Clarinda’s dream came true. She had always loved animals, especially cats. Now, after several applications, she got a job working at the SPCA.
Thank goodness she had. They were short staffed. They were suddenly inundated with stray cats. Clarinda’s day was a joy! Cats of every shape and size and colour and personality!
Three or four stray cats came in every day. In fact, the SPCA’s cat intake matched exactly the number of reported missing cats.
Clarinda was busy, busy, busy. “Here Puss Puss Puss Puss!” called Clarinda in the evenings as she walked the streets of her neighbourhood.
Listen the story being read HERE!
What a young entrepreneur. Most commendable.
LikeLiked by 3 people
It’s great to see young people getting off their chuffs and doing something!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I dunno…..she should be careful of calling out like that, when she’s street walking in the evenings. Someone might think she’s running a cat house.
LikeLiked by 5 people
She should be put in the dog house…
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re doing it again, Cynthia, engaging my laughter/guffaw gears.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Perhaps our twisted minds twist in the same direction! 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Do you think we’re twins who were separated at birth, perhaps?
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s a fun idea, but, dearie, you’re much younger than I…..
LikeLiked by 2 people
You and that Bruce are a pair of sweet talkers. I’ll bet we’re pretty close to being twins! I’m a pre-WWII model, just to set the time frame.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Obviously, Bruce is a mere babe in the woods. I was born in 1944. If you do the math you will know that I am well into my dotage. However, in my mind I will always be eleven years old….maybe that’s what makes us twins!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I too was born in the ’40s. I have seen 8 decades…
LikeLiked by 1 person
A somewhat spurious claim since you were born on the cusp—the very last month of 1949. Don’t know as you can say you “saw” that decade, as you were probably asleep most of the time, when you weren’t nursing, pooping, or wailing….
LikeLiked by 2 people
Indeed I “saw” it – such is the lot of a prodigy… 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well, it turns out I am by far your senior. That doesn’t mean much, though, as you’re too far away for me to boss around. Pity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be old..
LikeLiked by 1 person
When you have a day or two to spare, let me enlighten you, youngster.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am but (obviously) a pretty fresh rose bud compared to your wide open petal-dropping cascade of last seasons joys. Oh well…..!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, boy …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Now he really deserves to be taken out to the woodshed….we can’t do it, but we could hire someone and go halfsies…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Help! Help! Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re on! Do you have any good (or bad) contacts, Cynthia?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I wish to withdraw the compliments that were undoubted regarded by some as being mildly offensive. I do so as a protective safeguard…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Now look below….wouldn’t you know he’s withdrawing what he said, even though he maintains it was a compliment and at worst mildly offensive…..I have five brothers, so I know what we’re supposed to say next:…”At heart, he means well, he’s really a good boy,” (like all the mothers of criminals have said in court since time immemorial). And of course that’s what we’ll say.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I appreciate the use of the word “boy” in the context.
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hum – something suspicious going on!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Who would ever know? !!
LikeLike
A-ha! It’s good to see a young woman ensuring job security!
LikeLiked by 3 people
LOL! As long as she get’s equal pay and isn’t the RSPCA’s dog’s-body.
LikeLike
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bruce, is it SPCA in NZ? I wait for the day when we become a republic and drop the R, nice story!
LikeLiked by 2 people
No – we still have the R – which does not stand for Republic of course!!! I left the R off to give the story a more universal appeal!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fair enough 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
An enterprising young woman. Thank goodness she’s not working in a restaurant.
LikeLiked by 2 people
She might vary the menu with the occasional rat.
LikeLike
Aaiieee!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You specialize in vowels?
LikeLiked by 1 person
You know there is actually a dish called rat on a stick.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I didn’t know that – we have “Toad in a Hole”.
LikeLike
This is an actual rat. Grilled on a stick. With its little tail still on for crunchiness. To be fair it’s some sort of wood or grass rat, not the kind we usually think of. I have a friend who’s consumed it. Said it tasted like squirrel. Probably not a very enlightening description to most people…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yuk! I’m normally rather daring when it comes to food, but would stop at rat I think – wood, grass or traditional!
LikeLike
My friend Will was very hungry and he’ll eat anything (even fish eyes) once.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have eaten fish eyes – and only last week – when I made fish head soup!
LikeLike
Better you than me! This was a whole little pile of eyeballs as a special offering. Soooo glad I wasn’t the honored guest!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just scoff them down in the blink of an eye!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well done Bruce. This tale is the cat’s meow and a playful ball of yarn at that. Though some may find Clarinda to be a savvy entrepreneur. I think she’s a real cat burglar! She ought to be flogged with a cat-o’-nine-tails. And I hope she catches cat scratch disease.
LikeLiked by 5 people
O felix dies! (¡Día feliz! in Latin). After your comment, anything from me would be a paw attempt. Fur I would simply be scratching the surface, and wouldn’t come within a whiskers breadth.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh, come on now. Give it a try. You couldn’t possibly state a catachresis. Let’s venture for a kitty moment that your protagonist was merely a cat’s paw of her employer. What then would be the cataclysm?
LikeLiked by 2 people
That would depend, as Immanuel Kant was won’t to say, on the categorial imperative.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m sorry. Was my last comment a catcall? I’ll go back into my catalepsy now down in my catacomb.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have been out in the garden – actually right out on the road raking up fallen leaves from the roadside gutter (a place I’m relatively familiar with). I have popped inside for some Sunday lunch. The cat is lying on my desk diary and the dog is lying on my feet. All of which is categorically cathartic. One CAnT ask for more.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hope you were looking at the stars whilst in the roadside gutter. And that your futuristic lunch compared to my Saturday brunch was so much better. Both cat and fog seem to be quite the hogs of other’s property. Or is the mid-day heat making them lethargic?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The midday heat is 12 degrees C! I am in the gutter (gazing at the stars) with my jacket on. I feel a bit of a goat making a pig of myself but, to let the cat out of the bag, I’m now trying to organize dinner/supper/tea – the evening meal. I’ve hit a language barrier.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I forget you’re in the Southern Hemisphere. 12C, ouch! We use Fahrenheit. And it’s currently 84F which translates to 28C at 7pm.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re a lot hotter than me. Sometimes life is simply not fair.
LikeLiked by 1 person
See, now you’re just blowing hot air from your Southern Hemisphere. 😜
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hot air is my forte.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmmm. Explains your music: forte-piano.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Kategorischer Imperativ doesn’t apply to cats – or so my cat tells me.
LikeLike
You purrly didn’t study your catechism enough. You mustn’t take things too litter-ally.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t help it, I’m a litterateur and littermate of the litterae humaniores.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aha! So you’re a librarian. I always suspected that, once you put the hogwash on my idea of you being a pharmacist or a doctor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those were all your ideas. You set the notions in motion. I just swam along happily minding my own business in these cold waters of the world. It’s what we blue whales do when we’re not reading a good book.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Google is useless. So are the other search engines. You have a female boss… so you work. I don’t know how you manage to shut up for so long about these things. Being a blue whale off the coast of Iceland never entirely satisfied my curiosity. Incidentally: curiosity killed the cat. (Do you have that expression over there?)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes we do. NZ isn’t the only place on the planet with pussies.
LikeLike
LOL! (How would I know?)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I find the blue whale persona far more interesting than reality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I must develop a persona too. Baaaa!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Billy the goat frolicking the Himalayas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nothing like a good frolick!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course there is: a good lickspittle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is that not the same as a frolick?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my, No. You’re thinking of frottage. Naughty goat. 😜
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aye, there’s the rub. – Hamlet
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have to go for my bi-annual shower…. and then cook!
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL. Just like the king in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Except he was finally convinced to do so once a year. And still he felt that was too often.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lol I love the cat’s expression 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s my cat! She’s just an ordinary cat but her photos make enough money each year in competitions to buy cat AND dog food for the year! I think it’s because her markings are even that makes the photos successful.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow, that is brilliant! She has a very expressive face. I wish my two would pull their weight financially, bludgers! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
The dog protects her furiously all day! Perhaps the dog know who earns the keep!
LikeLiked by 1 person
She’s amazingly beautiful,—and probably quite unusual— with those markings. My cat terrorizes and controls my dog, who is seven times her weight in size.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They say that for them to live together the cat must be in charge – but I find it the other way round. The dog thinks the cat is her baby – a car, a train, a plane in the distance and the dog stands between the cat and the noise! They communicate better with each other than we do with either!
LikeLiked by 2 people
As I am very into cats Bruce, this story terrified me. Thank you for not taking the story to the same place you did with your dog story a few weeks ago. Great story Bruce!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh – I never thought of doing that… I must…. (just kidding)! How many cats in your household? I have just the one – and she found me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t you dare Bruce! We have just the one. He was a SAFE cat … Save Animals From Euthanasia. He rules the house.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They have their ways of establishing authority!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Our boy patrols the house, jumps on us if we are sitting down (I think it’s some sort of welfare check to see we are still of this world) and has the freakiest adrenaline rushes. We stay away from him when he has these as he jumps up and clings on whatever is closest … normally our legs! Ahhh … kids!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s why I always (when it comes to pets) have nothing but girls! Nothing sexist – just that I can’t cope with the male rah-rah-rah-bravado!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The rah-rah-rah-bravado comes from our female horses, boy cat and one of our chooks Dora. We won’t go into the chooks again though … ! lol!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great tail of Crafty Clarinda. Now you must read this one: http://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/30/piper/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Crafty Clarinda, indeed. A cat lover after my own heart, A purrrfect story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Awwww… my bilingual cat says miaow. …. meow !
LikeLike