Some ill from the Du

My man Chengduxi, who put up my Auryn tattoo back in the day -- had to get it recolored by Poh in Pai, but so what -- he's got his sights set on the art scene .. he was once a drummer, still is, now he paints and generously puts it up for us to peep. (Chinese language only, but the images are universal, yo ..)

and here are a couple pics from my new home in the Dirty Du (Chengdu for ya'll not in the know).



my fragrant lil hybrid jasmine ...



Gimpy, the one that made it



and this one's for Mika, who wished it ...

When things die

I was in Chengdu for the past two days taking care of some business and I went to check out my old home in Three Gods Village. I have posted here about it earlier -- the place is getting torn down to make way for high rise buildings and the people are forced to move out for two years.

I went there at night to pick up my cats and a few last things. When we pulled in to my neighborhood, it was 11pm and there were two people, an old man and a young kid with a flashlight, roaming through the houses picking through the wreckage. Everybody had moved out already and the houses were dark with gaping black holes where the windows were. The scavengers reminded my of grave robbers, the neighborhood of a graveyard. My courtyard was strewn with blankets, broken window frames, bamboo mats, piles of rubbish and paint. I smelled vinegar -- someone had thrown a bottle against my kitchen door and black vinegar dripped down. There was a framed picture of Thelonious Monk lying amidst the refuse and I found my old house shoes covered in paint chips.

My cats were roaming around the house. Stony, Crackhead and Gimpy. The other two kittens, Champy and Fuzz, have been MIA for two days. It was a horrible feeling, looking at this place of life and beauty reduced to a collection of dying homes, remnants littering the area, cats wondering around.

Our cab driver stuck around to help us collect the cats and he left his headlights on. I stopped and looked around at my old home by the light of two beams and saw nothing but death. Not even decay left a lingering trace of life ...

We tried to get the cats in, but they fought us and scratched me all over my hands. We tied them, grabbed them, cajoled them and eventually .. left them.

I managed to grab Gimpy and take him with us. The two adult mommas, Crackhead and Stony, might stand a chance on their own and they were too strong and wild for me to get them in the taxi, so I decided to let them live free. But for reasons I can't even understand, i took the kitten and now he is in my new apartment in Chengdu. Beanmilk will be living there while I am in Beijing and back to the US.

Last night Gimpy yowled and cried throughout the night. All the kittens have been skittish about humans, and I am very worried that Gimpy won't ever accustom himself to inside living. But from what other cat owners say, it is only a matter of time.

I dreamt of hundreds of cats and kittens in my room, my own and others, crying and wailing through the night and waking me up. When i awoke, i heard Gimpy.

We call him Gimpy because as a newborn, he had a badly deformed left front leg. At the time, I was worried that he would not be able to make it, he limped heavily, so I considered drowning him. My friends thought i was crazy. But he is strong and spry now and is the only one to make it to the city, the only one that represents the days in Three God's Village when I sat in my courtyard, inspected my flowers, drank tea and watched the sun move across the land.

Last night, after we discussed the fact that the kitten I wanted to drown is the only kitten that "survived," Beanmilk said:

"Never in my life have i experienced so many events that were connected like now. These past few months have been very strange ..."

some pics

kitties



peep dude in the background. it was a good day.

for badass motorcycle love, hit up Carl

Auntie Lickums

So yo. I have two female cats, Stony and Crackhead, that are sisters and they both gave birth on the same day almost two weeks ago. Stony had three kittens of which two survived and Crackhead had two kittens of which one survived. This is as far as I can tell, I actually only know of the deaths. I didn't see all of the births.

I was horrified by the kittens cold stiff bodies and flung the first from me into the bushes, the second I placed next to the other. The second died after I found him several hours later, crawling onto the courtyard seeking us. He spent one night with his family, then died in the morning.

The first do die was an abnormally large stillborn. Crackhead, the mother of the still born -- had one more kitten. Although I did not see this happen, one kitten is striped like Crackhead and is larger than the other two, which are Stony's little gray and white kitties.

Crackhead loves these kitties to death. On the day they were born, she attacked several male cats in the area. Since then, she has been Auntie Lickums, lavishing tongue-ings on the three survivors at all times. For a while, she would take one out and play with it, then forget it. Three separate times I had to find missing kitties. Now, I believe she has realized how distressed this makes me, so it should be over.

One of Stony's kitties has a bum leg. its bent and such. They are very young, so I don't know what to do, I figure let nature take its course. I am worried about the kitty becoming a crippled cat ..

its a tough life out here.

Crackhead sleeps with Stony and the kids, licking and purring like mad. Recently, she loves to get petted on the tummy, where her nipples are dry and unused, as Stony has done all of the nursing. She also meows forlornly more than before. I wonder if she knows that her only kitty thinks she is not mommy, but auntie lickums.

love atcha

here are some pics of my kitties. there are three surviving kitties and the two sisters take turns licking and caressing the lil kitty-cats. i believe the white one is the mom. I have already thought up a fairy tale based on Auntie Lickems, Mommy and the three adventurous furballs. I cannot comment back or comment on most people's blogs from here, just know i be sendin love atcha ...