A bonus: first we can listen again to Carol Piller’s song “Hili and Cyrus”, which I first posted in 2014. Carol explained the song, which she wrote (he’s a musician). Hili and Cyrus and now gone—Hili just this week—but this song may bring back the pleasure they took (and gave):
A few years ago, I started writing my own piano music to play in ballet classes. It’s a lot of fun, but I’m always looking for ideas to inspire a new piece of music. Cats, my own and those of friends, have been one of my favourite sources. The story of Hili and her introduction to Cyrus was irresistible. I started this piece when Jerry was in Poland, but didn’t quite get it finished until last week.
Since it was to be in honour of Hili, I started thinking about Polish music; mazurkas and polonaises and such but my first musings just didn’t feel right. That is, until it turned into a polka! Then it took off. Shortly thereafter, I realized that the polka had taken on a decidedly Klezmer feel. Once it went Klezmer, then I had to add a slow hora on the beginning. This section has Cyrus barking in the background, (a la Vivaldi) and a plaintive melody on top (should be played on violin or clarinet) then it launches into the quick hora/polka representing the delicate interplay between Jerry and the cat and the d*g. You can make up the rest of the story.
I was in an Isreali folk group for many years and we played many styles of music, but the Klezmer music was the most fun for the orchestra. Accordion, violin and clarinet are common and are often attempting to imitate the voice and use many special effects to imitate weeping, laughing and various inflections of the Yiddish language. The Klezmorim were virtuosic performers and the music is full of joy, sorrow, vitality, humour and theatre. I am not Jewish, but am lucky that the ensemble I belonged to was very welcoming and more interested in love of music than the culture you were born into.
The pictures were taken, as the credits show, by Andrzej and me.
Here’s a story that begins horribly but has a happy ending: the only kind of rescue story I’ll put up. The headline from the WaPo tells it all; click to read the story (article is archived here):
A quote:
The list is long, Brinker said, including damage to the skin, eyes, mouth and digestive tract.
After the kittens were washed with soap and water, they appeared to have avoided major injuries — probably because they had not been exposed to bleach for long, Brinker said. Still, the kittens, who Brinker said are probably sisters, were severely underweight, each weighing under 3½ pounds.
The Humane Society of Missouri shared details of the kittens’ situation on social media in late August, a few days after they came in. Dozens of commentators were appalled.
“That’s just heartbreaking,” one person wrote on Facebook. “So thankful that this Good Samaritan was in the right place at the right time.
“Hard to believe some people could be so cold hearted,” another user wrote.
In the following weeks, shelter staff bulked up the kittens with chicken-flavored food, and their personalities emerged.
. . .The kittens, whom shelter staff named Dolly and Monroe, were inseparable. They walked beside each other, groomed each other and napped together.
“After lots of medical care, love and TLC, these two are healing and showing us just how resilient they are,” the shelter wrote on social media Sept. 11.
. . .The shelter shared on social media this week that the cats, who are 7 months old, had been adopted together.
At [new parent Haley]Joiner’s home in Festus, Missouri, the kittens — whom Joiner renamed Edith and Estelle — are still inseparable. They walk side-by-side, sleep together in bed or in their cat tower and enjoy the same salmon-flavored treats.
They’re still looking for the kitten abusers, who should be locked up.
A photo of the kittens from the Humane Society of Missouri with the caption: “Dolly, left, and Monroe are thought to probably be sisters.”
Here’s a news video showing the kittens:
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And another nice cat rescue video, this time the video (8.5 minutes) is about how Charles, a bedraggled outdoor cat, was lured inside to a better life.
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Japan has long had famous “railway station cats” who are admired by the riders, and some train lines have even been saved by making a cat a station manager. Now the same thing is happening in Britain, according to the article below from the Torygraph. Click headline to read, or find the article archived here.
An excerpt:
It’s a sodden morning at Sutton Coldfield railway station, a few miles outside Birmingham, but at the café on platform two, spirits are being buoyed by a small black cat.
Betty (last name Macchiato) was found, her owner and the café’s proprietor Alex Light reports, in a bin near the station in April last year. Only recently out of kittenhood, she wasn’t in good shape: “She was mangy, full of worms, full of fleas, and she had three kittens with her. She was a proper teenage mum.” Light took her in with a view to feeding her up and getting her well enough to be rehomed. Betty, however, had other ideas, and established herself as the station cat.
She now rejoices in the title of “Chief mouse catcher of Sutton Coldfield railway station”, and – like any self-respecting modern station cat – has her own Instagram page. Photos on it chart the vagaries of her enviable life: prowling modishly up and down the platform, relaxing in a cardboard box, playing manically with a toy butterfly attached to some string.
Betty isn’t Britain’s only semi-famous station cat. There is also George at nearby Stourbridge Junction [JAC: he’s shown in the photo above], Tiggy in Chester and Barras at Kirkby Stephen East station in Cumbria. A quick glance on social media and it’s easy to see dozens more across the country, many with hundreds, if not thousands of followers. Stourbridge’s George, for instance, has more than a quarter of a million on various platforms, eager to keep abreast of his latest activities.
“It is a bit bonkers, how much people are excited to see Betty sometimes,” Light admits. “You get people walking into the cafe, asking if she’s there – and walking right out again if she isn’t.”
Look what Betty does!
Quite often, Betty’s behaviour is sufficiently alarming, endearing or bizarre that commuters find themselves breaking that great British taboo of speaking to one another. One of Betty’s favoured tricks, for instance, is to leap down onto the tracks and lick herself. This, Light says, can draw a crowd of concerned onlookers – but those who know Betty’s ways are usually on hand to explain that she will jump back onto the platform when she feels the tracks vibrating. “I think she enjoys the panic people get into,” Light says.
Though clearly a people cat, Betty is less kind to the rodents she kills – she has had to be trained not to bring her victims into the café itself, Light says. She is, however, civil with dogs and is “best friends” with a golden retriever who visits the station every morning. “She gets really happy whenever the golden retriever’s here,” Light reports. “They sit together. It’s so nice.”
You can also read about George of Stourbridge Junction, Tiggy at Chester, the late Felix and Bolt of Huddersfield station, and the late Nala of Stevenage:
In Stevenage, a crowdfunded, 1.7m-tall bronze statue is being prepared to honour the late, beloved Nala, a frosties-and-milk beauty who became such a popular station stalwart that in 2023, her owner released a charity Christmas single on her behalf (Meow). On Nala’s Facebook page (still very much active, though the cat died nearly a year ago), a clay mock-up of the statue – which is expected to cost some £8,000 – was unveiled last month, showing Nala sitting pertly on a ticket barrier.
People do love their station cats. If you’re a Brit, go see George, Tiggy, or Betty. It’s worth the train stop.
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Lagniappe: Cats get knitted hats that help scientists study their brain activity when they’re awake:
h/t: Barry, Pyers