Blondie, the matriarch of the feral cat tribe

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Blondie was one of the first feral cats to start hanging out at my campsite back in 2007. She was still a kitten back then. Her mother — who looked just like her — had gotten hit by a car shortly after I started camping there. So Blondie was on her own. I fed Blondie just about every day for 10 years. Then, last year, she suddenly disappeared for a month. So I just assumed she had passed away. 10 years old is pretty old for a feral cat, after all.

But then one morning, completely out of the blue, Blondie showed up at my campsite again. She ate a little breakfast. And hung out with me for awhile. Then trotted off into the woods, never to be seen again.

Later it occurred to me. Blondie probably knew she was dying. And she wanted to come back to my campsite one last time to say good-bye to me.

Or maybe she just found someone else to feed her. That’s possible. But I doubt it.

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In all those years, I never once petted Blondie. It took her a LONG time to trust me. For years, if I made the slightest move in her direction, she’d immediately back off several feet. But in her last years she felt comfortable hanging out pretty close to me. And there was this one time — completely out of the blue — when I was lying on my back in my sleeping bag, when Blondie jumped up on top of me. Sat there on my legs for about 5 minutes. Looking at me like: “Ya know? I always wanted to try this.” Then she jumped back down. It was the only time I touched her in 10 years.

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The Queen of the Scene

 

 Scaredy Cat is the alpha Queen of the feral cat tribe. The undisputed ruler. But she’s a benevolent ruler. She doesn’t impose her will on the other feral cats. She allows everyone to do their thing.

She even allowed Moo Cat to return to the tribe. Even after Moo Cat had attacked her several times and almost slashed her eye out. After running Moo Cat off the scene several times (Moo Cat running for her life, ha ha). And establishing herself as the undisputed leader at the top of the pecking order. Scaredy Cat allowed Moo Cat to return. So long as Moo Cat behaves herself. And doesn’t try to challenge Scaredy Cat’s authority. (Moo Cat grumbles about it, of course. But she’s accepted her place in the pecking order)

Scaredy Cat is an extremely wise and intelligent creature.

Scaredy Cat is the undisputed center of the scene. She has her beloved kittens (Mini Owl and Mini Scaredy). Her beloved sister (Fatty the black cat). Her mother and father (Feral Tammy and Owl). And Moo Cat (the one remaining cat from the previous lineage).

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Health tips for the hell of it

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Health food.

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I don’t have a particularly sophisticated attitude about my health. My only real operating principal is: I listen to my body.

When my body tells me it’s hungry, I feed it. When my body tells me it’s tired, I rest it. And so forth.

I think a mistake some health freaks make is, they try to bully their bodies a little too much. They exercise their body harder than it wants to. Or they’ll feed their body unappetizing, unappealing food because they think it’s “good for them.” The body gets pissed about this punishment, this deprivation, and rebels by getting sick.

You should treat your body like a hot date that you’re trying to pamper and please so she’ll reward you later.

Myself, just now, completely out of the blue, my body told me it was craving onion rings.

I always listen to my body. I figure my body is a lot smarter than my mind.

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A message to my many, many critics

Other incredibly clever quips: “Asshole Backwards” and “Back Asswords” as well as “Ace Backhole.”

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One of my many, many critics just informed me that: “Your thinking is just as assbackwards as your name, Ace Backwords!!”

I’ve had this Ace Backwords pen name for 40 years now. And I have to say. That clever quip is just as clever today as it was the previous 10 thousand times I heard it.

In other words: GOOD ONE!

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“It’s all good”

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For some reason I’ve always disliked the phrase: “It’s all good.”

It always reminds me of this one night when this boorish street person kept harassing this young woman on the steps of the Student Union Building. He was trying to pick her up in the most obnoxious manner. And when she complained, he shrugged it off, saying: “Hey, It’s all good.”

She responded by screaming in his face:

“NO IT’S NOT ALL GOOD!! YOU SUCK!! NOW LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!”

Ha ha.

I did think THAT was pretty good.

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Scaredy Cat saved my ass last night

Scaredy Cat saved my ass last night.

It was the middle of the night and I was fast asleep at my campsite, when Scaredy Cat climbed up on my chest and started “meowing” loudly in my ear, waking me up. When I went to pet her I was surprised to find that her fur was quite wet and that it had started to rain.

I gave Scaredy Cat some quick pets to wipe off some of the water, dumped out two cans of cat food for the feral cat crew, and got my campsite all packed away before it got really wet.

So thanks to Scaredy Cat I narrowly avoided one of my worst potential disasters: Going to sleep drunk and getting hit by an unexpected rainstorm. By the time I rouse myself I’m usually soaking wet. My blankets are all wet. And my campsite is a big mud pit. Which I am wallowing in. In other words: A big fucking mess.

And it can get serious. Just about every year at least one homeless drunk on the scene will pass out. Get hit by an unexpected rainstorm. Lay there all night, unconscious, in a wet, cold rain puddle. Get hypothermia and die.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Scaredy Cat’s “meowing” was particularly altruistic. I don’t think it was so much of a “Lassie to the rescue” kind of deal. As it was more like “Hey would you wake up and feed us our breakfast so we can get the hell out of this damn rain!”

But the affect was right on the mark. Which is all that counts. And the moral of the story is: You should always camp with feral cats. Another life-saving tip brought to you by your ole pal Ace Backwords.

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That house

 

 

I walked by this house today. And I always get a weird feeling when I walk by that particular house. This weird acid flashback back to 1980s. This woman that I was madly in love with for many years used to live there. So for many years that house was my most cherished and longed-for destination.

The house was more rundown back then. 1980. Faded paint job. Weeds growing in the front yard. And it had this haunted, macabre aura like the Addam’s Family mansion. Along with this punk rock ambiance (the band name “THE GEEKS” was spray painted on the front porch). That house was the one place where I wanted to be.

No matter where I happened to be in the world back then, in the back of my mind I was always thinking about that house. And I’d be measuring the distance from where I was, to where that house was. And plotting and scheming all the ways I was going to navigate the trail that led me back to her front door.

I remember the countless times I’d be walking down the street towards that house. And the closer and closer I got, the more excited and nervous I’d get. And I’d sort of be rehearsing my lines in my head as I walked (perhaps I had a witty anecdote that would win her over).  And then I’d be knocking on her front door. And she’d open it up and let me in. And I’d step into her living room. And it was like stepping onto a stage. And we’d immediately start enacting all the mad dramas and soap operas of our lives.

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Depression

When I was a young man I used to have a lot of problems with “depression.” I’d often say to myself: “What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel depressed so much of the time?”

And different people would reccomend that I see a therapist. Or suggest that maybe it was “bio-chemical” and that perhaps I could attain chemical balance by taking the latest wonder med. Or maybe I was “manic-depressive” as if perhaps i was suffering from some kind of psychological disease and there was even a fancy name to describe it (“bi-polar” was another one that was popular back then, as well as the perennial favorite “schizophrenia”).

I don’t worry about it much anymore. I just accept that a lot of this life can be really fucking sad. And just leave it at that.

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Fatty the feral cat

 

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Of all the feral cats at my campsite, Fatty is probably the least “feral.” She has none of the high-strung paranoia and aggressiveness that most of the other cats have. Her personality is incredibly sweet and easy-going. While the other cats all attack the cat food like sharks at a feeding frenzy the second I start putting it in the dishes. Fatty always stands back and patiently waits for an opening. I often have to make a special effort to make sure she gets her food and doesn’t get left out.

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A very brief encounter in People’s Park

 

 I went to People’s Park this evening to hang out with Hate Man. This strapping, young street ne’er-do-well has this big pile of basketball-sized boulders. And he’s picking up the boulders, one by one, and holding them high over his head, and then smashing them down on the other boulders. Over and over again. In some kind of frenzy. For no apparent reason.

“Why is that guy throwing them rocks?” I asked Hate Man.

“He’s been nutting up lately,” said Hate Man.

 

Then he walks over to the bench. Picks up a big plate of food that was sitting there. Looks at it. Then dumps it on the ground. I guess he didn’t like it.

Then he makes a bee-line over to where I am sitting. Sits down on the ground right in front of me, and says:

“Got a cigarette?”

“No I got this one from Hate Man.”

Then he starts babbling at me in this matter-a-fact tone: “Hey remember that time when you blah blah blah and that other guy said blah blah blah. . .”

Most of which I can’t understand. I don’t even know the guy. But the disconcerting thing is: As he’s calmly talking to me, looking me right in the eye, he’s got this stick in his hand, that he keeps stabbing into the dirt, over and over, like the stick is a knife that he’s stabbing into something.

“Oh yeah, right,” I said. Agreeing with what he was saying. Whatever the hell it was that he was saying. . . .

“Well, I gotta go use the restroom.” I said. I grabbed my backpack and my beer and left.

Guess I’ll talk to Hate Man some other time.

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