A Tiny Cat of Rome

This was gruesome--fighting over a ham sandwich

with one of the tiny cats of Rome, he leaped

on my arm and half hung on to the food and half

hung on to my shirt and coat. i tore it apart

and let him have his portion, I think I lifted him

down, sandwich and all, on the sidewalk and sat

with my own sandwich beside him, maybe I petted

his bony head and felt him shiver. (rest of poem) from Another Insane Devotion, Gerald Stern

So you couldn't have found something pretty to write about a pretty Roman gatto? No, I'm feeling devilish tonight. Besides, I love this poem by Gerald Stern. (He was born in Pittsburgh, by the way.)

Thank you so much to Julie of Being Ruby for sending me a new version of the Coliseum Cat. She included an earlier version in a package last autumn, along with a beautiful handbag that I won on her blog. Julie publishes beautiful photographs of her travels & of her Sydney. This print sits patiently with many other things-I-love, ready to be placed just-so on a wall above the desk. If, when, if, when the wall is painted. Soon, soon. So I am told.

I love the nerve of this cat but I worry about him (or her), too. Don't blame the big cats for the hideous goings on at the Coliseum. Man invented it. Cats kill to eat, not to entertain themselves & others.

[photograph by Julie Newcombe/Being Ruby/all rights reserved]

Being Ruby - Tanti Auguri!

A most excellent friend, Julie of Being Ruby, is celebrating her one-year blogging anniversary. I've meant to do post (that would do her justice) for months. That can't happen today for various reasons...but I want to make sure that she knows how important she is to so many people. I'm thinking an ode is the suitable form & I'll work on it while trying to get 'round town, the next two days, mostly stuck in Nuclear Summit security traffic.

You will love love love her work, if you don't know it. Go & be dazzled. And urge her, as I have, to sell some of it. Please, Julie! (She lives in Sydney but has travelled widely & well.) When I won a giveaway on her site, I was shocked, shocked. Now I can't say "I never win anything." I carry this bag every single day. Look at what she generously gave away. Let me tell you, it is not inexpensive to mail a beautiful leather bag from Sydney to Washington, DC. And then she included one of her sepia photographs of a kitty-at-the-Colosseum as a birthday gift, too. When I opened the box, everything was festooned with gauzy ribbons & bows. This woman knows how to make everyone feel special.

Ciao bella from rainy DC to Sydney,

Susan & Giulia (Julie the Cat)

[photograph by Robert W. Kelley/LIFE archives]