Mamma Mia! - 9,000 Kilometres from Home to Rome!

Homemade Stringozzi for dinner in Vancouver

I blame it on the stringozzi. I knew my humans were crazy about Italy... More often than not, when they cooked back in our house in East End Vancouver they would cook Italian. As they got ready, they would open a bottle of wine, light some candles, and put on Italian music... Depending on what they were cooking they would play Paolo Conte, Mina, Biaggio Antonacci, Mango, or Tiziano Ferro. I didn't really care what music they played... What I did like was when they cooked pork sausages and shared them with me at the table.

My humans have been travelling to Italy off and on since 1999, the year before I was born... I was nine years old when they left me in the care of a family member and went to Italy together for the second time. It was at this time that they discovered Casperia, the Lazio hill town where we now live, and stringozzi... the hand-made pasta typical of the region.

No sooner had my humans returned from this first trip to Casperia then they were planning their next visit. My humans seemed fixated on this place...   

By the way, that is my window just under the square 12 panelled window near the tree. From here I see much of the Sabina

Each time my humans' visits to Italy increased in length and in frequency. They would come home to Vancouver and tell me stories about the people they had met and the many cats that they had made friends with... 

I don't want to blame the cats along with the stringozzi, but perhaps they are another reason why my humans love this place... 

Cicciopalla... They say he is Casperia's Number 1 Cat!

The cats... and the amazing sunsets...

Whatever their reason or reasons, I am here now... Nine thousand kilometres away from home... here in Casperia, just an hour or so away from Rome, in the Province of Rieti.

I feel a little more settled here now... My humans have found a brand of wet cat food I like. One of their friends, Maria, has found them some dry food that I love... and I have new friends here. I am finally meeting the people my humans used to talk to me about... and they are lovely... They give me pats and chin scratches... they talk and play with me... and some bring me ham and other food and treats like catnip. I was surprised to find that most Italian cats have never experienced this wonder. I feel very lucky.  

Slowly, I am getting used to the stone and the terra cotta tiles, the roaring wind and thunderstorms... and the bells... Do you know that they ring church bells at seven in the morning, at noon and at six o'clock at night? At first I was startled... but now I find them a comfort. 

I have found a number of favourite places here in the apartment... the big chair by the larger fireplace downstairs...

...and the chair by the wall heater in the library... and I love getting up on the windowsill in the morning and watch the pigeons and other birds flutter outside on the terracotta tiles. 

When I chatter at the birds my humans give me a pat on the head and say "Good Smokey." The other time I like to sit in this window is in the afternoon when the sun warms my fur and the sky turns gold and red as it sets.

I think I will stop writing now... it is late and my humans are going to bed... I will write more in a while... In the meantime, if you see a cat, give it a pat... If you see a hungry cat... feed it... If you see a homeless cat... be as kind and as generous as you can... 

Dennis Dakin, a few days before finding his forever home

We cats remember... and we have our ways of passing on rewards... So until then... Miao for now.

Ciao! Mi Chiamo Smokey... Miao! My Name Is Smokey...

Me and my traveller's blanket

Ciao raGatti! My name is Smokey... I am a fourteen year-old long haired tabby. According to what my humans tell me I was born in a warm closet in a basement of an older house in an East Vancouver neighbourhood. I was the seventh kitten of a litter of seven, born on the seventh day of the seventh month of the year two thousand. I don't really know if that means anything but my humans like to talk about it. When I was very young I was adopted into a house shared by three humans and an older cat named Bibbs. Bibbs has moved on to another one of his nine lives... 

For most of my fourteen years, I have lived with my humans in a beautiful blue row house surrounded by lush flower and vegetable gardens. The front window was always open so I could exit and re-enter our house whenever I pleased. There was a wooden rail just outside this window where I could sit and enjoy the sunshine  and watch the world go by. Don't ask me what that big orange thing was... He didn't stay long...

   
Below the rail was a brick patio which was completely obscured from the road during the summer by tall tomato plants, rose, tree peonies, and other greenery. There was always fresh grass to munch on in this garden, and if I wanted to enjoy fresh greens further afield, there were always the yards and gardens of our neighbours down the road or across the street.

My humans always planted catnip for me in pots on the back porch. There was always food in my bowl, and fresh water in a high stemmed martini glass for me... Yes.. a martini glass... Never mind...

My humans never left me alone... If they went away, there was always someone here to look after me and keep me company. I had a secure home, and a soft bed to sleep on. I have to admit, I had a pretty wonderful life...

Then one day I noticed changes in my house... There was a lot of banging and other strange noises from construction in the basement, and things started to get packed away in boxes and disappear from their usual places in the house... I found this very disturbing... Then one day, while I was out exploring the neighbourhood, our beautiful bed disappeared from the upstairs room where we usually sleep... All that was left were boxes and random papers... and we all had to sleep downstairs on the hide-a-bed couch for a number of weeks... What had we done do deserve this terrible change and disruption in our lives? 

My humans were acting strange... They were always tired and a bit cranky, but excited somehow... They would always talk to me in low reassuring tones... as if they were trying to prepare me for something...

Then early one morning... they packed up my food bowl and martini glass, picked me up, put me in a red carrying case... and through the course of the next 22 terrifying hours, my life changed for ever...

Prior to this unexpected journey the longest I had been away from my home was for short visits to see Dr. Rob Spooner, my veterinarian at Yaletown Pet Hospital. But this was different. Instead of a short car ride from Strathcona to Yaletown and back, I had to endure a longer ride to a noisy airport... I had never seen or heard so many people together in one place in my entire life. I was taken to a special room where a very large man took me out of my case to examine me... He was kind and gentle, and I was back in the case before I knew it. 

From there I was taken into a large room full of food smells where my humans ate and drank for a while before heading to another area full of people sitting in long rows of chairs. My humans kept on talking to me... Telling me what a good boy I was...  

From this place I was taken to another smaller narrower room full of people sitting very close to each other. My humans put my carrying case in a small space under the seat in from of them. And then there was a roar and the room we were in started to move...

I don't know how I survived the next nineteen hours... At one point in the journey it got too much and I hd to pee in the case. It was humiliating... Luckily one of my humans opened my case and pulled out a layer of wet towel and dried me off as best we could. 

During the final hours of this journey I remember there was another long car ride through a large and noisy city then out into a beautiful green countryside. There were many hills and the car was always turning this way and that to follow the road... And then the car stopped and we all got out.

And this is where I am now... They call it Casperia... It is a stone town built high upon a hill. Stone houses are built atop other stone houses... There are no cars inside the town walls... the streets are all made of stone stairs... 

...and outside the door of the house where we now live there is not one blade of glass to chew on... and n catnip...

My humans seem very happy to be here, but I am in shock... This is all new and so very different from the house that we used to live in... 

Our house is made of stone, not wood. The roofs here are made of hard red and orange terracotta tiles, not spongy asphalt... 

I live in a world of grey stone and terra cotta reds, not green... The smells are different... the sounds are different... The food and the water is different...  The birds are different...

What a place! What a life! It is life I am living in a strange dream where the only connection I have with my past life are my humans... but even they sound different... When they speak to me, they speak in a way I don't understand... The speak the same language that the other people who live here speak... They seem happy... sometimes too happy... 

Me? I don't know... And that is why I have decided to write this blog, to share my story... my experiences... the things I see and hear...  my hopes and fears... And maybe... just maybe... this will all make sense... this will all be okay... My humans are here with me and they are happy... We'll see...

  

 I think I will say good-bye for now... I will write some more in a few days... Time to have a bite of food and take a nap... Miao for now!

Smokey