Au fil du temps / As time goes by

En guise de Friday cat blogging

Une journée dans la vie de Bernice, la chatte de l'artiste Walt Taylor, dont le travail d'illustrateur et de caricaturiste peut être vu sur les sites CrackskullBob et UrbanSketchers.

En guise de 'Friday cat blogging'

Mademoiselle Loulou, Camping Crazy Horse, Littleton, New-Hampshire, avril 2009.

Il y a des siècles que je n'ai participé au 'Friday cat blogging'. Mai aujourd'hui je cède la parole à Ronni Bennett du blog Time goes by et à sa très belle note sur le Beau brummel de Bedford street.

I haven't contributed to the 'Friday cat blogging' in ages. But today, I am sending you all to a post about the Beau Brummel of Bedford Street, written by Ronni Bennett at Time goes by

Friday cat blogging / Ori-chat-mi

Vu sur ce site. Bonne chance à ceux et celles qui auraient la patience d'essayer ce pliage!
Pas de photo de Mademoiselle Loulou pour le moment. Elle est en exil au Vermont pendant les manoeuvres de déménagement, et ça devrait ménager ses nerfs...

Found at this site 
Good luck if you have the patience to try this!
No pictures available of Mademoiselle Loulou at this point. She is in Vermont. And that should spare her the move.

Derniers rayons de soleil / Last rays of sun

Loi de la gravité / Keen sense of balance

Éventuellement, nous songeons à donner ce fauteuil.
Qu'arrivera-t-il du chat perché ?
(C'était un véritable réconfort d'avoir un appui-tête ronronnant.)

We are thinking about giving this chair away.
What will happen to the equilibrist cat ?
(It was always a warm feeling to have a purrrrrring headrest)

Quel sac à main ? / What purse ?

Entendu / Heard

La chirurgie s'est bien passée. Merci à tous pour vos bons mots. De retour à la maison j'ai passé la journée avec un bandange sur un oeil, et incapable de porter de lunettes pour lire ou faire la cuisine, etc. alors, j'ai décidé d'aller m'asseoir sur le balcon arrière et de simplement écouter les bruits de ma ruelle, de ma ville. J'ai pris papier et crayon (nul besoin de regarder pour écrire à la main) et j'ai noté au fil de l'après-midi. Ce fut une expérience sensorielle inouïe. Et curieusement, j'ai 'vu' mon voisinage sous un jour différent. Voici ce que j'ai entendu. [N.B. : Désolée pour le texte en anglais. Je voulais que mon copain, qui ne lit pas encore le français très bien, puisse le lire.]

The surgery went well. Thank you everybody for your kind words. Once back home, I spent the day with one eye patched, and unable to wear my glasses because of the patch. It was impossible to do anything without my glasses to read, cook, etc. So I sat outside on the rear balcony, and decided to close my eye and just listen. I came back inside to fetch paper and pencil, and went back outdoor to sit still, eyes closed, and listen. I spent the entire afternoon doing just that. And writing blindlely on the paper. It was a delightful sensory experience. And strangely enough, I got to 'see' my neighborhood differentely. Here is what I heard.

Half a block away, a delivery vehicule parked by the side of the convenience store, the curtain metal at the back of the truck, lifted, crates dragged on its bed, and then the metal curtain lowered, noisily, locked. /  Someone riding a bicycle. / Birds chirping away in the backyard tree next door. / The wind on my cheeks and in my hair. It is a windy afternoon. Cool and without any humidity. Which is extremely rare in the summer here. / Loud voices in the distance, a couple. / Wind in the tree tops. / Kids playing and arguing. / Small group of teenagers going by in the alley, bragging about something. / Yellow finch singing. /  Cars, waves of cars. / Motorbike, noisy one. / A clotheline pulley that needs lubricant. / Cars honking in the distance. / The wind in the tree right next to the house, all afternoon. / Baby crying. / Discussion on a balcony, friendly words. / The tree is swaying and its trunk makes a strange noise, creeking. / A lot of human voices, a whole tapestry of faint human voices, coming from all directions. / A smoke alarm in a kitchen nearby. / Someone lighting a bbq somewhere on the east side of the alley. / A bird that I don't recognize is defending its nest or territory. / Cars, more cars coming and going in the neighborhood. With all different engine noise, tire noise. / A scooter. / The squeaky clotheline again. / The cat munching its dry food, heard thru the kitchen door ajar behind me. / A neighbor laughing. / The opening of the gate of a chain link fence accross the alley from us. / A plane descending into its corridor, loosing altitude, getting alined with its designated airport runway still far from here by human standards, but just minutes or seconds away for this big airplane. / People coming from and going to the convenience store, by way of the back alley, wearing flipflops. / A whole familly - voices of a mother, a father and a young son - going by on bikes. / A crow. / More serious gusts of wind. / Car brakes at the stop sign by the convenience store. / A siren in the distance. Followed by a second siren. / An engine starting, a car that needs a new muffler. / The cat rubbing against my ankles. Then rubbing its nose on my toes. / A new understanding as to why my grandmother, once blind, retreated in her world. / The wind against my skin. / The cat hoping on the chair next to me. / The metal latch of a yard door banging over and over in the wind. / A squirmish between birds. / Car brakes again. / Another clotheline, a different one, from further down the alley, but again needing a serious lube job. / Someone vacuuming outdoor. / Another plane loosing altitude, aligning with its corridor. / An aluminium screen door, and its discreet catch and latch. / A lot of cars in every directions and a lot of wind in the treetops. / Clothes flapping on a clotheline nearby. / Kids laughing. / A big dog barking. A small dog barking. / Parents fetching their toddlers at the daycare downstairs. / Cars with big engines, small engines, bad or no mufflers. / A fan belt whistling, a very high pitch. / A bus. / Someone, evidentely very bad at parallel parking tries, tries, tries and finally gives up and moves on. / More vacuuming, carpets I think, area rugs or something of the like, on an enclosed deck three houses from here. / Car door. / As we are getting closer to the rush hour, more cars moving into the neighborhood, more noise, and the overall level of noise is rising to the point that I can't hear the birds singing anymore, nor the wind rustling the leaves. / BIG delivery truck with air brakes parking at the convenience store. / Another siren in the distance, two sirens. / Another plane descending in the sky of Montreal. / I'm amazed how silent, noiseless is the cat in the chair next to me, even as I pet her - and can feel the pur - while she is giving herself a big bath. / After a while, because of this hightened auditive awareness I guess, the rich and interesting tapestry of life became too much to handle, almost a cacophony. For sure more sounds than I could process at once. I came inside.

[Photo : Mademoiselle Loulou, ma compagne pour la journée, Mademoiselle Loulou, my companion for the afternoon.]

 

Chatte à géométrie variable / Friday cat blogging

Some days she is a big cat, like a whale on a beach. And some days she is a small dainty cat.
We haven't figured out how she does it. Contorsionist Loulou.

Elle est parfois une chatte énorme, un cachalot presque.
Et d'autres jours, elle est toute menue et délicate.
Mystère de la physique féline.

Zoom in sur le chat perché / Friday cat bloging

 
Montréal, 5h15 am.

Perchoir / Perched

Une méditation intense sur les nouvelles du jour / Taking in all the news, by osmosis