Mistress Meow Biafra Baby

This item really, really will get to a feline emissary at 23rd and Union and to RantWoman's amazing non-powers of observation and to one of those funky neighborhood themes that makes one still feel woven into the neighborhood.


Mistress Meow is one of RantWoman's old kitty's internet names. This is to protect a measure of privacy and also to avoid copyright / trademark issues with another local media personality. That and to protect the internet from the stupic gushy nicknames that every pet owner RantWoman knows bestows on their pets.


Mistress Meow was born in MT at the home of RantWoman's old piano teacher. In her early kittenhood she probably had the run of the house, the greenhouse, a yard with a lot of grass, a fish pond, and as much cat bliss as could be mustered in that dusty burg. Mistress Meow seduced Little Sister on a visit, came west in a cat carrier. She lived a spell with Little Sister in a studio apartment until Little Sister realized that kittens who want to play all night do not combine well with 8-5 work schedules. Then Mistress M lived for a year with a friend of Little Sister's. Friend of Little Sister called Little Sister up about two weeks after RantWoman had said to Little Sister after a family funeral "Maybe I'll get a cat." Friend was headed off to grad school in NY and of course Mistress Meow could come live with RantWoman.



RantWoman welcomed Mistress Meow and absorbed details of history: indoor only, a thing with another cat for unrolling the toilet paper all over the house, a great interactive personality. Mistress Meow coped with the transition by immediately going to a cupboard and dragging a potato out to play with but soon settled in. Well, Rantwoman supposes the toilet paper dragging must have mostly been the other cat because it only happened about once in a long, long, long time with just Mistress Meow around.



The rambunctious carousing at night was still a big theme though: RantWoman quaintly liked to sleep. Mistress Meow really liked to run from one end of the apartment to the other and back again, over and over for hours. She ran on the floor. She bounded over RantWoman trying to sleep on the futon. She turned around and ran back. She was by all accounts a healthy youthful exuberant cat; RantWoman on the other hand found all this enthusiasm really tiring.



Finally, one weekend when RantWoman especially needed her beauty sleep, she took stock of the situation: the postal workers arriving at 4:30 am across the street, the summer sun still clawing unspeakably early at front windows, the dubious neighbors on the other side, stories of urban rodents and other possible hazards of a city. (This was long before cat lovers in Madison Valley experienced carnage leading some to suspect a coyote might now be dining on housecats in those parts.) RantWoman took stock of all this. She took stock of Mistress Meow's enthusiasm and her country roots, the grass and trees in her vicinity at the yellow house. RantWoman resolved to take a chance that everyone in her household would be much happier if Mistress Meow could run off some of her enegy OUTSIDE.

Good call! At first, Mistress Meow did not go very far and came back right away but gradually she and RantWoman figured out each other's rhythms. Mistress Meow was very seldom allowed to stay out overnight: once when she did, she brought RantWoman home a live mouse. RantWoman was not really a good hunting student and finally there was a catch and release project. Another time, RantWoman was gone overnight. Mistress Meow got left out by accident and RantWoman arrived back home to find half a dead pigeon on the porch for her appreciation and delectation.


There are many stories of housecats bringing their humans either fresh kill to be shared or live animals so they can learn to hunt. RantWoman is honored and delighted that Mistress Meow thought to do this; RantWoman also hopes that effusive praise will compensate for less than gracious behaviors such as throwing the fresh kill in the trash, usually into an extra plastic bag and then immediately into the outside trash.


Over time, RantWoman noticed that Mistress Meow was starting to bring home....CHICKEN BONES. Finally one day while RantWoman was standing at a bus stop staring across the street, she got it. There is a barbecue place at 24th and Union and Mistress Meow clearly had charmed a lot of the regulars. Well charmed may be too mild a word: RantWoman watched one day as Mistress Meow paraded up the street to the barbecue place. Then commenced the most piteous wailings of starvation, allegations that she had not eaten in days, that she was wasting away and shortly to be no more--unless the diners at the barbecue place shared some of their precious meal. It was truly an Academy Award worthy performance. You would have thought she had just arrived from a photoshoot in Biafra, from one of those National Geographic spreads about starvation.

RantWoman assures the world this was not the case: Mistress Meow was pretty particular, a preference which at least made shopping for cat food easy. Mistress Meow ate well and regularly and got both dry food and from time to time samples of chicken or fish RantWoman would be cooking with. The funny thing is that RantWoman never really talked to the people she knows fed her cat. RantWoman would have preferred people not do that, but she got used to people asking her at the bus stop, is that your kitty I see around?" The thing is, RantWoman has no idea where some of these people hung out: on the porch at the dodgy drug house next door, at the barbecue place, somewhere else. RantWoman is also just not nearly as good as the RantBrother at elaborating conversations with strangers at bus stops, so she guesses it is appropriate thank thank Mistress Meow for emissary services.

The Crows: one of the audio links on the http://23rdandunion.org/index.htm page talks about the crows. RantWoman remembers the crows. She also remembers seeing Mistress Meow and a crow or two sometimes at the same time. RantWoman thinks Mistress Meow likely would not have taken on hunting a crow; RantWoman just remembers seeing the cat and the crow near each other, ignoring each other. On the other hand RantWoman does not remember seeing Mistress Meow near the barbecue place when a lot of crows were around. Moral?