. Wednesdays and Thursdays we have them in the early evening. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays we have them in the morning.

It does interfere with work since it’s too dark inside our house to read or see the computer keyboard, and my second monitor doesn’t work. If we have a brownout in the morning I often use that time to go shopping or do errands because the malls all have their own generators. Or I might go to our office which is on a different rotation schedule. There I can check the mail or photocopy or use the library. When we have an afternoon brownout that is when it is the most difficult because it is not only dark but also very hot. Sometimes if I’m sleepy I take a nap on the cool tile floor. Or else I just sit and sweat and listen to a pre-downloaded mp3 radio broadcast or sermon while playing a mindless computer game until the power comes on. When the power goes off in the evening, I light 3-4 candles, power up the mp3 player and hike laps around the kitchen and living room for an hour.

It has been raining again recently so we hope that eventually the reservoirs will fill up and the power will become more regular.

BREAKING: They just announced a change in the schedule. To be more "equitable" the schedule will change every week. Sigh! Just get a system figured out and they go and change it again.

The most expensive rice I ever ate

Reading glasses are a bit of a pain and since I wear them all day long for computer work, who wants to drag them out at the store? Well, last Sunday I stopped by the grocery store at the mall. I saw some really nice looking unpolished brown rice that I had not seen there before. It was less than half a kilo so I threw it in the cart to try. I didn’t check the price. After all regular rice is about 80 cents a kilo and although brown rice would be more, I figured at most it would be $1 a kilo. It was in a simple plastic bag that the store uses for breaking down wholesale sacks of rice and repackaging into smaller retail amounts of 1, 5, or 10 kilos. The price is on little stickers but it’s hard to read without digging out reading glasses. I had several items at the checkout and tho the total seemed high, well, everything is higher now.

But the next day at home, we noticed the price – amounting to $10 per kilo! Good thing it was less than half a kilo. Was it mismarked????? It’s hard to believe that that could really be the price! We are cooking it now and it does smell wonderful. But it will be the most expensive rice we have ever eaten.
If I ever see it again I will definitely want to recheck the price. I will also plan to dig out the reading glasses when in doubt. (And I will probably be in doubt more often now!)

PS Turns out the rice was some special kind imported from Hawaii!! I saw it again the following week and this time looked at the labels. It WAS very nice rice , but I don't think I'll get it again!