My cats - and me

Work in Progress Someone gave me a book about cat stories in literature (in German). I think many of the stories are out of copyright. I will try to find the originals and also add other cat stories. The content page of that book: Titles are translated to English by me. They are sometimes different from the official titles in English used by publishers. It is possible that some stories do not exist as official translations. If I find the original story in the author's mother language online, I will link to it. Please use Google Images and Machine Translation (Gemini, ChatGPT,...) to translate it into your language.  I mark in red where I think the story is still in copyright (to be investigated) because the author died less than 70 years ago. INSTEAD OF A FOREWORD Kurt Tucholsky : "Letter to a Tomcat / Brief an einen Kater " (1927) THAT'S THE CAT... / So ist die Katz Robert Walser (1956) : The Kitten / Das Kätzchen Rudyard Kipling : "The Cat That Walked by Himse...

  Felix in 2025 Felix in 2007 Hachi in 2023 Mama-cat in 2018 more to come

  日本語 then English アラート成田・酒々井・佐倉・八街 この白い子猫は2024年9月17日火曜日にJR成田駅東口で逃げました。 まだこのあたりにいる可能性もありますが、八街方面に戻っている可能性もあります。 しかし、別の方向に移動している可能性もある。 もし見かけた方がいらっしゃいましたら、ご連絡ください。mkengel@gmail.com また、上記の地域に連絡先をお持ちの方は、SNSでメッセージを発信してください。 よろしくお願いします。 子猫を見つけた場合、飼いたいと思ったら問題ありません。元の飼い主は、その子猫が安全であることを確認したいだけです。 Alert Narita, Shisui, Sakura, Yachimata This white kitten has run away on Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at the east exit of Narita JR station. It is possible that she is still in the area but it is also possible that she walks back in direction of her old home in Yachimata. But it is also possible that she moves in other directions. If you have seen her, please contact me, I am going to bring you into contact with her owner. mkengel@gmail.com And, please, publish messages on social media if you have contacts in the area described above. Thank you very much in advance. If you found the kitten and want to keep it. No problem. The former owner just wants to know that it is save.

  Japanese often call a small cat: chibi.   The meaning of chibi is  禿び,  a "small, cute version of a manga, anime character, typically with oversized head". It is something, Japanese consider as かわいい. I am no fan of manga and anime, so I changed the characters from  禿び  to  小美 and gave the latter  the "not entirely correct" reading  chibi. 　 小（ち） 美　（ び） 小美  is her name now: Chibi, the little beauty. 小美　新しい読み方:　 小（ち） 美　（ び） Ein sogenannter Dachhase. On the lookout for "Ubereats Cat"(=me). Gemini says: The term "Dachhase" is a German word that literally translates to "roof hare." However, it's not actually a type of hare. Here's a breakdown of its meaning:   Figurative Meaning: 1) It's a humorous or colloquial term for a house cat. 2) Historically, it also referred to cat meat, particularly during times of food scarcity. This connection arose because a prepared cat could resemble a hare, and cats are known to climb onto roofs...

 Lord Ginger is very vocal regarding getting food. Click on fullscreen view to enjoy.

  "Take out your offerings from your bag, stranger. The Lord and his Mistress are hungry." Lord Ginger once lived at another place but since he gets free food here, he relocated to this place so that he doesn't need to walk so far every morning. Chibi is inoffically the cat of the neighbor house but regularly comes to get a wetfood snack too. Lord Ginger shows great respect toward Chibi, or lets say, he is a bit afraid of her.

" Kneel stranger, I am the Lord of the Bamboo Forest." After the grandma cat changed into a house cat (see a post earlier) and left the place shown here, he considered it is his time to get free food. He is now waiting every morning. I am not sure if he is feral or stray. Difficult to say as he approached me already after only one week. However, he is still not sure yet if he can trust me. So he meows and hisses in alternation. And he doesn't like being touched. I was told he regularly showed up at a neighbor house where they provide food to their out-house cats. 

  It doesn't show but I am already 19. Don't you think that I am looking much younger? Another 7 years and I will make it in the list of longest-living cats on Wikipedia, another 19 and I will be at the top. Knock on wood. From the time, Felix was younger - just a little bit, he was already 14 or 15.

 The one in front and the one on the right are brothers of our Tom and Cherie. The one on the left is the son of the second sister of Tom and Cherie. He is like their nephew. The one in front vanished, the little one died in a car accident and the one on the right died from a disease. Photo taken in 2020.

  A quick and dirty (and cheap) cat house for stray cats. I feed an older stray cat (Madame Obi) see recent posts. Winter is coming and sometimes the temperature is dropping already below 10 C. I made her a house from a carton box a few days ago but the box started getting wet already, so something more useful was necessary. A PP box (600 Yen), some carpet (600 Yen), some blankets (200 Yen) and a bit of doubles-sided tape and half an hour of work and the quick and dirty cat house was "finished". Actually, it is not finished yet, I am looking for polystyrene sheets to better insulate it. The cover can be removed that I can move the house into the sun to remove humidity. Additionally, I can easily remove the blankets for washing and cleaning the carpet. Update: Madame Obi became a house cat and the house were given away to another person feeding strays.

 I am daydreaming... zzzzzZZZZ. (I hope Felix has pleasant dreams.)

 In this case: where is Madame Obi? Here, of course:

Nothing against you Jackie Chan . I like your films very much. 🥰  But can you do this?  Our other cats can't do this either. Only Lisa can.

I h ave never seen him doing this. Anybody knows about this penomenon?

  May I show you the welcome dance of one of my customers.  She has a standing order, every day at 10 a.m.

 In the summer of 2024, I retired from work and regularly went shopping by bike - always trying to find new routes. Directly it was 3 km, but occasionally I used routes of 20 km. On one of these routes I met an old cat. I thought it was a female, but another person said it was a male, so I called it "Obi" from OB, which means "old boy". Soon I found out that my first impression was better, and I had to choose another name. I named her "Madame Obi". She looked malnourished and ate everything I brought her. She was living in the grounds of one of those abandoned houses in Japan. So no one 'owned' her and she got only a little food from passers-by. She was deaf and couldn't find food for herself. This was the cause of her malnutrition. She wasn't wary of people which surprised me. Later I found out that many people who walked in the area knew and liked her. Her coat colors are unusual - as if two different cat parts had been sewn together, the...

At the moment, it is extremely hot in Japan*. We constantly have 33-35℃ in the apartment - without closed curtains it would be much higher. That's why each of our cats has its own fan, otherwise it would be unbearable. Tom only moves when it is time for  breakfast-snack-snack-snack-lunch-snack-snack-dinner-snack-snack-snack. When it was so hot in August 2023, we could cool-down Hachi and Mama-cat. They allowed that wet towels were put on their backs. Tom didn't like it. *

  Our dust removal agent during work and during training to reach everywhere.

Worshiping the winds because t he Kanto area of Japan is under a heat wave at the moment. (Update: what did we know that it even got more intense later in the summer.) And the gods sent fans for each of our cats.

 Where did all the Ciaochuru go? Quick explanation: in here! Today,  I went to visit two of my friends living near my former place of work (40km by bicycle). They run out of CiaoChuru and I had to replenish the stock. The rainy season is over now, but it is still very green in Japan.  This (rice-)green is one of my favorite colors.  Soon, it will become more and more yellowish green.