JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Ask him questions about your future and he will answer them here, on the Facebook page, or @jessicazafrascats.

We had the reading group discussion of Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata yesterday at Tin-Aw Art Gallery. The aircon was being repaired, so we moved to the cozy basement for a very insightful conversation about conformity, the burden of expectations, and individual definitions of happiness. Joining our regular group were Ari, Tere, Tess, Yomoko and Mariko from the Japan Foundation (who gave us context and perspective on Japanese society), and artists Ricky and Jay. Then the regular readers: Jessica, Angus, Von, Lord, Jon, our fabulous host Dawn, Roni, and Deo.

The next reading group discussion will be held on March 30. Jay suggested The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, and later I remembered that it was JD Salinger’s 100th birthday last January 1 so I pitched Franny and Zooey.

What do you think?

Note: Drogon is not really on the cover of Franny and Zooey.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

From the blurb: The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices–including a giant, demonic tomcat–he immediately begins to create havoc. Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves.

Setting: Moscow 1950s, with a side trip to Christ’s Jerusalem
Length: Paperback, 563 pages

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Meet the Glass children: Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, the twins Walt and Waker, Zooey, and Franny. As children they were all regulars on a radio show called “It’s A Wise Child!” featuring child geniuses. Franny is in college when she has a nervous breakdown. She has decided that the world is worthless and full of phonies so she’s stopped eating and started reciting a medieval prayer. She goes home, where her brother Zooey, a TV actor, tries to pull her back into the world with the help of some old notes from Seymour, who committed suicide, and a phone call from Buddy, now a writer.

If it sounds familiar, it’s because I suspect The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson was inspired by the Glass family stories (See also: Nine Stories, Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters, Seymour).

Setting: New York City, 1950s
Length: Hardcover, 200 pages

Update: Franny and Zooey won the poll (Instagram mostly). See you on March 30.

You decide whether that’s a blessing or a curse hahahaha.

Follow Drogon and Jacob on Instagram @jessicazafrascats.

I’ve been lax about updating this blog lately—caught that evil virus that causes colds and flu, fever and chills on and off for three weeks. (You think it’s gone, but it’s only fooling you!) On the plus side I missed much of the holiday stress and traffic, and coughing gave me temporary abs.

But I’m fine now, and this blog will be updated at least twice a week from hereon. A new post appears on Instagram (@axelcarlisle maintains it, so technically I still am not on social media nyahaha) but I take the photos and write the text. Bubbles (very AbFab name) maintains the Facebook page for this blog, so if you let Facebook decide what you’re going to read for the day (Tsk, tsk), follow that. My podcast has a new episode twice a month—Yes, we’re trying to put it on iTunes and Spotify, it’s taking a while.

I plan to have two or three books out this year—stories, my novel, a Twisted remix. My online talk show will premiere soon—sign up at watchboysen.com to watch it. We’re filming new episodes of The Flip Trip, in case you’ve already memorized our Czech Republic season. Busy year, let’s get started.

If you still haven’t read Twisted Travels: Rambles in Central Europe, get your copy at Fully Booked branches, Shopee or Lazada.

And we’re off.

If it were possible for death to be polite and considerate, such was my 18 and 1/2 year old cat Saffy’s death. On Halloween I noticed that she was refusing her food. Saffy had always had a strong appetite, but she sniffed at her food and left it untouched.The following morning when she still wasn’t eating, I took her to the veterinary hospital. Our regular vet was closed for the holidays so we went to Animal House on November 1.

Since it was a holiday, traffic was light and I had no trouble going back and forth to Animal House. Saffy’s affliction, a uterine infection, was quickly diagnosed, treatment options and risks explained, and surgery scheduled. That same night she had her surgery, and everything seemed fine when I visited her at the hospital. She had her usual alert look about her, which told me that she was plotting revenge on all those involved in her confinement.

But immediately after I left to go to dinner, Saffy’s seizures began. An hour later the vet called me. Saffy had been placed in an incubator where she would be warm and comfortable, but the seizures had not stopped despite two doses of sedative. Throughout this, Dr. Kristine Diane Chua patiently told me what was going on so I could make informed decisions. In this case, Saffy’s neurotransmitters were firing uncontrollably, causing seizures.

I returned to the hospital to find Saffy shaking violently and continuously. It was terrifying, as if she were being electrocuted. I have buried two cats, both aged 15, and I was prepared for the worst. If it happened, I did not want Saffy to be alone among strangers. The hospital gave me permission to stay with her well past visiting hours because she was a geriatric patient in serious condition. I borrowed a chair and held her for two hours while she was wracked with convulsions. She had to know that I would never leave her and that she was loved. Saffy had always been a badass, and if it were a question of willpower she would pull through.

Before midnight the seizures slowed down and stopped. She seemed to be sleeping, but her heart was racing. I left the room to text my sister and the friends who had been sending messages throughout the ordeal. Five minutes later, the nurse informed me that Saffy had gone into cardiac arrest. Again Saffy had waited for me to leave the room, as if she wished to spare me the sight of her suffering. I know it’s probably coincidence, I know I am overinterpreting events, but I also know that that cat loved me. We had spent nearly every day of the last 18 1/2 years together. We understood each other.

I walked back in to find the vet trying to revive Saffy. A moment later he told me she was gone. I think her heart had given out from fighting to stay alive, otherwise she would still be fighting.

It was five minutes past midnight on All Souls’ Day, as if I needed help remembering the day she died. I stood watch over her on the metal table until someone could wrap her up. I spoke to her in case she could still hear me, and rubbed her head between her ears. There was a terrible emptiness in my chest. Then two ladies who had been watching over their beautiful Persian came over to offer their condolences. In these situations it’s not sorrow that makes me tear up, it’s kindness. Then a vet put a blanket under Saffy. She probably couldn’t feel the cold anymore, but it was kind of him.

The saddest place in the city is the ward of Animal House, where people are allowed to stay with their seriously-ill cats and dogs. They know that their animals need them. Their sadness is pure, untouched by issues. There’s no “You forgot to pick me up in school in the second grade” or “You stole my crush from me”. All they have is the sadness of losing a loved one whose entire life depended on and revolved around them.

At these times it seems that love is cruel and useless. Obviously if we didn’t love, we would not feel like our chests were being trampled by a herd of elephants. But to avoid love in order to prevent pain is to miss the point of being human. Ah, I’m incoherent. Sorry. My cat died.

The orderly wrapped Saffy up and put her in a box. I could collect her in the morning for the funeral in my friend’s garden. Saffy would be buried next to Mat, who died in 2015. Koosi, who died in 2013, is buried under a tree outside my window.

I finally went home at 1 am. There were few cars on the road. Saffy’s final crisis had taken just one day. The end had been polite and considerate in a way Saffy had not been in life. She was frequently a bitch and a pain in the ass. She could be demanding and destructive (books and papers peed on, computer cables chewed up). After she had several teeth removed, she would eat only Fancy Feast, which is expensive and often out of stock. In her younger years she was very fastidious about grooming and smelled like freshly-baked bread, but with old age and dental problems came laziness, bad breath, and stinky, messy fur.

And the strange thing is, I put up with all these without complaint. During periods of unemployment, I subsisted on cereal but she never ate cheaper cat food. In fact the smaller my income, the more gourmet her diet. What did I get out of this? I had someone to love beyond logic. You have to give your love to something, or it turns rancid and bitter. Being loved is wonderful, but loving is essential. And we can bicker about whether animals are capable of love, but I am certain that Saffy liked nothing better than to sit in front of me and watch me exist.

Last year, during a particularly bleak period, we spent the better part of four months at home with my younger cats Drogon and Jacob, reading, writing, and watching videos. The future seemed even scarier than it always is. Now I would like nothing better than to do that again, because I realize that I was happy just hanging out with my cats.

It will take a while before I can look at a supermarket shelf of Fancy Feast without feeling like a toothless cat is gnawing on my heart. But it reminds me that I have a heart.

* * * * *

Thank you for all your kind words. Saffy was loved every second of her well-documented, comfortable life. I have absolutely no regrets.

Our podcast is baaaack!

My guests and I talk about books, movies, travel, and in this episode, cats. We love cats. I live with three former street cats. This city is full of stray cats who depend on the kindness of people.

When Serendra mall complex in BGC announced that they would fine their shop tenants and residents Php10,000 if they fed the many stray cats in that area, two questions came up.

First, why would I set foot in that place, then?

And more importantly, how do we deal with the huge population of stray cats—and dogs—in this city? What is the serious, long-term, sustainable solution? The sad truth is that we cannot adopt every stray cat and dog out there—the math is not on our side. What then? How do we keep homeless cats and dogs from being rounded up and taken to the city pound, where they will almost certainly be killed?

My guest is Anna Cabrera, Executive Director of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). If you have questions for Anna and PAWS, post them in Comments, or send my cats a message on Instagram, @jessicazafrascats.

* * * * *

Thanks to Nexus Technologies for supporting the return of our podcast! Our next episodes should be available on iTunes. (The next episodes will be better, I promise, I learned Garage Band five minutes ago.)

Thanks, too, to Nella Sarabia for lending us a quiet spot in her optical shop to record our conversation.

Update from CARA (Compassion and Responsibility for Animals), which looks after the stray cats of BGC.

So the Serendra Board blows off an invitation from City Hall. That can’t be good.
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